I was most looking forward to this project as illustration is the practice I struggle with the most. I find it difficult to draw from memory, get proportions right and be happy with my outcomes. The first day I gained an understanding of what the project was to achieve; to have lots of experimentation and end up with a personal illustration style.
I thought the workshops on the first day were helpful and successful. We were given different criteria during each individual draw such as focusing on a certain area of the body, the tempo of drawing, the media and influence of literature and music. These tasks were preformed in short time frames which I am beginning to enjoy as I prefer my outcomes when I am rushed compared to when I’m given too much time and over complicate my work. My most successful drawing from the first day of workshops was the layered drawing with different media, I especially liked when I used coloured pens to draw with.
The next workshop on Thursday I found slightly more challenging due to the alternating scales of the collage. I tried in this session to also elongate certain areas of the body and also found this difficult as it was hard to process that it was alright for it not to be in proportion. I would consider myself quite neat and a slight perfectionist so I had to get out myself out of old habits and try something new. To further this I needed to experiment even more and get more comfortable with things not looking ‘perfect’. During the days session we also created design boards and illustrated for a peers accessory. The design board exercise was helpful as it was good to get other peoples perspective on your work and also work with limitations as it produced successful outcome that otherwise would not have been created. Having a different item to work with and illustrate was also a informative task as it’s good to work with other elements that you haven’t created. Seeing others’ illustrations of my own accessory was also insightful as it eliminated my preconceived idea of the bag and how it would be positioned.
At the end of the project we were put into group crits. I find these crits beneficial as they are a good way to see what my peers have completed and how they work, this is usually eye opening as I see what I’m missing in my own sketchbook. The feedback I received was to not jump to pages without development to show how I got there because my experiments are interesting and can be furthered. I should also collage more and step out of comfort zone. I will do this by documenting work as I go along making sure to show how I got to my ideas and try drawing with alternating proportions which I am not very comfortable with; this I came across when collaging with different scaled heads, hands, feet and objects.
This project was not what I expected as instead of teaching how to draw in proportion it encouraged individual style and disproportionate figures. It has also helped me visualise the human body and how fabrics drape on the human body so it is easier to draw from memory. I’m still not 100% happy about my own style but I think this will come with time as I grow and tweek what I already think is successful which is my line drawings and the disproportionate head.
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