Visual Narratives - End of Module Evaluation

Theoretically, I really liked this project, having the opportunity to leave the studio and visit somewhere new to actively pursue stories, collecting information and source material; the excitement of stumbling upon valuable material is quite addictive. I love the engagement with life and the world around me that comes with journalism and enjoyed building my confidence in approaching strangers, meeting new people and trying to tell their stories through my work. The thing that challenged me the most was translating what I discovered into engaging work that does the stories justice, because no matter how good the story is, the execution of them is paramount to the success of the work. I don't think that I told the stories I discovered particularly well, the resulting work ending up quite vague and subtle in it’s message, perhaps leading to the downfall of my project and intended aim. This was probably due to a lack of experimentation with my responding work, adopting comfortable and ‘safe’ approaches to image making instead in an attempt to tell a more conceptual story. However, because the final story lacks clarity, this investment of energy was perhaps misplaced. 

I believe part of the reason why my response to this brief was somewhat limited was due to a large dip in my motivation and confidence in my work around christmas time. I started doubting my abilities and my nature as an image maker, leading to over-thinking and anxiety regarding my practice. Talking to a tutor helped with this and adopting a more relaxed mindset about my work, something which I am still in the process of improving and implementing into my practice. For the next project I am setting myself limits with my image making, forcing me to be more creative and loose, allowing myself to make more mistakes in the pursuit of pushing my practice further. I think I should also make an effort to blog about these feelings more too, because getting them out helps to process them properly.

Contextual research was slightly limited in this project, but the work of David Lemm was very inspiring in my thinking surrounding symbols and meaning within diagrams. Non-representational drawing is something I would like to explore further to move away from my current approach to illustrating. I am interested in translating non-physical things into drawings, such as the feelings of a place, or the idea of a journey.

I hope to make more work that involves going outside of the studio, gathering inspiration from the real world, the people in it and the stories present in our everyday. This approach to gathering source material will inherently make my work more interesting and engaged, allowing me the opportunity to immerse in what I am creating. Thinking less and doing more will also aid my progress as an image maker; thinking is something I always want to develop and is usually the thing people pick up on in my work, but I strongly believe there is either a balance between thinking and doing, or they are just entirely different practices, meaning I need to develop my ‘doing’ practice to match my thinking. One can easily cripple the other and I need to make an effort to stop letting this happen. 

Visual Narratives - Final Book

I have mixed feelings regarding my final book...

I like how it came out, I think it is interesting and abstract/subtle in it's message. The diagrams and symbols work seamlessly together, creating a unique way of telling a story through what look like mechanical drawings. I love the idea of that story then being almost hidden within a map based on a map of the new multi-fuel project, something which is almost happening in real life; the problems and stories of the people effected are being overshadowed and hidden by a project that is seemingly positive and progressive. 
I also love having a finished, physical manifestation of my work to finish off a project, to be able to hold a book that I have seen from start to finish. I want to make a lot more books in the future.

However, I am not overly-happy or proud of it. Yes it's interesting and engaging and 'good', but it isn't amazing. It doesn't excite me that much, I don't feel like I've really pushed myself and exceeded my abilities in making it. And I'm not entirely sure why, I don't really know what got lost in the process of this brief, but I have some ideas:

• I just wasn't exhaustive enough (or at all?) with the processes and approaches to this project. I feel like I just came up with a way I knew I could execute the story in a book form, without really going beyond my usual way of working, and then just ran with that in order to answer the brief.
• I didn't immerse myself enough in the work. I didn't reflect enough or do enough or think enough. 
• Or maybe I was thinking, but thinking too much? That is a common problem within my practice. The thinking - doing ratio is perhaps a bit unbalanced. 

Aesthetically speaking, the watercolours are too small within my compositions. They get totally lost and they look out of place and random within the diagrams. Considering they are the most charming part of the work, they should have gotten more real estate. This problem was due to a lack of planning and roughing and making dummies for the layout.

I feel like every brief is a battle of time. I feel like with a deadline in mind, I tend to stick to what I know to create work that answers the brief, but doesn't push me as an illustrator or thinker or image maker. I get worried about creating nothing good within the time limit, so I go back to old approaches which I am comfortable with and know will work to a degree, even if they are boring and predictable and not very exciting.

This is a struggle, but one I am willing to persevere with.

Visual Narrative - Style Conflict

Why is it so difficult to work in new ways, and so easy to fall back on what you know you can do, the way you've always worked? Is it fear of failure? Is it simply not knowing how to make that change? Is it lack of confidence in your ability to change?

I have been very conscious recently when creating my book that the work I am making is somewhat very similar to the work I have always made; black fine liner, intricate detail. It's how I know how to work, and despite it being technically tiring and difficult, I am comfortable with this way of working, a reason perhaps why I find it so difficult to not work in this way.

