OUIL405 End of Module Evaluation

Leeds College of Art BA (Hons) ILLUSTRATION	Level	04
OUIL405 Visual Narratives	Credits	20
End of Module Self Evaluation

NAME	ISAAC SMITH

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?
I feel that I have developed a confidence in the use of brusho ink as I have used it to add colour and texture to the design of my book in order to make it feel more like a handmade product rather than a digitally coloured crisp and clean piece of design. I also feel that my observational drawing has improved by being able to go out into the world and study objects and places rather than relying on photographs. Also I wasn’t very confident with my ability to properly take photographs for use as references at the start of this module but I think that through experience I am beginning to improve, and will develop this further in the next module.
2. Which approaches to research have you found most valuable during this module. How have you interrogated your research to identify appropriate ideas?
The most successful part of my research has been the drawings and photographs I have made and collected while being out in Temple Newsam, which is the base setting for my picture book. Going out and getting a feel of a place is to me a much more interesting form of research than looking up what others may have said on articles, pre existing photographs, and webpages. My project has a very personal theme so I think it’s fitting that the most effective part of my research was the elements I was personally invested and involved in creating, such as my observations and photos. I have used my photographs throughout the brief to improve my drawing quality and also as inspiration for my experimentation with alternate media to best represent the erratic winter setting of nature for my book.
3. What strengths can you identify within your submission and how have you capitalised on these? What aspects of your submission are you satisfied with?
I am very happy with my finished picture book as I think it conveys all the ideas about growing up and the duality of happiness and sadness that comes with that feeling that I set out to express. Normally with narrative based work I aim for work that deals with larger issues, such as my context of practice work that is focused around politics, but with this brief I chose to develop something that is personal and means something to me, and I think that my investment in  my ideas shows through in my final book. I also am happy with how I tried to step outside my comfort zone and utilise more wet media in this brief, as it was one of the areas I wanted to develop further on in Visual Skills. I think that I have used wet media quite well to recreate colour and texture, both things that I often overlook in my work because I usually focus on character and foreground design. So for this reason, I’m happy to have stepped out of my comfort zone and learned something new.
4. What areas for further development can you identify within your submission and how will you address these in the future?
In the future I will try to use my sketchbook more and explore multiple different ideas and concepts before starting to develop, as I feel that I stayed with a single idea throughout, and while I think this consistency improved my overall submission, there is always room for more ideas and more development. To do this I will have to work outside of my sketchbook also and develop more character sheets, roughs and colour experimentations to improve the quality of my idea by testing and refining it more. I also think that I should in the future use things like interviews and studies of people to inform my research, as I think I overlooked this aspect while conducting my research for this module overall.
5. How effectively are you making decisions about the development of your work? What strategies informs this decision making? I think that my blog has informed a lot of my development, as I have tried to blog consistently and concisely throughout the brief and use the ideas I have while blogging to inform the following piece of work. Through this method ive been able to identify influences from sources like film and poetry to use in my work, which I would never even thought of doing had I not investigated them on my blog. I also think that being critical of my own work in the past and discussing that with tutors has helped me to want to improve and not be stuck in a single method of working throughout these briefs, but instead try something new every time and leave my comfort  zone as often as possible.
6. How effectively have you managed this project and organised yourself during this module? I feel that I have been more organised in this project, I have blogged effectively and have let more outside influences change and develop my work this time through the use of my blog and expressing my thoughts through it. I have also stayed later at college as I feel that sometimes leaving and going home to continue working isn’t always successful, so I’ve spent a lot more time on an evening in college to avoid distraction and not breaking the rhythm of working consistently.
7.How would you grade yourself on the following areas: (please indicate using an ‘x’)  5= excellent, 4 = very good, 3 = good, 2 = average, 1 = poor
	1	2	3	4	5
Attendance			X
Punctuality		x
Motivation				x
Commitment					x
Quantity of work produced				x
Quality of work produced				x
Contribution to the group			X
The evaluation of your work is an important part of the assessment criteria and represents a percentage of the overall grade. It is essential that you give yourself enough time to complete your written evaluation fully and with appropriate depth and level of self-reflection. If you have any questions relating to the self-evaluation process speak to a member of staff as soon as possible.

