Evaluation

Overall, I feel that this module has been very successful for me in helping me develop my practice as an illustrator.  As an ongoing module, I feel that it documents my understanding of my own practice developing over the timespan it ran for- significantly, I feel like I gained the most insight into my own practice when visiting the galleries- it made me seriously consider space and what I consider valuable both in my own work and in work that is displayed- and how I differentiate between the two. I feel that above all, studying books and getting back in touch with the analogue world of image making, such as picture books, was a very welcome change from the endless stream of social media that I see every day- it reminded me of my origins and felt precious to get back in touch with that part of myself again. I feel like I am beginning to situate myself in the mind of illustration, however I am coming to terms that I am not currently, and may never be, a refined artist, or a perfectionist- I am coming to terms with the importance of play and making in my own work, which I didn’t realise before outweighs the importance of producing a refined, detailed, aesthetically pleasing outcome. I identified massively with visiting practitioner Laura Carlin- her work is sort of sketchy; a little rough and imperfect, and she was reassuring that illustration is a perfectly valuable thing, and just takes a little bit of time figuring out the visual essentials. She was reassuring in the fact that she was a little nervous and unsure, even as an established illustrator with a massive portfolio- it made her and her work feel more human and realistic, rather than the idea I formed of her on a pedestal, separate from my own disciplines. While preparing for this presentation, I have identified my strengths as visual humour and my own taste in comedy and illustration, though this is something I definitely need to develop and refine a little bit more to show in my own work, though I also don’t want it to pigeon-hole me or put a pressure on me to always be making ‘funny’ work. I have also identified that I am learning to be strong working with new media- digital art is something that a year ago was very scary and unexplored, however now it has the potential to become a major part of my practice, and I can see a lot of my future work developing to work digitally. This presentation has also made me realise that I need to work on my time management crucially.  I desperately need, when lacking motivation- instead of just sitting around and procrastination, to get up and generate work- any work, regardless. This has proved to kick-start creativity in me and I am so annoyed at myself for realising this yet having absolutely no self-discipline.  In future modules I aim to be tougher on myself to create work I am proud to show and have enough motivation, love and excitement for myself and my work to explore all the possibilities and make it worthwhile.