#reflections-uniwork

[uniworktechnologies]

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[kj-howrie-personal-archive]

Visual essay- Reflection

I decided to make a simple choose your own adventure game for my essay. I thought this format would be an interesting way to present my ideas about style, and also a chance to practice how to make simple games. I used Twine to make this essay, which is an open source tool that uses a simplified coding language, making it easier to create visual novels or choose your own adventure games. 

I learnt a lot about making logic gates and how to structure a simple game as I made this essay. In the future I’d like to learn more about coding and how to make illustrations more suited to a video game format, as I think narrative focused video games would be a really good fit for the type of work I want to make as an illustrator.

[nellyxparker]

Week 1

Ive started my personal project off by gathering images based on nature, tattoo designs, folk art and forest spirits.I’ve had a growing interest in tattooing since before/during my degree and I’ve referenced nature and some folklore elements in my past module projects. My original idea was to solely focus on folk art and nature, and creating tapestry to visually communicate a tale due to the fact I felt tattooing couldn’t be incorporated into this project. Until I began looking into how I could combine and present my work using different methods. I want to explore an relationship between tattoo design and folklore nature spirits , the way I plan to do this is by creating both embroidered and digital tapestry designs.

Before delving into what my designs are going to be and what they’ll incorporate I’ll first need to research and understand folklore, the differences between different cultural folk art and understand what design elements go into embroidery. Using embroidery to present my work is going to challenge me to think about my use of colour coordination, colour palettes and differences in my line quality and how I’m going to translate it into stitches. The sewing of tapestry can take awhile to complete but if I’m going to be visually communicating a folk tale it’s more realistic and authentic to do in the form of tapestry and not all digital, this challenge is what motivates me.

P.s I blame midsommar for sending me on this wild nature and folklore hunt

[kj-howrie-personal-archive]

Task four- Reflections

It took me a while to get into this task, but once I did I really liked it. I typically make comics, so i found doing editorial work fairly difficult, as I was trying to encapsulate a story in one image instead of using multiple panels. I really liked setting myself the restriction of only using one panel, as it pushed me to try and communicate an idea more simply than I normally would. I also used colour in this illustration, which I’m not very confident about, as I’m a lot more comfortable just doing line work. I’m really glad I pushed myself to colourise the drawing as it looks really good. I need to push myself out of my comfort zone more when making work as I find it very easy to just stick to what I know. I’m not going to grow as an illustrator if I don’t push myself to work in ways I’m not confident about. 

After a tutorial it was pointed out to me that editorial illustrations can be made as comics, and a lot of artists create work like that. After looking into Fien Jorissen, and Tom Gauld’s works I’ve realized that Illustrations in articles can absolutely be comics, and that there’s a wide variety of ways to make illustrations that accompany text.

I’m also planning to work more on how I draw figures, as my figure in this task looks really stilted and awkward. I’d like to add more fluidity to my figures, so I’d like to work on different ways to draw people.

[kj-howrie-personal-archive]

Task three- Reflections

I found this task difficult, but I also really enjoyed it. This task really pushed me to experiment with how I communicate different emotions to an audience. I really enjoyed creating small pictograms. It’s made me think about how I have a fairly set way of expressing certain emotions in artwork, that is heavily exaggerated and cartoony. I think I want to try and branch out in how I express emotions in comics, and I think I’m gonna try to consume different types of comics and graphic novels than I typically do so that I can get a broader idea of how emotions are expressed by different illustrators.

[kj-howrie-personal-archive]

Task two- Reflection

I think this task was a really useful exercise for me to do. I liked being more open and loose with how I design characters, as I often have a lot of my characters looking very similar, and I don’t really play around with different ways my characters look. I think this exercise led me to making some really weird characters that I think are striking and I’d like to use them in further projects. I also really liked making up a plot and scenarios by randomly watching different episodes of tv shows and making plot points through that. I think I can get really stuck in my own ideas of what a comic should be when I’m working, and this was an amazing way of getting out of my head and creating some interesting work. 

[kj-howrie-personal-archive]

Task one- reflection

I feel like there’s a running theme of sketchy-ness in all the images I’ve chosen. While they all have various styles there's an atmosphere and aesthetic that runs through all five images. I think one of the biggest things that drew me to the five images is how they’re an approximation of the world, rather than an attempt to capture likeness realistically. They all have a slightly surreal quality due to the fact they’re all fairly sketchy and unrealistic. There is a fair amount of difference between the images, as some are really sketchy, raw and expressive, while others are fairly polished and slick. The atmosphere is the main thing that connects these images. 

I think I’m mostly interested in work that suggests form rather that actually shows it. I’m not at all interested in realism in art work. I like work that is an honest expression from that artist, I want work that I feel communicates with me. 

I think a part of the reason I’m not interested in realism is due to my upbringing. My dad is an oil painter heavily inspired by the expressionists and emphasized to me from a young age that expression is more important than having a piece of art look perfectly realistic. I think this has massively shaped the way I view style and communication in artwork.

[kj-howrie-personal-archive]

First week of uni reflections

Tuesday-20th Oct

I’m excited to start this new project, I think it’s going to make me question my practice and question what illustration is at its core. I’m looking forward to deconstructing different artists' styles and trying to work out why I’m drawn to them/what elements I’d like to incorporate into my own work in the future. I’m happy that we’re going to be focusing more on the theory behind illustration this year. Talking to a tutor about what style is was interesting, and left me with a lot to think about in terms of what I define style as, and why I think style is important in illustration. I quite liked the group discussion we had over webcams, but I think it might have been more engaging if there had been more people who felt comfortable talking over webcam. 

Thursday-22nd Oct

I really enjoyed the lecture on criticism in art. I found it extremely informative and I liked that we were given some structure and theory around how to critique artwork. I hadn't considered that there would be theory behind criticism, and I really look forward to being able to give more nuanced feedback on people’s work going forward. I’m really excited to read the theory that was mentioned in the lecture, particularly “ever green review by Susan Sontag”. I really enjoyed critiquing my object after the lecture, and I found it a really good way to practice using the information I had just learnt. One of the things I did struggle with was the group work in the seminar, as I didn’t know how to share an image of my object I was talking about, and the other people in my group weren’t very talkative which made it more difficult.

Friday 23rd Oct

I liked the style symposium and I feel I learnt a lot from it. I really enjoyed seeing so many different people’s ideas about what makes style. The idea that style should be a constantly evolving thing, that grows and changes as you do, and is a reflection of your own obsessions and world view really struck me. I found the lecture very enriching and interesting, but I struggled to keep focus for such a long period, and I found myself being slightly overwhelmed by the quantity of new information that I was receiving in a short space of time. I think this probably has a lot to do with the fact I’m finding it difficult to concentrate now that I’m working from home.