HOWEVER,
I do feel that for this specific project, this approach was appropriate and considered. My book's aesthetics aim to reflect that of the map I found at Ferrybridge, which is all black, detailed mechanical drawings. It would not have been appropriate to use loose brush work for example.
Also the work that I was making for this project was an attempt to challenge myself, to tell a story of a place in an abstract and subtle way and to devise a diagrammatic system for a narrative. Although I may not have fully exhausted this idea or succeeded totally in what I set out to do, the intention for challenge was there.

Change

Something I am very keen to change is my approach to image making, that is why I am here and that is what I am ultimately keen to learn, explore and develop throughout this course. I am going to make a concentrated effort to push this and stick to this with all further projects.

To do this, in the next brief I am going to:

• NOT touch a fine liner,
• NOT pencil out drawings before I execute them,
• use techniques other than drawing, 
• approach the work and the ideas abstractly, visually and conceptually, in a way that I have never before.

I need to stick to my rules and make a change. I need to excite myself again in image making and really push what I am doing.

I NEED to hear 'that's not very you' more and more and more. 

Visual Narratives - Post-Tutorial, outcome plan

After a very positive and invaluable tutorial, I am set on a direction for my book and have started producing more specific work towards it, some of which being final artwork.

The overall idea for the work for my book is a network of diagrammatic symbols, images and illustrations, most of which drawn loosely from my found map, the others the symbols depicting the stories of the people I met, also including the watercolour 'postcards' of the village. The idea is basically to take the compositions I was previously doing in squares outside the confines of their outlines and into a more map-like composition, spanning out from the watercolour paintings. This way the two aesthetics work nicely together and have an interesting relationship on the same page.

Here are a couple of sketched out plans for the pages. I love how all the separate elements fit together and work as one whole, and the story of the place can almost be traced and followed along the lines and shapes within the diagrams. The quotes also fit nicely and give relief from the busy, line heavy structures of the pages.

I have also decided on a concertina format for my final book, liking how the final product will be able to be folded out and looked at as a whole, like a map would. also I feel like it makes sense to do them that way allowing the stories and images to flow onto different pages and all weave together and become one story of the whole place. 

Visual Narratives - Watercolour

Perhaps in direct contrast to the square compositions I was creating, I started making these watercolour landscapes of Ferrybridge based on the photos that I took whilst on my research trips.

Is it a good painting? Is it effective? Does it even tell a story or communicate an idea?

I think it is maybe more subtle in it's message. I don't think it is at all a good painting, I am by no means a painter and don't consider myself in the slightest talented at painting. But I think watercolour is a nice medium to use for a brief about personal stories; I think it can be a 'soft' medium, it isn't aggressive or too bold or graphic. It also reminds me of old paintings of the British countryside and towns and villages in them.

I have a few problems though, on top of the fact that I don't consider my paintings too be at all accomplished.

• They do not work with my square compositions at all, they have a totally different tone of voice and aesthetically shouldn't really be featured next to each other.
• These paintings are maybe too figurative and obvious as images. I wanted to try and explore looser and more abstract approaches with this brief, HOWEVER I feel like other briefs in the future may be more suited to abstract results. 
• I don't have enough reference images to paint 12 different paintings, and my book would be ineffective as just a collection of paintings, as it wouldn't tell the story of the place that I want it to. The issue I am trying to communicate may not be present well enough in these images.

One thing I could do to solve the latter problem, would be to draw the power station in a different medium to the houses, to show the contrast between the place and the people and how the station has effected them (the above painting is not finished due to this reason). 

Visual Narratives - Square Compositions

Inspired by a few of David Lemms' pieces, I think square compositions can be really effective. Especially when working with symbols, giving them a frame or a boundary is a good way of arranging and organising them effectively.

These are definitely my best outcomes regarding the symbols work. Are they really that different to my previous work though? That is something I am currently battling with the answer to. What I do like is how, especially the top two, look a bit folk arty, and remind me of old train monikers for some reason. Maybe its taking images and simplifying them into a story evokes that sense of folklore and mysterious narratives. 

I like these but I don't really know how successful they really are. I feel like they may need something to make them more engaging in the way they are created. What that is, however, I still don't know. 

Visual Narratives - Symbols Developed

This is the first thing that has actually turned out half decent with potential from working with symbols. It isn't amazing nor is it grossly different from the previous symbol work I was doing, but drawing this, something clicked.

Despite what I previously said regarding tessellation, there's something about this composition that I like, with all the problems and stories associated with the power station trickling down from it, a metaphorical representation of what is happening in real life. The elements fit nicely together, even if the layout is particularly boring and samey.

