Origins Evaluation

Evaluating my project, I can see clearly, that some areas are stronger than others. My initial research of the city was interesting in shape and composition. However, I did not spend enough time finding and capturing images that I was particularly interested in. This is an important lesson, and one that I should already know, as it's hugely important to enjoy drawing your found research, you must be inspired and excited by your chosen subject.

I began producing drawings and developing my ideas. Drawing is so important in this early stage and through the entire project. Simply sketching an image or any ideas I have can generate so much, and allows me to have a thorough sketchbook. It took me a while to shake off the idea of creating the "perfect drawing", however the chance cards and the Friday drawing class really helped me in doing this.

When developing my research, I focussed on the shapes, and I found the illustrator and photoshop workshops to be extremely beneficial in achieving these shapes. I had very limited knowledge using the adobe package, however I feel like I have excelled in this area, and wanted to try to portray all of the learnt techniques in my work.

I was most excited for the screen printing sessions, however I feel that this is a long winded process. Perhaps this is because of my chosen motif's. I wasn't particularly happy with my finished motif's, especially once I had seen my final screen. This is because I hadn't given myself a long enough period to plan the layout and scale of these motif's. I think choosing our final motif's was quite rushed, and I wish I had had more time to develop my ideas.

Even though I was unhappy with my screen, I had plenty of opportunity to develop new motifs and these were incorporated in my hand drawn processes and digital design. My original research included the image of a gothic museum situated in Dundee. I had based the majority of my motifs around this one image, so I decided to collect further imagery linked to this theme. I went into the city again, and captured some striking photographs of the John Ryland's library. I loved the window and archway silhouettes, and I knew they would be great shapes to sketch.

Further development of my research was extremely useful, and I began to think about my final designs and what they would or would not include. I found it quite difficult to keep hold of my chosen colour palette, as the original image I had chosen contained a range of colours, shades and tones. However, after attending my group tutorials, with the advice that I was given from my tutor, I tried to portray the palette through my digital designs, as I had the luxury to include all of the colours with out the process taking too long.

I think the key issue during this project was time management. I did not set myself weekly targets of completion, therefore in the last week of work, I found myself rushing through a check list of work. This is a learning curve, and I believe my future projects will be more organised and I will use my independent study more wisely.