Conclusion

I find it difficult to write a conclusion on this project when The deadline for the Presentation document is before the Degree Show. However, I will list my current thoughts and status.

Having had a tutorial form Ceri on Monday that left me incredibly stressed I am at a stage where my book is still in production. The majority of the images need to be altered in some way, so I am not at a point to say how I think my final piece has turned out.

The place I am at at the moment, I feel, is promising. I think with the adjustments Ceri Mentioned my narrative should reflect the perfect atmosphere I was trying to achieve, and I feel the images, once fully completed will be successful. As I said before though, I don't wish to speculate too much as they could be a complete disaster.

My thoughts on the writing of this blog are mixed. as previously mentioned, at first, I found it incredibly useful to organise my thoughts and look into my research. however, as the project moved on, I found I was spending more and more time trying to keep on top of uploading images and writing my thoughts and analysis of them. I feel that at only 20% of the final grade, the work load outweighs the outcome. I feel like I have spent as much time working on this presentation document as I have my Final Major Project. it is very difficult at time to articulate exactly what you were thinking at the time of producing something, and I feel a lot of my posts have been nothing but a stream of conciseness. Where as some of the posts may be insightful and informative, others are just confusing.

As a whole, we have had a lot of time to complete this project, but there have been so many other outside distractions, including the presentation document, that have left me stressed, confused and generally frustrated. I feel the amount of lectures and seminars we had to attend during this period was a little too much, and would probably have been better if they had been evenly distributed throughout the year.

The same goes for getting a portfolio together, I think it is something that should have been mentioned at the end of the second year and something that was created gradually, then, when we get to this point, all we have to do is drop in some of our latest and greatest images.

The self Promotion was a great exercise, but, as I mentioned before, I spent far too much time working on it and I feel that the early development of my final major project may have suffered for it. I think that if the self Promotion had been a part of the options project, it would have taken some of the load off for this one.

Lastly I would like to comment on how we have been fund raising for the London Show. I feel that the London show is very important, but there have been instances where organising, attending and coming up with ideas have taken over work on the project. I know that some other students who were very active at the begining of the term in fund raising felt that their projects suffered for it. At the end of the day, that was our choice to have a London show, so I can't really complain.

All in all, I have felt very stressed throughout the whole term. I appreciate that it is a stressful time for everyone, but I also feel that the work load has been incredibly large, with so many things to think about it has left me incredibly stressed to the point I am breaking out in eczema, something I haven't had since I was 10.

My conclusion at the moment seems like a lot of anger and negative points. It is not necessarily the case, but it is reflecting how I currently feel.

I know for a fact that I have learnt a lot from this project, and I am pleased with the developments I have made as an Illustrator.

The self Promotion section really made me think about how to represent myself, and also how to present my images to perspective art directors. The feedback we received on the critique was incredibly useful, and it is something I will consider more carefully in the future. It was also useful to research into art directors and decide what exactly we wanted to illustrate.

I was pleased that we had the experience with the exhibition in the Bargate Gallery. It was great to go into an empty room and make it our own. I learnt some valuable lessons on how to hang and present my work, and hopefully this will show in the Degree Show.

As for my project as a whole, despite the stress, I have had some real fun creating images. I was surprised at the direction I took in the end, it was very different form my original statement of intent, and my time plan pretty much fell to pieces within a few weeks! Perhaps I should have kept revising my plan to eliminate the stress, but I felt that setting myself certain targets was more realistic, as you never know where your sketching may take you that day!

I will continue to update this blog after the hand in date, as I would like to see the presentation document as a whole, finished piece in itself. I think it would also be a good idea to add an afterword to this conclusion once my final book is put together!