Illustration Friday Evaluation

I think I have managed to come up with a range of ideas for each week, some more than others. On a few occasions I have read the theme and instantly had an idea of what I would want to do so the ideas took less consideration. I have used reference imagery where possible, most of which were found online apart from drawing the hole punch from observation in week one. I can’t say I performed any extensive research for these images apart from a brief look at some artist inspiration.

I have been evaluating the success of each image as I went and tried to blog each one in a similar format so I could get into a rhythm of how I was tackling each topic. This worked well for me because I kind of created a standard project plan which I could work to and adapt depending on my media choice and theme. Any problems that arose during the making processes had to be tackled quickly because these were quick turnaround briefs. Getting stressed over week three's (unicorn) drawing made me alter my approach slightly to make this more enjoyable and less time consuming. It worked for a number of weeks although I found myself spending a more time again on my last couple of images. 

I have tried to vary my media choices within this brief to show a range of outcomes, it was a chance for me to experiment and also make it clearer to myself what I am comfortable using and what I enjoy the least. It is clear that I enjoy working with ink but I have discovered that I quite like gouache paints more than I thought I did. I have also rediscovered pencil crayons, I haven’t used these properly in a while but the soft texture can really work for some purposes - this might be something I want to do more of. My weakest submissions were definitely for ‘unicorn’ and ‘tropical’, I think I chose the wrong ideas to pursue here and when using the Wacom tablet for ‘tropical’ I had too high expectations for myself considering I have very little experience with them, and I had a time restraint on myself because it was a hectic week.

I think I have managed my time effectively for this brief. I started these tasks at the very beginning of the module and did this for a number of consecutive weeks. I have had to figure out my priorities as the time went on and I knew that I was able to skip a few weeks of this and still be able to complete ten before the deadline. I thought it was important for me to submit every single one as it allowed me to practice working to a deadline, even if it is only small. In this sense, I feel I have been good at time management, however, in terms of how long I spent on each week’s image, this is where time management was an issue for me. I feel that some weeks, I got too involved with a brief that is meant to be quick and I would be spending almost a full day on one image. Although it is good that I’m enjoying it, I should have been more strict on myself with time and set a shorter window to work within.