Evaluation

I’ve had my ups and downs in this unit, I particularly enjoyed David Evans’ Lectures and the reportage project. I explored different genres within illustration including Editorial, Reportage and Narrative illustration. Due to a long break between my foundation and degree I was not used to the amount of concentrated learning and working time that was required and I felt pressured to get lots of work done in uni whereas I usually prefer to work in a more solitude way but I adapted and realised that being in that environment allows me to be advised by tutors and my peers which is very healthy for trying to get motivated. As Illustration is so vast it was interesting to work on quite specific briefs.

It has been a real eye opener being around so many creative and talented people in my class, it constantly makes me raise my game when seeing the quality and innovation in others work. The first mini-project was Editorial and I chose to create a piece of work for the iPhone debate. Initially I enjoyed coming up with ideas on Photoshop but I didn’t feel they represented or reflected the text well enough. I played around with sketching and watercolour and eventually I stuck with my first image which I think is successful but isn’t a strong enough idea. Having seen other people’s work in the overview I should have done alot more basic research and brainstorming rather that going with one of my first ideas.

I chose to work on location at Avon Beach for the Reportage brief. Straight away when given the brief I was excited about the Reportage project, I could give my own personal view on a certain place and atmosphere. I am very passionate about photography and I believe it has a place within illustration. I took alot of photos at the beach and I managed to capture the way the place made me feel. The Reportage project produced my most successful outcomes and the most positive feedback from the overview and from my peer’s comments.

I found the Narrative brief the most challenging because what I had to illustrate was very specific, I did my research and watched ‘Jason and the Argonauts’ as I had chosen to illustrate “The Argo’. All I had to work from already existed and there was no way to produce any first hand research, I couldn’t go out and make sketches. But with the use of collage and different surfaces I feel I came out with some good final pieces. I used the same background for each of the three piece series to give a sense of location and the progress of the story.

Over the course of the introductory projects I have learnt alot about the way I work best. I felt most comfortable when doing the Reportage project because I could work exactly how I wanted and go off onto location on my own in order to produce the best outcome I felt I could produce. In future I need to push myself and work outside my comfort zone, this will help me to improve as an illustrator because in the future I will not always be able to work how I want to. Overall I have enjoyed this unit, in the next unit I intend to experiment much more with different materials and surfaces therefore spend more time in the illustration studio.

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