Evaluation

Throughout the practice unit the main part I enjoyed was concentrating on creating detailed illustrations. Although I think that they were successful as drawings I found it very difficult in the development process to be able to create designs for a fashion outcome. Towards the second half of the practice unit I realised this and my work became very illustration led as apposed to designing for clothing. Because of this I really wanted to try something different in my unit x work. I made the decision that I no longer wanted to work with fashions or fabric and focused my practice on my paper based illustration skills. During the unit x project, I found not only illustrating a book but writing my own book to illustrate very interesting an engaging. I feel that by writing it myself from scratch really let my creativity out and I was able to have full control over my own work. However, I feel because I spent so long in the initial process by writing and designing at the same time. This may have inhibited my time that I could have used to create more samples. Although I feel I could have tested out more processes I think that it was important to spend my time developing and perfecting my story. During the project I felt like I gained a lot of new skills especially developing my digital drawing skills. Before starting this project, I had never used the paper print room which is something I regret not doing earlier as I really enjoy this way of working and think this technique really suits my style of working. To make the book I have created more special and selective I chose to hand paint each page. This was one of my favourite parts of the unit as each one is unique.

If I was to do this project again my main aim would be to manage my time better to ensure that I give my self long enough to explore each part of the project as I go. I feel that I may have spent longer on some aspects that I did others which overall had a knock on affect at each stage of my project. I am disappointed that I didn’t have a chance to get some laser cut paper samples ready in time for hand in. Although I am looking forward to going in and creating some samples ready to assemble my final outcome for the degree show. I would also try and be more experimental with techniques and processes that I have used as I feel I stick to my own safe drawing style. This is something that I aim to work on in the future to help push my practice to the best of my ability.

Overall I am pleased with the outcome of my project and I have surprised myself by all of the new skills and techniques I have learned. I feel that by making the initial decision to stick to paper printing and not designing for fashion is one of the best decisions I could have made throughout this project. Especially that I made the choice fairly quickly meant I didn’t waste any of my time trying out different media.