End of module self evaluation

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

NAME	Kieran Jeffery

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?
Throughout this module I think that I have learned a wide range of skills and methodologies that will become useful tools in helping me progress as an illustrator. Through processes of observational drawing and line and mark making, I have developed and refined my drawing abilities and I consider the power of line quality when making any image. I have learned that line can be used in such an effective way and I now know that sometimes it can be more effective to reduce line down to a simple form to communicate a shape or idea. Another skill I have developed during this module is the ability to work with shape and texture. This is where I feel I have learned the most about how to make an image in a contemporary way. I have always been so used to drawing with basic pen and pencil media but this module has helped break out of that pattern and develop my knowledge and think about work more in terms of shape, texture and using new medias to create a more diverse range of outcomes. Composition is another practical skill I have developed during this module. I feel I am much more confident when composing an image within a scene and think this this is going to become a very useful tool when creating work for future projects and also my own personal practice.
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 have personally found each principle of image making to be valuable during this module. However, the most valuable principles for me are shape and texture. This is simply because I have never before considered these elements when making an image but I now understand that these theories of image making can be so effective, especially in the growing world of contemporary illustration. Considering shape and texture when making and image helps push me into experimenting and exploring with a wider range of media to create work in a more unique way. I have also leaned new process of making images such as screen-printing. I have found this to have huge value in my progression as an image maker. I really enjoyed the process of screen-printing and I think it has the potential to make my work look much more professional. The new principles and theories I have gained during this module has had a huge impact on the way I think about approaching my illustrations and I will employ this new knowledge into my own personal practice.
3. What strengths can you identify with your visual language submission and how can you capitalise on these
I think the strengths that I can identify with this submission is the way in which I think about making work. Before this module I was quite naïve in terms of what I considered to be illustration. Over the course of this module I now think that my eyes have been opened to more possibilities in terms of the media I will use and how to compose and image within a scene. My strongest part of illustration has always been my drawing ability and I think I have shown this during this module. Drawing has always been my primary form of communication through image and this is good but I have new ways in which I can communicate ideas that will defiantly filter into my own personal practice. 4. What areas for development can you identify within your Visual Language submission and how will you address these in the future?
There are always areas that can be developed within my own practice of illustration. I can always develop my drawing and crafting skills; I can always further develop my skills of using shape and texture. But for this module I think area that could use the most development is the willingness to explore the world of illustration and gain reference and principles from existing illustrators. This is my next step. I need to realise what kind of work is being made and how I can capitalise on these forms of illustration and integrate it into my own personal practice. This is how I will become a more realised illustrator by submerging myself into the creative world.
5. In what way has this module informed how you deconstruct and analyse artwork (whether your own or that of contemporary practitioners)? From constantly making my own work and then seeing how peers have tackled the same task, this module has defiantly helped my skills when it comes to analysing artwork. When I now look at artwork I consider how the image has been made in terms of the media used, the composition and how effectively it communicates an idea. This is good for me because I now also know that my abilities of critically analysing pieces of illustration is becoming stronger and this will have a huge impact on how I create my own work and my peruse my personal practice of an image maker.
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		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.

Outfit/colour pallet task

For this task we were to take a photograph of ourselves wearing a selected colour pallet of clothing whilst considering composition. For this task I went out to a run down area of Leeds that had graffiti and tones that would compliment my specific colour pallet. I also just wanted to have the photograph taken in an urban environment.

This is the original photograph without the colour picker tones selected.

For this task I decided to chose an earthy tone colour pallet. I don't usually wear too many bright colours and I like my clothing to be subtle. I think these orange green tones work well together especially against the brick wall. I also decided to add an accent colour with the red bandana to spice up the outfit and provide a higher contrast between the deep and earthy colours.

Using the colour picker tool on Photoshop I have selected all the colours I chose to wear in the photograph and have been filled into the strips next to the image. This gives me a good view of the colour I have chosen and how they work as a set. I think I have chosen a nice colour set that has made an effective photograph.

Screen print/Fan art

For this task I have to design and create a piece of fan art. Fan art is basically drawing or somehow recreating an existing piece and making it in your own specific style. The piece of fan art must be screen printed using only two colours and the colour of the paper. Before this talk I had only screen printed once and I personally didn't like the process of screen printing, but this task may have the potential to change those views as the last time I screen printed it was a group task but now it is my own individual piece so I may enjoy it more. We also need to take the composition of the piece into account and create a poster with an effective composition.

Attack on Titan.
For my piece of fan art I have decided to choose one of my favourite anime shows of all time. Attack on titan is a Japanese style cartoon with a great story and has very unique characters. The first season of this anime has been released but the second is still on its way so my aim is to create a concept poster for the second season of Attack on titan. A very anticipated show that many people are eager to continue watching.

As this is only small task I have just sketched out some quick roughs of some possible compositions for the poster. I have chosen my two favourite characters from the show that I can include in the poster. Captain Levi and a Titan.

