BA2a has been the beginning of understanding my own creative practice. Even though the way in which I work has gradually been shaped by the briefs and my own independent work since year one, this year has really narrowed down my practice and have helped me discover my way of working. I have produced outcomes that vary in strength, reinforcing my understanding of illustration and what it really meant to bring narrative into context. Through trial and error, I have learnt many valuable lessons during this unit. However, despite the positive things this unit has brought into light about my own practice, there have been times where I have produced work that I have no interest in revisiting and I felt wasn't up to par with my other outcomes and there have been times I have found to be immensely challenging. All of these negative experiences serve as a lesson that slowly but gradually shaped my practice , my way of working and made clear where my interests lies. 

 

First in which, is to always have a reason for the way I work / the way in which I approach a topic. Throughout my practice I often find myself focusing more on the design aspects of the outcome and getting carried away hence, putting the conceptual side second and not giving it as much thought as it deserves . This problem often causes me a lot as I would often soon loose grips of what I am really trying to communicate within my work. However, because most briefs within BA2a were based on researching and contextual material, slowly I have begun to realise the importance of putting context behind my work . It was also the criticism from the individual tutorials however that really solidified and put the idea into perspective. It was my holiday task that really brought to light the importance of the reasoning behind my practice because we were briefed to create a booklet based on research that we have gathered. At first, I really struggled as I was not inspired enough by my research at the time. I decided to take a step back and approach the brief differently and instead of basing the task on research, I based the task on my experiences during the holidays. My practice usually consists of photo-realistic drawings and detailed watercolour paintings- this time however, I wanted to have fun with the task therefore I decided to use collaging. Even though I have dabbled into some collaging during my first year, I wouldn’t say that I was entirely comfortable with using collaging as a way of showing narrative. I wanted to challenge myself and use collages to tell little stories of my day to day activities. This task to me was one of the most valuable lesson as it has taught me to narrow down and edit my visual work and really focus on the reasons to which I am doing something. For example, I was having a particularly busy day of work and in order to represent that , I will produce a relatively busy collage with elements that distract your eyes from each other and overall overwhelm the person looking at the collages. 

 

Even though I have felt that my time throughout this unit was used a lot more efficiently , there were still certain areas where my time management could have been better used. During this unit, I felt that I would often get carried away in the experimenting process therefore leading to instances where the trial and error portion took longer than the producing of the work. For example, due to working with collages in project 4, I felt that I wanted to be very confident in collaging and therefore I often find myself producing too many which in hindsight, were all very visually repetitive with only the different being the colour of the paper and how it was torn. Therefore, my time used in creating essentially the same imagery over and over again would have been better used to further develop and edit down my existing collages into strong imagery that would better convey my narrative.

 

Another key factor that had hindered me from using my time to its full potential during Project 4 was myself coming up with ideas that were too ambitious. In the beginning of project 4, I have jumped from multiple ideas prior to choosing to continue further into my subject from my editorial for my final piece. This time of jumping back and fro between ideas has costed me weeks in which I could have used to research and really think about the ideas. I went through the process of moving between ideas as I always felt the need to impress and hence find a subject matter that will allow me to exhibit my techniques to their full potential, regardless of time. Therefore, in future projects, I would like to take the time given to me more in account when coming up with ideas in order to allow myself to be able to really explore the subject in depth within the span of time given.

 

If I were to complete this unit again, I do not think there will be much I would like to change. Looking back, I felt that my confidence in materials and level in conceptual thinking has grown greatly. I have begun to focus less on the visuals of my outcome and more on the ideas underlying it and have chosen techniques that I feel will lend perfectly in conveying the narrative. From collaging to photography, I now feel that I have a solid foundation in the techniques I have chosen to create narrative and I will be putting these techniques into use where I find appropriate in future briefs.

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