Year Evaluation

So the first year of this year has now (unofficially) passed. There has been many ups and downs throughout the year and this is my summary of the year so far. 

This current module has been a real struggle for me, I haven't really enjoyed it and only in the past week I've liked even any of my drawings which is a real shame as at the start of the academic year I felt like I was making so much progress and having so much fun whereas now I'm not. I definitely agree that I can overwork myself and pressurise myself too much but one of the biggest issues for me this year has been my time management- the academic side of the course isn't something I struggle to do (I enjoy writing and researching) however trying to do 20 weeks worth of work in 3 isn't efficient and put my drawing work to almost a full stop, meaning that in catching up with that side of things my narrative illustration fell way way behind.

I didn't feel inspired by much and was getting really disheartened with myself, I've lost a lot of confidence in my abilities and I think that this summer will be spent trying to win that back which hopefully won't take too long. I'm still not 100% happy with the illustrations I will be submitting for this module, I think I could have done better and that I've let myself down a bit, but I have really tried my best and the fact that I will be handing any drawings in at all is an achievement in itself (to me at least). In all honesty there will probably not be anymore blog posts for this module, I haven't been able to do the work I wanted this past weekend and so I'm still finishing artworks to hand in on Wednesday: however I am comforting myself with the fact (excuse?) that this year will not count towards my final grade, and I wholly acknlowedge the fact that it is due to my own shortcomings that I've suffered, especially again in regards to time management.

The first module was much more enjoyable as the focus was more on actually drawing in a much more relaxed way. It was something I didn't have to think about and this is why my drawings from there were so much better than the more recent ones. I think I've reached a good landmark with my still developing process though, as using digital means for this narrative illustration project is something I didn't expect to do. Even though I am veyr experienced in using digital media, for most of the year I've focused on traditional techniques and this result has encouraged me to be more open to try things I think might not work. The risk in changing my project so late definitely paid off; instead of having 10 drawings I really hate, I have 10 drawings I like that have gave me a starting point for defining my own style, which is something I was really stuck on. 

I have felt as though there was too much emphasis on finding a style to stick with in this first year, I was panicking that if I didn't find a style this year I would be struggling throughout the rest of the years in this course which is something I obviously wouldn't want. In the end I just thought 'sack it' and stopped thinking about trying to create a specific 'style', I just let my drawings speak for themselves. Another thing I realised is that perhaps my 'style' doesn't have to be an exact way of drawing- instead it could be a series of processes combined that produce the same feel as each other to make them recognisable as my work. 

This year has been a steep, steep learning curve but I think I have grown a lot as a person during this and that I can use this years experience to ensure these mistakes don't happen again, in education or in the industry. In September I will be coming into the building armed with an academic year planner and an armful of pencils and I'm going to throw myself into the work and really try to keep my head above the water.