Hopes, Fears and Opportunities.

Hopes

In my post from last semester I discussed how I hoped to gain better Photoshop and Illustrator skills so I could use these to create my surface design patterns and edit my work with them. I am very pleased to say that I have achieved this as I used the Christmas holidays to practice a lot on Photoshop and Illustrator just having fun experimenting with my scanned in drawings. I feel I have come on heaps with these skills since the start of this year and am glad I took people advise when I was told to 'play around and teach myself' as I think this is one of the best ways to learn through trial and error. I have used my skills to create nearly all of my designs by scanning in my drawings and sketchbook work into Photoshop to make patterns and layer my drawings up with backgrounds to make finished designs. Another hope for me was to come out of my sketchbook and work on a larger scale taking my textured work onto my final designs. I have done this as I have made larger textured backgrounds to then screen print my designs onto. Also I have scanned in some of my work and layered my sketchbook work behind it which I was asked to do last semester. Another hope of mine was to progress in my work and get it to a more professional standard that I have seen in the 3rd years degree shows before me, I think I have progressed a lot with my standard of work and have been told by others that my work has improved a lot in this last semester. I feel there is still room for improvement and I am hoping that the more work I produce with practise I will finally hit my goal target one day. I have improved on my way of thinking of how to put designs onto products coming up with a list of ideas that my final designs could be out onto e.g. canvas bags, t shirts (fashion), plates, greetings cards, wallpaper and single wall art pieces. I am happy to have achieved my hopes from last semester and feel it has helped me to achieve a goal by having something to work towards and look back on from writing his post last year.

Fears

One of my fears of last semester was my time management for my major project as I struggled a little with it at the end of last few weeks of the last semester. I feel I have managed to stay on track with my work for this project through setting myself goals in my diary and planning things ahead and moving on when I have scheduled myself to. I think that my researching this project through the Christmas holidays benefitted me greatly as I felt I was a little ahead of schedule and got an important part of the project out of the way quickly but still achieved enough amount of research that was needed. It also gave me a heads start on my drawing and meant that I had extra time to spend longer on my drawing, which I think was needed for me as I sometimes struggle to be satisfied with my drawing skills. I am pleased that I have stayed on track with this fear and managed to conquer which has lead me to be less worried and panicky and enabled me to put all of my energy in creating my work to the best of my ability without as much stress. Also I have been quite strict with how I managed my time by limiting my hours with my job outside of college and staying in at weekends to make sure I put my work first. My second fear was finishing the course and feeling like I have no achieved all that I could and feeling like I could have worked a lot harder and not done enough. I feel this fear has now gone as although there is always room for improvement I can honestly say that I feel I have really pushed myself in this final semester and have produced some of my best work that I am happy with. I have worked extra hard and I think you can see it in my work I have produced. My final fear was that I would finish my course and not get a job with my qualification. I can not say if this is going to happen or not but I feel because my work has improved and i'm more happy and confident with my portfolio I will try harder at looking for a job and have more of a chance of getting one. I am hoping to gain a work placement first which will give me a feel of the working art world and set me off on the right track broadening my contacts.

Opportunities

An opportunity which I saw this last semester had to offer was being able to work around a subject matter that I have always wanted to and being able and being able to explore it however I wanted working in my own style. I feel I have made the most of this opportunity by doing lots of research and although my idea changed a bit I see this as a positive thing as I ended up happy with my final idea behind my work. I feel I have learnt quite a lot from my subject matter and became especially interested in the symbology side of my work. It has lead me to learn a lot and see things differently for example not just seeing the circle as a round shape but seeing the meaning in it and seeing how it can be transformed into art which can lead to a design with a meaning behind it. I think this opportunity of being able to explore my own subject matter has been a really positive thing for me as it was improved my confidence in my work because I enjoyed it and liked what I was doing, also although I struggled to find my feet at first I found a solid idea in the end which I was happy with and being interested enough to research thoroughly lead me to be able to talk confidently about it as I knew what I was talking about.