Evaluation

Overall I don’t think I excelled in this module for many reasons. There were parts I enjoyed and parts that were almost torturous but mostly my attitude towards the work effected my performance in the end.

  Since COP was such a long module and was mostly on the back burner due to the constant demand and urgency of other projects, I ended up doing a lot less for it than I would’ve liked to. Throughout the year I have been a little negligent with tasks and sessions because there was always something more pressing to be done at the time. I started to get behind and never really got the chance to catch up, which wasn’t helped by various poorly timed instances of illness.

 If I were to do this module again I would make sure to complete study tasks when they are set or they will slip my mind. The work was usually there or I had benefited from it in someway but it’s less formally presented than would be ideal.

 The practical element I had great confusion and some trouble with. I struggle usually to invent a project with no existing stimulus, and I never tend to make work that has anny social political or cultural comment or involvement. None of the things I make are particularly serious or poignant so to think of a project from nothing about something of that nature is something of a nightmare for me. When I eventually decided what direction to go in (analogue and digital materials) I spent a long time refining the idea and thus ended up with less time to make and develop the product. Even so I allowed three times as long as last year.

 I am almost satisfied with what I produced but a lot of the drawings inside it I am discontented with. I think a lot of it looks rushed and I didn’t get to explore the topic in as much detail as I would have liked. Were I to do this project again the first thing I would try would be to make my own paints and tools for the earlier pages to paint the items with. I think this would make it more interesting because it would be a physical demonstration of the capabilities of these old tools. I would also include more pages, time frames, tools and landmark inventions. Constraints of time meant I had to keep a limited amount of pages and I even had to omit two proposed pages from the book at the last minute. These were continuations of the tools timeline into the future wherein I would predict where digital tools are to take us. The first of the two was to be a Photoshop tool bar (essentially another toolbox) with additional icons that don’t yet exist, and the latter an image of a brain operated drawing machine that would call on my earlier research into drawing machines, as I think they have a greater but unpredictable potential. I don’t think my book is missing these pages but it would have been nice to try them out.

 The written aspect of the module was the most difficult because, as much as I used to excel in school at essay writing, it’s a skill I seldom put to use and have thus lost. I struggled a lot with my chosen topic because, as far as I can find after rather extensive research, there are very few writings, let alone academic writings, on the topic of digital illustration and it’s comparative value. I think its because it’s something that has only gained popularity and recognition in more recent years so there are not yet many texts published on it. Alas there are many digital artists voicing their love of digital art informally on blogs but these are hardly enough to build a structured academic essay around. The few I found were very useful but limited in their information. Maybe I should try again in a few years and give the academics chance to catch up and write some articles for me to reference.

  A lot of things went badly with this module but there were some successes. I think there’s a strong synthesis between my two projects as they’re very related and the book perhaps backs up the essay somewhat, despite it being about different time eras. I’m happy with some of the drawings I made throughout the module, like the tracing paper drawings from the museum trip and some of the more focused tool studies in my book. I enjoyed experimenting with materials in the book, particularly the thick gouache painting I did because often I forget to try new things, or lack the time and reasoning.

  Next year COP will have to take more of an active role for me because of the dissertation element, so third time lucky, maybe I will finally allow myself enough time to get the results I want this time around.