End of module evaluation - Visual language

1.  Which practical skills and methodologies have you developed within this module and how effectively do you think you are employing them within your own practice?

It has been great for experimentation, taking me out of my comfort zone on a regular basis, and causing me to reconsider the use of materials and elements I am familiar and comfortable with. For starts, I have never touched shape driven imagery, and whilst I cant honestly say I’ve been completely swayed on the subject, it is both healthy to have actually taken part in such tasks, and also to think more of the basic shapes that build my imagery, giving what I feel to be a now stronger understanding of composition. Time management has also been an interesting beast to tame through out the unit, having to juggle other briefs whilst doing these tasks. Its been a long time since I’ve had to do that, and I guess I could say I was completely out of practice with it, needed to re learn that sometimes your concentration needs to be spread between multiple tasks

2. Which principles/ theories of image making have you found most valuable during this module and how effectively do you think you are employing these within your own practice?

Something that I grasped but still haven’t entirely embraced is the act of continually drawing the image or subject that I’m working on, to ensure that I get the best idea or outcome for my work. I have had a conversation with my tutor on this, and I am a bit stuck in my ways, jumping on to ideas too early in the process, I need to continue to squeeze everything I can out of the experimentation process. Thanks to the unit ive also found an importance on ideas, not just making nice images. I’ve always aspired to tell stories through characters within my work, but there’s a lot more to image making than characters, ive been stuck in a bit of a bubble, and the sheer amount of practitioners work shown to me during the lectures has popped it.

3. What strengths can you identify within your Visual Language submission you capitalise on these?

To have a bit more fun with my use of media, cut loose and see what can be done with it. I feel I have done this within the project and it’s been really interesting to see the results, let the media dictate me and my outcomes, rather than do what I usually do and dictate it. I’m also pretty confident about my compositional imagery, I love that kind of thing so it’s been a joy to have the spotlight shone upon it and really get to grips with it.

4. What areas for development can you identify within your Visual Language submission and how will you address these in the future? There are a few things that need further development, my use of texture just isn’t good enough, I need to continue research on the area, find more practitioners and works that really get me excited and better my understanding on what works for a textural image, how I can find my own sense of personality in work using it. My mutation task is pretty lazy in hindsight; it comes back to my getting an idea I like and sticking to it too soon, before experimenting with it. I thought that the idea was strong enough, but the lack of craft and authorship has left me regretting that image as an outcome, I’m an image-maker, not just a drawer, I should really get to grips with scope and lens images. And need to experiment more during the thumbnail and ideas process damn it.

5. In what way has this module informed how you deconstruct and analyse artwork (whether your own or that of contemporary practitioners)? The sheer amount of attention on composition has been fantastic, it’s certainly engraved in to my process from hereon out, and ensuring I understand how others build imagery, be it line, tone, composition etc has given me a great deal to consider and make my own for implementation. It has also birthed a newfound appreciation for ideas and communication, like I said, there’s more to illustration than characters and my way of doing things.