Final design - before print

I'm glad I chose to add my character separately to the background of my design, as it makes her stand out so much more but without being really obviously stuck over the top. To avoid that I tried to integrate her with the scenery, like having her hide behind the tree and poke out of the bushes. I think this element helped me visualise her as part of the piece rather than a slapped on add on. While I wanted her to be prominent on every page, I feel that having her in the foreground of every page would have taken away from the gradual story of how nature changes whilst staying the same that I wanted to tell with the background. This piece to me is all about the relationship between youth and nature, even though it can never last and are ultimately opposites, as youth fades and nature perseveres through centuries. Having her hide behind certain things and not always be totally visible helped me blend the two contrasting elements more successfully I feel.

For my cover, which I'll add separately after printing, I decided to name the character and the story "Echo", to mirror how she echoes through the book, and to homage the Blake poem I blogged about that inspired a lot of my development through this project, "The Echoing Green".

Overall I'm very happy with my final design as I feel like it says everything that I set out to express with my story without being too overcrowded or feeling crammed. 

I'm so very tired. I've really enjoyed experimenting with this book though and I feel like Ive got some interesting outcomes. In the future I think I have to be more experimental and not be as precious about designs as I can always do more and develop them and make them better. With this piece I was trying to keep all the colours in designated areas, but maybe in future briefs I should try to control that aspect less and allow myself to explore more new ideas and methods.

Final character designs

These are my final character designs to be stuck in my book. I'm happy with how my character turned out, as I feel I've captured her in different stages of life that represent her growing up well without any jarring jumps in age or time. I chose the colours of orange, pink and light blue as they are all colours that connote vibrancy and youth, but also stand out against the colourful background of my book without being garish or stealing all the focus.
I drew each design with a specific function in terms of how she responds and reacts to the world and situation she finds herself in, as she goes from frightened to inquisitive to playful and eventually to contemplative. I think these four stages of being define, at least for me, the experience of growing up, because at first it's horrifying, then it's interesting and fun, and then it's over and it becomes a thing of the past that influences you every day but can't ever be recaptured. Really that's all what I wanted to get across with my book, a journey tht we can all identify with and hopefully look back on fondly but simultaneously realise it's sadly beyond us.

Final book design - background

I spent the last few days finalising my ideas for use of colour and composition and chose to illustrate the final design for my concertina book.

I'm happy with how this background came out, as it has a lot of different interesting textures due to the largely unpredictable nature of brusho and the different quantities in which I used it. 

I consciously chose to leave all the visual elements that represent the influence of the modern world, such as the houses on the street and the man made bridge etc, blank with just line work as I feel it breaks up the piece from being overloaded with too much colour, and thematically I wanted to express that the vibrancy in the book comes from the nature aspect, and the modern elements are more cold and not as expressive or free as the elements of nature. 

I stayed until 9 every night this week until I'd finished as I wanted to make sure Id been able to capture the different textures in the overall image, going from grass to dirt to mud to water to trees etc, before taking it down to print digitally. As I was drawing this out I realised that if I put the character in and tried to paint around her, I'd definitely cock it up and the ink could bleed or the colours could mix and corrupt each other. To avoid this I drew out my character seperately on thick card, in order to glue her on top of the piece before scanning. 

Composition ideas quick

These are a few quick rough tests of how I'm going to progress colour in my picture book. I wanted to test the ink before using it on my final design as it can be quite temperamental and frustrating if it isn't used right.

Female Character - development

I decided to focus on a female design for my character, and I've been trying out different ways to present her, and have her age up and change as the story goes on. I chose to use small blank eyes for all these ideas, as to me they seem inquisitive without looking naive like some big Disney eyed characters often can. I'm using the eyes as a signifier for the aging of the character as the eyes will stay consistent on every page, as the rest of the design alters. As my book will be quite colourful with oranges and browns melding into blues and purples, I'll have to use colours that will compliment and contrast well with the environment such as lighter blues and pinks. When I started  storyboarding ideas I thought the character could be the sole source of colour to show her separation from the ageless world of nature, but now I see the relationship between nature and youth more entwined, as it is a cycle that people are always going through, and someone else will always experience these themes of growing up and changing, and hopefully that will make my book engaging and relatable.

