Response to Tutor Feedback Part 2

Overall your response to part two has covered all the exercises and the final assignment. You are showing your design process effectively and you have started to tackle more sketchbook work.

Your black and white cut-out is particularly bold and shows a good level of craft with the cutting. This approach enables you to focus on the essential pieces of the image so it may be worth pursuing this style a little more if the opportunity arises.

I got off to a good started with the first exercise and my tutor seemed pleased with my approach to writing a brief for an illustration. She suggested adding a bit about what the mood of the illustration would be but otherwise was pleased with the description I had offered.

For the second exercise we were focusing on generating ideas. I knew this was something Id been told to work on more and tried to push  myself to explore further ideas on the spider diagrams. My tutor suggested pushing them even further and I asked how far can you push them before they become irrelevant and my tutor advised me to push it as far as I could and not worry too much about them becoming abstract ideas as long as it can relate back to the original idea.

Your emotional response to the different words is interesting and you could explore this further.

I found this response from my tutor interesting and kept that in mind for future work.

The next exercise was about generating ideas through sketches and a moodboard. At this point I was still learning to develop my ideas and so perhaps didn't explore these as much as I could have. 

You have presented a range of initial ‘exotic’ images that are potential starting points. It would be helpful to see an initial mind-map and see how that could be explored beyond literal associations to loosen up your ideas. You could then explore these in a looser and more experimental way.

The moodboard could be explored with maybe zoning areas more and looking at alternative layouts – you could photo potential layout options.

I found the 1950's research exercise really interesting but also quite challenging. I enjoyed finding the visual reference, this was something new to me, a new way of working than I was used to.

Your final image of the girl in the chair listening to a record can be clearly traced back to your initial research. The elements that you have included have a link to the 50s and you have considered the colour scheme.

• a range of other, initial ideas and thoughts including mind-mapping

• a range of different layouts – how could the elements be used differently at a variety of scales / positions / viewpoints

• some alternative colour schemes

In terms of your design process it would be beneficial to see:

• a range of other, initial ideas and thoughts including mind-mapping • a range of different layouts – how could the elements be used differently at a variety of scales / positions / viewpoints • some alternative colour schemes 

I was pleased with the concept for my illustration but was definitely lacking the skills to deliver what I had envisaged in my mind. I really like the quirky, fine line style of illustration and would like to develop this further in the future.

Again, I still needed to work on developing my ideas further and exploring alternative options.

For the mark making exercise I used different papers and mediums to see how they reacted. I did struggle with this exercise as I am not great at exploring other mediums in an in depth way. My tutor suggested drawing the cupcake from different angles and sizes to further my tests.

The observational drawing tested my ability for drawing from reference. This is something I need to develop further and practice. My tutor suggested using a real life object rather than a photo to help with defining texture and including details you couldn't see on a photo.

For the college piece I quite enjoyed making this. It was out of my comfort zone but I enjoyed trying to make the paint tube look real but using obscure textures for the collage. I was pleased with how this turned out. Again, I needed to explore further ideas before jumping to the final piece.

I was so pleased with how my paper cut illustration came out for the black and white exercise. I put a lot of time and detail into the piece and the result was quite effective. I was already aware of the work of Rob Ryan and looked at the other reference my tutor suggested as well.

The choosing content exercise was a lot of fun for me. I love to use my imagination so to illustrate from some text of a story was an exciting task for me.

At this point I wanted to start incorporating digital drawing into my work as this was a skill I was keen to develop and very new to.

You have presented a clear design process for this exercise. It moves logically from research and moodboard to initial idea and final piece.

The final image has a good sense of mood.

it would be beneficial to see:

• a greater range of initial ideas that spring from a mind-map

• alternative layouts that explore the mood in different ways and from different viewpoints

• an exploration of light in the image – would the cigarette light up a little of his face? Is the strip in the background a strip of light? If so would it catch part of his profile?

I was really pleased with the final illustration, especially since it was my first digital piece. I thought about my tutors suggestions about the light but decided I liked the simplicity and kept it as it was.

The next exercise, drawing images to communicate a message or idea was quite difficult. I think this is something I need to work on in the future even though the people I asked could tell what I was trying to communicate with what I had drawn.

Again at this point my tutor was fairly pleased with how my work was progressing and continued to suggest pushing my mind maps further, developing my ideas more and looking at different angles, crops etc to make images more interesting.

At this point my sketchbook work has started to improve but still needs further development and my tutor asked me to consider adding more personal reflection on my learning log.