OUIL505 Summative Evaluation

This module got off to a promising start, I was excited to start researching and do something I was really interested in. I started off thinking about space and stars but quickly changed to greek mythology as I thought this would have more scope for exploration. In hindsight, I think it might have actually been better to stick to my guns and do something space themed and mould it to fit into what I enjoy doing. I often struggle with deciding what I want to do at the beginning of a project with as much freedom as this as I find it hard to refine my ideas and end up trying to blend too much stuff together rather than choosing one starting point - for example I did think about trying to blend greek mythology and space (NO). This has always been a problem of mine in different aspects, I really need to learn how to narrow down my ideas.


This could have been the best project of the year and something to have fun with but because of how I went around it it ended up probably being my worst work. None of the work I made has been good. I don't think any of it's been bad, it's just all painfully mediocre. On the plus side this has emphasised how much I need to work on crafting in the future and dedicating time to doing something rather than thinking "this will do" because I want to make work that's GOOD and I won't if I keep falling into these routines of procrastination and rushing. Because of my terrible planning and time management I  didn't keep up with anything well, which lead my blogging to be unsubstantial and not terribly reflective and I didn't visually exhaust each idea I had. I had a few different ideas that kept flitting around still within Greek mythology and how I was going to modernise it, I couldn't settle on anything. I got caught up in the beginning thinking about the area I had chosen (book design and publishing) rather than just on my project, but then when I finally focused on the project I couldn't figure out what I was doing. I realise I should have decided on a final 'product' much earlier than I did, it was a real flaw in my thinking of this whole module.

I thought that keeping my options open was a good plan but it wasn’t. It’s like setting a dissertation question, the more focused you are the better. If I had been more focused with a goal in mind I think that I would have been able to really get stuck in and exhaust good ideas.

Despite the fact that I think this project has totally bombed I am glad that I have made these mistakes and been able to realise them NOW rather than at Level 6. I think the realisations that I have made will make it easier for me to set manageable and focused briefs in the future which will hopefully in turn allow me to work on my crafting more. I’m finding that generally my ideas are sound but as I said before fine crafting is something I would definitely like to improve. This was definitely a module of realisations. I don’t know why I’ve made all these realisations so late on in the year but as I said better now than halfway through level 6.

This has been another module where I have learned more about making mockups. My mockups are still not incredible but I definitely feel as if I am getting more proficient with digital media. The mockups still give quite a good impression of what the designs would look like on a real product, which could be shown to clients to show that the work would be viable as a product. I was happy that I was still able to incorporate my new found enjoyment in creating patterns during this module, I am still really enjoying it too. I just find it so fun and satisfying to see a pattern come together.

 

As ever time management has been a problem, as I have been busy trying to finish all the work I have not been able to go down to learning support to get help for this yet, but I am definitely going to get onto that for level 6 and over summer. As I am becoming increasingly aware of how much my time management problems are indeed impacting upon my work. I usually thought well I always get the work finished and in on time so it doesn’t matter, I am wrong It does matter because I’m not reaching my full potential because I’m not giving myself enough time to make the standard of work that I should be!

OUIL505 Project Report

Presentation Boards

Megacrit - 05/05/16

Feedback:

• "I'mma let you finish, but Amber has the best repeat pattern of all time!"
• Fun times
• Fun concept and merging of old world colour palettes and textures with contemporary compositions and style makes it viable
• so so nice as final drawings - texture is incredible
• excellent mockups
• great mockups, research has clearly been taken
• vase on a vase on a vase on a t-shirt
• iron on patches? prints? postcards?

I hadn't managed to get together real boards, just my final images and mockups so there couldn't be any feedback for boards. Some of this feedback made me feel a lot better about my project because I'm pretty disappointed with what I've made, not because it's bad but just because I definitely don't think I allowed myself to reach my full potential with this. I find that people picked up on what I was trying to do here and at least found it funny if nothing else. 

Some Mockups

I applied the designs I made to t-shirts and tote bags which I think looks pretty successful, it reminds me of when people have t-shirts with a stupid slogan on them. It's funny.

For a bit of fun I also applied one to a vase, inspired by this Joy Division T-shirt T-shirt, which I just find so funny.

I have been getting more and more into repeat patterns so thought as an extra bit of fun I'd make a repeating pattern out of the vases. I quite like it, though you can't see the designs on them very well. If the consumer was familiar with the imagery then they might be interested in it, as they would know what it is but other people would have to give it a second look. Almost like  a hidden meaning. 

I'm more pleased with my imagery now that I see it on a mockup, it definitely could still be technically better but the idea holds up and I'm growing to like it.

I've been going the long way around making my mockups because I can't get my head around the ones where you edit a smart object, I just like to make life difficult for myself by skewing and resizing everything. Fortunately these ones have been more simple to do. I think my mockup skills are improving but I need to work on getting higher res images to create mockups on!

