OUIL402 Personal and Professional Practice - End of Module Self Evaluation

Leeds College of Art BA (Hons) ILLUSTRATION	Level	04
OUIL402 Personal and Professional Practice	Credits	20
End of Module Self Evaluation

NAME	Alice Dear
Through this brief I have developed my analysis, reflection and evaluation skills.  I have effectively applied these when analysing practitioners work and when reflecting and evaluating my own. I have also developed my research skills, effectively applying them when searching for illustrators or other creatives and when researching into my own projects; such as my geisha project which I knew nothing about beforehand and really enjoyed researching in depth into the subject and the topic of Japanese art as a whole. It also helped my develop my skills in image making after finding out what effects I liked best in other practitioners work; which supported me in finding an area of personal interest within programme specific creative practices by introducing appropriate principles, practices and resources. It also helped me to develop skills in identifying and developing areas of creative interest through practical investigation and contextual research. Finally, it helped me to develop individual communication skills through programme specific practical and contextual research, development and presentation.
I have developed an approach/method to image making in this brief that is mainly water colour and fine liner based. This is because this method capitalises in my love for detail but also the paint helps me to venture away from reference and imbue my own tone of voice. Throughout this module I have learnt about how illustration is a process of visual communication that aims to translate, enhance, or clarify content through the use of images, pictures and symbols; which has helped to inform my concept development process as I have thought a lot more about symbols and meaning behind elements in my illustrations. This module has taught me to approach my illustrations as an ongoing examination between the dynamics of personal exploration and professional practice. Looking at professional practice always gives you something to strive for and inspiration to fuel your work. This module has also helped me develop my tone of voice as it has given me time to research and evaluate the other practitioners and art work that I like, notice what it is I like about it, and how I can approach these factors in my own work.
One of my strengths, I think, is that I developed a body of work that reflected my experiences in level 4 Illustration and my emerging interest as an illustrator in Studio brief 2 ‘The Illustrated Self’ well. I focussed on colour, detail, and portraiture/human form, aspects that I have learnt I love best in illustration throughout the year. I will continue to work with these elements but push them more, I tend to stay safe with university work but I want to explore more unrealistic colours and paint techniques so that they have a much more creative edge. I also think I have developed a body of work in response to a defined brief that effectively demonstrates an awareness of my own practice in relation to others, as I have consistently been looking at my peers and professional illustrators work throughout the year. I will continue to do this but I think I will study some particular illustrators and go more into depth so that I can take in what I can learn from them instead of being overwhelmed by many different illustrators. I also think I have used appropriate communication skills to record and present my emerging practice, when evaluating, documenting and researching on my blog.
Presenting is definitely my top weakness. In my presentation I drew together examples of contemporary illustration and related them to the development of my work however I could have summarised my experiences throughout level 4 more.  My main weakness in this brief was presenting to an audience as I am not very confident speaking to a room full of people. I will address this in future by practicing my delivery as much as possible so I get used to it and know my script/subject off by heart. I also think my personal work is trapped by working too closely to reference. I will address this in future by planning out before hand what parts I will need to use reference for so that I do not end up basing the entirety of the illustration on the reference image. I also need to plan composition and layout a lot more before starting to produce the illustration. I will need to go back to drawing thumbnails of compositions to see the potential that my illustration could have if it was laid out effectively.
I will rehearse and practice my presentation a lot more and think about not just the content but how to keep the audience’s attention by making it entertaining. I will also go into depth when looking at an artist; I often get too distracted by many different artists yet if I just focus on one mainly I will probably learn more about how to improve my own practice. I will make my final resolution with a more dynamic layout/composition. I think it looks too cluttered and not finished/professional enough. I will practice converting all my research into a visual form as concisely but accurately as possible; sometimes I research so much but then when it comes to drawing I just rely on a reference image instead of imbue-ing all of my previous research into my illustration. I will practice different methods of image making more, unfortunately due to time scale for our brief I found myself sticking to what I knew however for the exhibition work I will be experimenting with different media more to give a more interesting and varied appearance.
6.How would you grade yourself on the following areas: (please indicate using an ‘x’)  5= excellent, 4 = very good, 3 = good, 2 = average, 1 = poor
		1	2	3	4	5
Attendance						/
Punctuality					/
Motivation					/
Commitment						/
Quantity of work produced					/
Quality of work produced					/
Contribution to the group					/
The evaluation of your work is an important part of the assessment criteria and represents a percentage of the overall grade. It is essential that you give yourself enough time to complete your written evaluation fully and with appropriate depth and level of self-reflection. If you have any questions relating to the self-evaluation process speak to a member of staff as soon as possible.