Further brusho tests - preparing for book background

Since the poem of the Echoing Green is my focus thematically for this book, I want the background to convey the passage of time that uses the imagery of a 24 hour day but actually represents a passing of many years. To do this I started experimenting with brusho and air brushing (I say air brushing, I actually mean blowing the ink around the pages myself and getting pretty lightheaded) to create this splattered background effect ranging from colours associated with summer and mornings, like oranges browns and greens, leading up to more wintry and night related colours like blues and purples. The main reason I want to use this method as the background for my book is that it also looks a bit like synapses (electrical pulses that run across the brain and basically power us and our memories), and as synapses store memories I think it's fitting that they are apparent in this piece that is largely based on memories of growing up. Visually I also just enjoy the irregularity of it, as I'm used to using crafted lines and definite edges in my work so it's something new to me. 

Brusho testing - inclusion of trees

I've started to experiment with brusho as its a medium I'm basically entirely unfamiliar with apart from spilling it all over myself at A-Level and swearing off it. I think that because my picture book will be based much more on background and texture rather than my usual focus on character and foreground detail, brusho will be a good way to step out of my comfort zone and try something new. These are some initial tests trying to colour trees, and I think the bumpy irregular nature of this ink is suitable for presenting an unrefined, not over complex expression of nature. I'm mainly focusing on greens and purples to start with, as they are complimentary colours and also capture the contrast of greenery with the night sky, which is an aesthetic I want to utilise. I still think that the branches look kind of unnatural when drawn as I find it hard to capture the knots and twists in wood, so I'll have to find a way to get around that. 

Some of my observational drawings using.biros and ink work quite well as they were done quickly an erratically, and trees are quite erratic looking as they twist and turn irregularly and don't seem to have any sort of pattern driving their look at all. This is what I find most interesting as they can be really expressive and I want to use this expressive aspect in my book.  

Imaginary Poster - Collage

I aimed to create a fake gig poster for my collage, and I think that the text is probably the strongest part of the piece. I used an issue of NME for the imagery and I feel like it could overall have been stronger. I didn't really enjoy this task as I feel that my skill at collage is underdeveloped, and I hope to use similar tasks in the future to improve. 

Storyboard

This is a rough idea of the kind of tone I want to express in my book. I think it's playful and a bit comedic, but contemplative at the same time, as you notice gradually that she is getting older and less playful as the frames go on. I think this tone suits my idea, as growing up is both a lot of fun and pretty sad in retrospect, so I want to capture both of these contrasting elements. To improve these I need to start experimenting with colour, and I want to use a real media instead of colouring it digitally, which is a medium I'm already familiar with and want to get away from. 

I do however like the image of the little character being the only source of colour, as it lines up with my ideas of youth being vibrant but impermanent and separate to the enduring backdrop of nature and the old natural world that doesn't seem to change or age alongside us. 

Character thoughts - growing up

Here I have started to roughly visually explore the ideas of growing up by having a character physically growing up as the story goes on. I think this is a good visual metaphor for the ideas of changing and developing I want to express in my picture book.
 I also think I might use a female character, as I don't often use them in my work and I think that the female form is more interesting visually in terms of how it changes and develops noticeably over time, whereas boys sort of stay the same but get bigger, so you can't really tell what stage of development they're at just by looking. 

I want the eyes of my character to hold a significance, as I'm creating a general view of a youth growing up, but not basing it on any one specific person. I think how I choose to portray the eyes is important, as I want the character to be relatable and seem like it could be anyone, because we've all been through what they are going through in this book. 

Character thoughts

I started to explore quite simplistic ideas for characters, as I want the main focus of my book to be the setting/background. These ideas for a typical teenage boy are influenced by Jamie Hewlett's bleak but expressive and dark artwork for Gorillaz, I think the idea of blank eyes is really interesting as it conveys a sort of openness in the character and keeps it from looking like a specific reference to any one person in particular, as eyes are often a defining trait of a person. 

