Illustrated Facts - Week 2

What went well?

I think the combination of media woks well, the fine liner was used for the precision needed in the circuit board and the unpredictable nature of the dip pen meant that the uneven texture of the beetle's shell was shown in contrast to this. I included some dip pen drawings of beetles that I did over summer to show the kind of aesthetic I was aiming for. 

My decisions about layout are getting better. I did the side view drawing of the beetle in my sketchbook and it just looked too long for the square format I was aiming for so I knew I needed to take a different viewpoint/approach for it to work. I like the symmetry of the final image, it makes the composition look a lot more considered. 

I loosened up in my sketchbook more this week and this helped me move away from the mindset that I should be using sketchbook drawings in my final imagery. This is okay sometimes but its unnecessary to get precious about sketchbook work for this purpose.

What didn't go well? Ideas for improvement. 

Thing went a bit off track for me this week as I set myself this task to do on Friday afternoon but I ended up going home. I was still able to get work done but I hadn't got all the materials with me that I wanted to use, like my dip pens and ink. Instead I continued with the brief using fine liners but I wasn't happy with the result so I waited until I came back to Leeds to use the materials I originally wanted to. This meant I didn't complete this week's brief until Sunday. I suppose the lesson to be learnt from this is to plan ahead better and be more organised but also understand that things are going to crop up that throw you off track. This wasn't a big deal for this brief but for one with a tight deadline this could have been a big problem. 

When I was producing the final drawing I immediately regretted doing my dip pen ink work straight over the fine liner circuit drawing because I was feeling the pressure that if anything went wrong I had lost both drawings. In hindsight I should have done these on two separate pieces of paper and combined them on photoshop, this way I would have had more room for changing aspects and not worrying the the first attempt needed to be perfect.