Where am I now?

10 things I have learnt about myself as an individual and a learner:
1. I feel that I am still leaving work quite last minute, even when I do make timetables; I find it hard to stick to them.

2. I find I am staying late after sessions more this term compared to last though, which has helped a lot with my work load as I find it difficult to work at home.

3. I don't think I do enough personal drawing, I would like to do more but I find it hard to juggle thinking about both uni and personal work.

4. I have been meaning to go to life drawing for a while, but I always have quite a lot of work to do on monday nights, but I will try and make it to a few sessions because it will definitely benefit my drawing.

5. I get ill a lot more here, need to look after myself better

6. In the past I found that what I was currently reading influenced my artwork quite a lot, but everything has been so full on since being here I haven't had a chance to read much, and would like to get back into reading as the genre of books I read often links to the subject matter I like to explore in my drawing. For example, J.G Ballard's 'High Rise' linked into work I was doing on brutalist architecture.

7. Although I have been here quite a few months now, I still don't feel I know Leeds very well and want to explore it more.

8. I used to be quite into photography, which I haven't done much since coming here but I think there is a lot I could be photographing that could feed into my illustration practise.

9. Have found it difficult juggling uni work, social life and domestic stuff, one always slips.

10. I need to try and budget my money better, have been running out too quickly.


10 things I have learnt about myself as an illustrator:
1. I feel I now know a lot more about illustration as a practise than I did when I first started; I didn't know about many illustrators and how broad it can be. But having so many practitioners come in and talk to us has definitely widened my knowledge.

2. I still don't feel very confident with photoshop, and I would like to be. Although I'm not particularly interested in creating entirely digital images, I want to be able to use it to my advantage on work I have created using analogue methods.

3. Although we have had inductions to the uni's facilities, I don't feel I have made the most of them, I think I should push myself more to try out methods I'm not confident with; like screen printing.

4. I want to follow more illustrators on blogs, websites etc. as it will keep me more up to date with illustration as a practise.

5. Since doing more research based briefs I have come to realise how much research manipulates the direction of a project. And I found the projects a lot more enjoyable if there is a bit more depth to it, so I will definitely try and do more primary and secondary research.

6. After doing visual language sessions based around composition it has made me think more about what I should consider when composing a piece.

7. After the last project we did I worked only with watercolour, and having that much time spent using one material I felt I really improved and now feel quite confident using it. So in future I will try focusing in on particular materials for a period of time so to improve.


8. Really enjoyed bookmaking, definitely want to try it out again.

9. I'm really liking the work of Sarah Maycock at the moment, her method of planning everything down to the brushstrokes is really effective.




10. I don't have a set style yet, I have experimented with a lot of different styles/methods/materials since starting.