These ideas are more comical, I was exploring thoughts of an Indiana Jones type adventurer as the character here, for comic effect and exaggeration, having him cinematically navigate a very safe danger free British park. While I think there's potential for humour, the story I want to tell is a human story at its core, so I don't want the character to visually stray away from a realistic portrayal of a person into caricature. 

Collage Initial Thoughts

The presentation on collage taught us that collage is a form of bastardising and subverting an image, so I basically aimed to make something subversive and funny by combining super serious superhero posters with their silly origin material. I feel that although I wouldn't say I'm very good at composition within collage, they work at least as interesting ideas. 

William Blake - Songs of Innocence and Experience - The Echoing Green : Relation to ideas

The Sun does arise,
And make happy the skies.
The merry bells ring
To welcome the Spring.
The sky-lark and thrush,
The birds of the bush,
Sing louder around,
To the bells cheerful sound.
While our sports shall be seen
On the Echoing Green.

Old John with white hair
Does laugh away care,
Sitting under the oak,
Among the old folk,
They laugh at our play,
And soon they all say.
Such, such were the joys,
When we all, girls & boys,
In our youth time were seen,
On the Echoing Green.

Till the little ones weary
No more can be merry
The sun does descend,
And our sports have an end:
Round the laps of their mothers,
Many sisters and brothers,
Like birds in their nest,
Are ready for rest:
And sport no more seen,
On the darkening Green.

This is a poem that I studied at A-level for English Literature, and I feel that it again has relevance in relation to my book project. It's overriding theme is the impermanence of youth versus the endurance of nature, which is something I want to explore through the narrative of my book.
Each stanza works as a representation of different stages of life, all set against the backdrop of a Spring day. The first is the vibrance of youth and the excitement of being out in the world, while the second moves into a retrospective view of the spring, where the 'old folk' are still happy because the children's joy reminds them of their own youth. The final stanza explores the idea of the setting sun and the eventual death of everyone, and is shown through the metaphor of the children becoming tired and the day coming to a close. The use of the diurnal metaphor (presenting a time period of many years using the imagery of a dawn til dusk day) is something I will be using visually in my book.

I plan to have my character undergo a similar thought process as they age and grow alongside the passing of the day. I also find it interesting that each stanza ends with the same words; "on the echoing green" with the exception of the last, which ends with "darkening green" to convey the inevitability of both growing old and night coming. The "echoing green" to me suggests that while these people come and go, the green is eternal and echoes through all these peoples lifetimes. This idea of nature as a constant in our world is also something I will be exploring through my book, as Temple Newsam, the setting for my book, has always been a backdrop in my life and a lot of other people's who I grew up alongside. For this reason it has a certain mythical nature to me as personally I see it as this place seperate to the busy world that has been and will be there forever. I'm going to conduct some more interviews to further enforce this idea of how a nature setting can echo through multiple people and multiple generations.

Pre character design ideas

I have been thinking about the lack of human character in my photos and how I'd like to include one on my final book, so I think I'll go back to temple Newsam with some friends after they get back to Leeds in the new year to act as models for scenes I want to act out in the book. I only want to include one character, one who will probably age or in some way progress as the book goes along to align with the ideas of passing time and different stages of human development I want to explore with my book.

Narrative initial concepts/thoughts

I've been thinking more about the arrangement of my book and I have decided I want to base the design around the concept of time as a diurnal metaphor (the idea of an extended period of time like a few years being expressed in the imagery of a 24 hour day) because I feel that sums up the feeling of exploring that my book will be focused on. You go out in the morning and get stupidly lost and find something new, but always end up back somewhere near wherever you started by night time, and I think that idea can be applied to the way people journey through life as a whole and make mistakes and decisions that can either take you in new directions or send you back to square one. 

In terms of the actual composition I want to keep the colours subdued to get across the sense of fade and time passed in the memories of myself and others that are informing this project. I think for the backgrounds I will be focusing on blues and greens that gradually get darker as the book goes on, to convey time passing and night coming.