These are some drawings of the characters I am going to use in my fan art poster. Drawing them out in pencil first on separate sheets of paper will make it much easier for me to play around with some different compositions. I will also lightbox these drawings so they are much neater and will have crisper cleaner lines for a more professional looking poster. The line work and shadow areas will also be completely black shapes as there is no tone on screen prints unless there are halftones created on photoshop.

 This is the first design for my Attack on titan screen print fan art poster. As you can see I have filled all of the necessary black areas so it will create a nice block stencil when exposed. I quite like this design but I also think that it is very busy and when finished it could look very over crowded as a screen print. So halfway through drawing this I had a slight revelation to completely change the design and reduce it right down.

This is a positive for the character Levi for the screen print.

I have decided to completely take the the titan away from the poster and only use the character Captain Levi. I have done this because the steam around the titan became too much and the print would have looked too messy. However with this reduced design I think the poster will be a lot more effective and will also have much more breathing space on the page. I have changed Levi's position on the page so that he is directly in the centre. I have done this because there will be some red japanese type above him saying attack on titan .

These are some possible types styles that I could use above levi in the screen print. The sketchy type on the left may work nicely but for the sake of a screen print. But for the way I want the final outcome to look I think it will be best for the type to be how it is on the right page. This is how it is on attack on titan and it also looks more professional and will work better for the screen print.

This is the screen printed version of my fan art poster for Attack on titan. I am actually very pleased with the outcome and I think this piece looks quite professional. This task for me has been very useful, my views on screen printing have completely changed. I am now in love with the process and how it can make my work look. I love the textures that can be created and it is also nice that every print comes out differently and has its own unique quality. I will definitely be coming back to screen printing in future projects and I also have some plans to create my own personal work and get some screen prints done that could possibly be sold.

The task was to create a an A4 poster. I did this but with my favourite prints on the best paper I decided to reduce it down even more so there is less blank space around the page. I think trimming the page down has complimented the composition and has made it into a more effective poster. The red black and off white tone also creates a nice balance of colour and also makes it look more authentic and Japanese which was a persona aim of mine to achieve.

Visual language - Composition

This task is to design and create two A5 images including an object a figure and a landscape. When composing an image within a frame there are many factors that need to be taken into account that can make an effective and powerful image. Composition is one of the most important parts of any piece of artwork. Line of sight and lead in lines, depth, scale, value, over lapping and cropping all need to be considered when composing an image. For this task I need to make sure I have considered these crucial elements in order to create an effective composition. 

These are a few sketches and notes I have taken during the composition presentation to help me understand how some artists have approached simple but effective ways of composing an image.

 After this mini task was set I then started to rough out some possible composed scenes. When considering depth and line of sight it can immediately make a scene look more dynamic. Drawing is essentially creating an illusion on the page especially when it comes to the depth. I have tried to consider depth more than anything because I want to give the illusion that the scene I have created has layers and is not a flat image. Getting perspectives accurate also helps me to achieve this goal of depth.

 Out of all the roughs that were produced, the aim was to choose two of the best and draw them up larger. I quite liked this image that I composed, it is very different to how I would usually work and when I was roughing out the designs I looked over into the corner and saw a chair on its own and that is how I got the idea to do this. This image has an object is in a landscape and has a figure, which is the shadow produced by the chair which is quite weird and eerie but for some reason I like it. The perspective isnt completely accurate but sometimes that can add to the quality of an image.

This image of composition is almost like a concept piece for a game. I chose to draw this one up as one of my finals because I like the sense of depth that has been created using the figure, mountains and the castle/citadel. It has been a while since I have created a scene purely from my imagination I have recently been using quite a lot of reference imagery to produce my illustrations and it has felt nice to just come up with a scene without reference. This task has help me think about how important it is to consider the different aspects that compose an image and this will defiantly become a useful tool for me as I progress as an image maker.

This was a short studio task where we had to compose and image that contained an elephant a butterfly and a figure. Again, with this image my main focus on the composition is the depth and scale. By drawing the figure in a certain position on the page and considering the depth I have been able to show that the person and the butterfly is much further back than the elephant which is right in the foreground. These tasks are really helping me to understand how important composition really is within any image. I now know that not all good composition are from images that are busy and crowded, sometimes the most simple composition can be the most effective.

3D Superhero task

 For this task we were to turn and mutate ourselves into a superhero using 3D shapes.
The aim was to echo our personalities into the superhero we have created for ourselves. This means that we should take the obvious aspects of our personality and exaggerate them into some for of a superhero.

Seeing as I do consider myself to be quite a spiritual person, I thought it would be good to echo this aspect of my personality and turn it into a superhero. This is shown through the third eye that has beed drawn onto the simple face. Once a persons third eye is open or is 'spiritually active', a persons life can be filled with much clarity and positive energy. I also didn't want to make it too serious so I designed the face that looks like a lazy sort of character, I meditate. save lives. and shit. It think this character I have made is a good representation of myself. Im spiritual, but not always too serious about it and I can sometimes get lazy so the words on his chest are all for a reason.