Jason Derulo and the Argonauts

(NOTE THIS ISSUU POST IS FLAGGED AS POTENTIALLY UNSAFE, IT MIGHT NOT BE VIEWABLE IF YOUR SETTINGS ARE ON SAFE MODE) The important thing is that I got it done. The final paintings I did were not as technically good as I would have liked. In the end I decided on using acrylic because it was the quickest and easiest way for me to make this imagery, I got flat colour out of it too. I would have used gouache but I had problems with going over the black background with the orange, as gouache becomes wet again so they would mix a little. Plus I did these paintings a little bigger, on just about A3 paper so I wanted to use a paint that would stretch further and I could use a lot of.

I tried to simplify the moments I chose which were; Britney Spears shaving her head, Shia Laboeuf's JUST DO IT, Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift at an award ceremony and Kim Kardashians Break the Internet image. I wanted the images to look more in that greek style than my previous ones so I tried to distort the shapes of the body and poses so that they looked more like this. I noticed in the Greek pottery almost everyone is facing the side, so I made all the faces profile's rather than doing any 3/4 or front on views. I think the effect gets across but I know this is not as neat as it could have been, if I had been able to dedicate more time to this I would have liked to have refined them more, or done more practice of this in my sketchbook but alas I messed up.

With some digital trickery I managed to create some almost acceptable final images. Of course I'm not as thrilled with them as I could be but given the amount of stress this entire project has been I'm quite pleased with what I managed to throw together.

I used Ben's advice and applied the images to a vase shape which I think pulls everything together a lot better as it brings a sense of unity to all the images, as well as framing the central piece. By digitally enhancing the images I was able to get a more opaque colour on each scene, and also add some texture, which was some lino textures I had made in a previous project. I think the texture is one of my favourite things about these pieces as it gives an aged look to the vases and also stops the pieces looking digitally made, I love having traditional elements in my work as I'm finding when I make work that looks truly digital it doesn't have the same feel as a majority of my work.

I  propose these images as a post-card book kind of thing, and was wondering what to call it. A friend suggested "Gash of the Titans" but I felt that this didn't really relate to the subject too much. Molly then said "Jason Derulo and the Argonauts" which I thought was really funny! So I decided to do an extra piece that could be a front cover for this hypothetical book. The image I referenced for it was something that went viral saying Jason Derulo fell down the stairs at the Met Ball (it wasn't actually him but he is still associated with the image, and since this is focused on pop culture it seemed appropriate). I struggled a lot with positioning the text as I did want it to have the same layout as the other images, but as there was a lot more text this was just not possible. I tried having "Jason Derulo" at the top but this just looked as if that was an author name. In the end I did have to change the format of the image and make the vase smaller, which I think would definitely work as a cover and gives a bit of variation.

The text is something that I think is successful, again it could have been executed a bit better but I think the way it has a hand-drawn element suits my the tone of the images. The mock-ancient greek style of it also suits the style of the images.

Some problems I have with my final pieces other than the technical painting skills and such are the fact that I think that I have almost done the opposite of what I intended to do with this project. My initial proposal stated that I wanted to modernise Greek mythology, focusing on the Gods, and I've ended up... bringing pop culture back into a Greek style rather than the other way around. I didn't really realise as I was doing it but I would have preferred to still include the Gods in the imagery, like the Gods as the celebrities like I had drawn Aphrodite AS Kim Kardashian whereas these final images, it's just Kim Kardashian drawn in a Greek style. There are so many elements of the project that just got lost along the way because of my bad time management and I am disappointed with myself because of it.

Oh Boy

I am really quite behind, like bordering on dangerously far behind. 

I really messed up on all sense of time management so far and have to get some more fully realised images by Thursday!

The good news is I have been working on it today, I'm managing to crank out the basis of images and think I will definitely be able to develop it tomorrow in time for my print slot on Thursday. So that's a little bit of a relief, kind of. 

If there's one thing this module has taught me it's to dear GOD sort out my time management, it's too late now in regards to modules but I'm definitely going to seek help from learning support for summer and Level 6. 

One of the biggest struggles was deciding which celebrity moments to go for because they had to be recognisable, so iconic moments.

A shortlisted selection were; Kim Kardashian - break the internet, Britney Spears shaving her head, Lady GaGa's Meat Dress, Nicki Minaj Anaconda, Janet Jackson's nip slip, Charlie Sheen, Shia LaBoeuf : Just Do it or I'm not famous anymore, Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke Twerking, Danny Devito's Limoncello, Kanye and Taylor Swift

I thought the images might get a bit distored and not quite capture the likeness of the celebs so I decided to put a line of text on each one to clarify the moment. I thought I could make this a mock- ancient greek style text that's all angular to link it to the ancient greek aesthetic of it all.