OUIL402- Visual Language Evaluation

Leeds College of Art
BA (Hons) ILLUSTRATION Level 04
OUIL404 Visual Language Credits 20
End of Module Self Evaluation

NAME
Matthew Mercer

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?
Personally, I think my use of line has really improved throughout the year so far, and have begun to understand how to use line in a fluid but controlled way. Which I'm really enjoying and has totally changed my practice in a positive way. I have really enjoyed playing and experimenting with different medias, especially ink brush and cut paper. I have previously been quite stuck in my way swith the tools and media I used, but the module has really opened my eyes and inspired me to experiment with more media. 

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?
I loved the sessions about composition and the theory behind the images we make. I have always tried to implement these within my work but it has always been something I used intuitively. Learning and understanding the specific methods has driven me to think more conciously about the image I am creating, considering frame, depth, line of sight and so on. I am really trying to push how I use these principles within my own work in other modules, and I really think my ability to make pictures is growing because of it.

3. What strengths can you identify within your Visual Language submission you capitalise on these?
I like the way I have worked with the briefs during the module. I tried to focus a lot more on nailing my  understanding of each media and tool. In no way have I disregarded the specific briefs set but I definitely think I tried to move away from the specific tasks to experiment more with things I wanted to play around with, which I'm pretty happy I did. I think doing this lead to me understanding a lot more through just playing and experimenting with the media and creating images from that. I think some of my favourite work has come through just playing and not necessarily working towards a specific goal.

4. What areas for development can you identify within your Visual Language submission and how will you address these in the future?
I'm honestly very annoyed with myself that I didn't work MORE on each task and media. Unfortunately for me, I started to realise the importance of the module towards the middle of the module, and originally saw it as a suplementary module to the others. I then started to realise that I was gaining the most knowledge and enjoyment through the visual language module. By this point I had a lot of catching up to do. I think this was definitely something I'm glad I figured out, as it exaggerated the importance of experimentation for me, I just really wish I would have realised it much sooner.

5. In what way has this module informed how you deconstruct and analyse artwork (whether your own or that of contemporary practitioners)?

I think my critical thinking has improved tenfold throughout this module. Before, I could recognise that I like an image, however I am now able to recognise WHY I like the image and what specific elements I do and maybe don't like. I have loved looking through other artists work and ths module in particular has allowed me to grow my own visual library of elements I like in images made by others. It has also helped me to become much more critical of myt own work, which has definitely lead to an improvement of my work, both the aesthetics and the strength of the communicated idea. 

6.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 4
Punctuality 5
Motivation 2
Commitment 3
Quantity of work produced 2
Quality of work produced 3
Contribution to the group 4
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.


A copy of your end of module self evaluation should be posted to your studio practice blog. This should be the last post before the submission of work and will provide the starting point for the assessment process. Post a copy of your evaluation to your PPP blog as evidence of your own on going evaluation.

Notes

Apologies again for the messiness of sketchbooks and lack of structure from the breifs.

OUIL402- PPP- YSP

Today I went to visit the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, to see the KAWS exhibit. I visit the YSP quite a lot as my mum live a 2 minute drive away but the KAWS exhibition was definitely my favourite I've seen to date.

Other than looking at all the amazing art, it really inspired me to see that an illustrator can produce work which can be produced in a gallery and be hugely respected and well known.

OUIL402- PPP- Eleni Kalorkoti Process

Today I found this really interesting blog post by Eleni which outlines how she makes her images. I have always been intrigued by how Eleni manages to create digital work that still looks handmade, turns out that because it starts out as a hand made image and is then 'filled' in digitally, whilst still keeping the original penned in lines.

I have played around with trying to make digitally produced images look organic and natural in the past, this is definitely something else to try!

http://elenikalorkoti.tumblr.com/post/31790790783/a-few-people-have-asked-me-to-do-a-process-post-on

OUIL402- PPP- 3 Posters

We were tasked with creating 3 posters. One to promote ourselves personal, one professionally and one to demonstrate our ambitions. One poster must be only text, the other only image and a third with both.

Personal


I chose to only use text as my personal poster as I don't think an illustration would be appropriate to demonstrate my personality as an individual.

Professional



Ambitions


My third poster demonstrates my ambitions to develop tools for artists and illustrators.

OUIL402- PPP- Colourblindness

So I've always suspected I saw colour differently from others. So last week I decided to check at the opticians and see what they thought, turns out I can't properly differentiate between tones of colours. Which is sick. So 'oranges' look the same as 'reds' and 'blues' look the same as 'purples'. Basically every colour that is similar looks the same.

Maybe I could just work in black + white. But that may get boring. Using colour has never really been something I have been particularly big on, maybe being colour blind is why? I don't really think I do too badly with colours when I use them, although I do always look for confirmation of what colours I have chosen. Maybe I should stop and just go with what I see?