Just a few more photos of me wearing my uniform. I wanted one with the bedsheets cape. The camera quality isn't great which reduces the quality of the image but I don't think it matters too much because in the close up image, the text is readable. I have enjoyed this task, I have been quite serious with some tasks and haven't been playful enough. It has been nice to make something that is funny and makes people laugh. I will try and add some humour into my work throughout next projects when I feel like the seriousness is getting bit to much.

Collage

For this studio task I had to create a composition using cut outs from newspapers and magazines. I decided to create a hiphop themed poster. I created this piece using cut out paper and then drawing back over the images using inc and paint pens. I really like this way of adding style to an image, by drawing back over the eyes with pen and outline the shapes.

All these cutouts of people are from random pages of magazines. The process of collage, cutting out and sticking can be quite a fun activity. I really enjoyed searching for the right shapes and then adding my own effects to the images using inc and pint pens. The inc is good for getting subtle textures and the paint pens are good for strong outlines and filling in certain features. I really like the process of cutting out shapes and arranging them in various compositions across the page. I will definitely consider working like this in future tasks.

This was a poster design that I created out of the uses of collage. I took the same concept from the previous piece and made an A4 poster design that includes some of my favourite hiphop artists. I used brusho inc for the splatter and drip effect in the background but I think this may have over complicated the image and there maybe too much going off. Other than that I do like the idea of drawing back over people and adding textures, it can make some very interesting marks and visuals for a poster, especially the white eyes on a dark figure.

Texture

For this studio task, the objective was was to explore the possibilities of creating a figure through using various textures. Using shape and texture can be a very effective way of making images and illustrations. The first part of this task was to experiment different mark making tools on big sheets of paper to see what materials and media can be used to create interesting textures.

Once the big sheets of paper was covered with random textures, made up of media such as paint, inc and graphite, we then had to create a portrait using these random textures. I decided to create a face of the different textures but by using the negative space created by the face. I like the idea behind the method by using texture and negative space to create the shape, but I dont think this particular piece has been effective with the craftsmanship and I will consider the same concept in the future but execute it more effectively.

This was another image I made during the studio texture task. The idea was to create ourselves and the clothing we were wearing out of shape and texture. Using the samples from the big sheets of experimented texture I then created this portrait. This one has bit more character than the other piece and I think it works more effectively. Texture is a great way of introducing new aspects to an illustration and can really bring a piece to life. I will continue to develop the uses of different texture throughout my work.

After the studio task I then went away and tried to create my own piece using different textures. I decided that I was going to do zombies so I sketched out some initial  designs for the composition. The other day in the studio I seen someone using brusho inc and I thought that it looked like a great way to explore some different uses of texture. I have got these textures in my sketchbook by randomly sprinkling the powdered inc onto my paper and then slightly wetting the page with water droplets so the inc bleeds and merges. The effects can be very nice and I will uses this to create textures within the zombie faces.

This is the zombie piece created using different textures of brusho inc. I think it has worked quite well and the textures created in the zombie figures really help show the decay and lifelessness of the undead. No pencil or pen would be able to get this effect and I think these kind of tasks are really helping me realise that there is an infinite ways of making and image or illustration and restricting myself to basic media is only restricting my development as an illustrator.

I wanted to create an image from shape and texture using negative space, and here it is. The shape I have used for this is from the cutout shape of the red zombie on the image above. When I cut out the shape I realised that the negative space of this shape could be utilised. I then used more brusho Inc to then create a random texture. I then stuck down the white paper on top of the brusho texture to create the shape of the figure. I really like this piece, It looks like it could be used for an album cover. Learning about shape and texture has really helped me to see illustration from a wider perspective and I am eager to pursue my work from a new light with the possibilities of exploring more media.

Shape portraits

For this task we are to design and create a series of three portraits made only of shape using no line and with the opportunity to explore any media. I like the idea of hand crafting shapes out of cut paper, but this could also be a good time for me to explore some digital process. 

To start this task I have been trying to create a simple face out of minimal shapes and no intricate detail. Creating illustrations is proving to be quite difficult for me as my drawing style is very line driven.

 More faces and portraits made from shape.

 Seeing as we have to produce three portraits I may choose to do one in the style of these fruit heads, I want to make people laugh when they look at this shape portrait.

 I could possibly include a high detail portrait of shapes like the one in the image above, but I like the idea of keeping them more simple and minimal.

I want to include a character in this shape project, a character who has some sort of an accessory.

Final shape portraits

 These images have all been hand crafted using a range of coloured card and paper. At first I thought I would really struggle with creating these final outcomes but it actually went quite well and I'm happy with what I have made. I like this use of media and will use more of it in the future. I do wish I created a portrait using digital media but I prefer to produce my work by hand and will visit digital media in the next tasks.