I did want to stop working with fine liners and pens as I really overuse them in my work and need an opportunity to break free from them and try something else. Inspired by some of David Lemm's prints, I wanted to explore textures, by stencilling out my symbols with painting. 

I really really love the chimney, it is so tactile and is way more engaging and interesting than a simple line drawing. The others are a mix of results, the shield not working at all really, despite being appealing texturally. I don't know if these particularly are going to work within my final book, but I feel like textures are something to definitely consider and play around with more. 

Visual Narratives - Symbols

To push myself with this brief I wanted to try and pair down and simplify everything I was doing, to prevent me from getting too caught up in making similar work to the past and something that could be very predictable; for example figurative drawings of the town and the people.
The idea of making symbols and telling a story through them stuck with me, and a more graphic, design approach intrigued me to push what I was creating.

These initial drawings left me feeling a bit flat, but I knew there was some potential with them. The challenge of taking an idea or a work or a concept and simplifying it to a few lines and shapes is a tricky one and something I really want to try and push in the future. The fact that a whole story can be told in a few lines is exciting.

Visual Narrative - responding to research

To start producing work for my book, I initially drew out some of the symbols on the map I had found. I like the fact that they are purely functional, practical and mechanical, yet they can look so aesthetically appealing and interesting. The symmetry and order of them is really interesting, and the textures and tones built up with the uniformed lines makes it as if they are artistic images, rather than mechanical ones.

Tessellating these symbols with other drawings from my trips and observations turned out fairly boring and uninspiring though. I feel like a typographic layout can be predictable and the easy option, something I did not want to pursue. 

What I do like is the way that taking certain things out of context and putting them next to the symbols almost changes the way they are read. For example the pylon and a part of a pylon on the left become simple symbols, rather than representational drawings.

Vis Language - Photoshop

I struggle with digital work. I don't know what changes when an image goes from being on a piece of paper in front of me to being on a screen, but something in that transition I manage to lose the ability to make a good image. I don't really understand how to create something visually successful when working on photoshop, beyond simply touching up my analogue drawings; something which I consider myself okay at when working with my hands on paper.
Maybe it is just inexperience, or ignorance, or the fact that there are so many possibilities with the software that it simply becomes crippling, but for whatever reason I didn't really enjoy making these edits of my brush and ink drawings as a result.

I wouldn't say I'm particularly hap[p[y with any of the outcomes I produced, but I did learn more about photoshop just having the opportunity to mess about and experiment to see what things did what on the software. One thing I couldnt seem to manage was making my images look less 'flat', and like they were literally just drawings scanned in. I think one of the successes of artists who can effectively employ digital techniques in their work is that they look seamless and natural, harmonious with the medium they were created with. This is something mine really seem to lack. 

On the second to last image I did manage to discover an interesting technique though, where You can create a pattern by selecting an area of your drawing, and then photoshop recreates that, tiling it together. This could be used to make some interesting textures and surfaces with which to work on and use within a piece. 

Although I do wish to broaden my abilities with photoshop, and can appreciate it's uses and successes as a way of making and pushing work further, and although I would never write it off completely, I can just never see it replaces analogue processes within my work.

Visual Narratives - 'The Picture Book', Proposal of Ideas

Being brutally honest, the ratio of work to rest over the christmas break was slightly out of balance, to say the least, meaning visual narratives didn't quite get the amount of attention it needed. But considering one of my resolutions is 'meaningful work & intentional rest', being back in uni is the perfect opportunity to realign that balance and focus more on the latter. 

In regards to my picture book and visual narratives project, I have an idea of which direction I want my work to go, but it's just finding the way to explore and communicate that effectively from now to the finished book.

I want my work to:

• tell the story of Ferrybridge power station, exploring the issues surrounding it and the fact that there are problems with the production and consumption of electricity in this country,
• tell the story of the people in the village, the lives the station has impacted and the consequences of the changes for the locals,
• present a personal and human side to the issue of energy, how the power station has influenced people's lives,
• show the side to the issue that is rarely addressed, that some positive changes for the environment can have negative impacts on people, present the fact that issues always have multiple sides and knock on effects. 

Saying this, I really don't want to create a book that is illustrated but bombards with facts, is full of written stories or prose about the issues explored, or contains dry information on the topic. Instead I want my book to be more subtle, to present the stories in an interesting and engaging way, but more in the tone of voice and feelings of the images, as opposed to factually written accounts accompanied by images. I want the book to be able to serve as a visually appealing object, but with the story of the place and it's people weaved carefully into it. 

I would love to take this brief as an opportunity to create more abstract and evocative work that is more subtle in it's meaning; something that I did start to try and explore previously with this project but perhaps didn't really succeed at just yet. I want to push that side of my practice and move away from more figurative and obvious approaches.