Stage 1 Evaluation and Reflection

Stage 1 of the art foundation course has introduced me to a variety of new approaches, methods, materials and techniques. I have learnt a lot throughout this stage that I can develop and use in future projects. For example, the variety of artists I have researched and learnt about can help me with idea development and future experimentations.

The first pathway that I undertook was Design. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the project because I thought it would be a lot more contextual, rather than creative and experimental. As this was the first project I wasn’t really sure what to expect and how to use the creative process effectively to develop my own ideas. I was given two words that I had to use to develop and create possible ideas through a mind map process. My words were ‘Organisation’ and ‘Packs Flat’, which I found were difficult to produce ideas from, that I could develop and expand for a final piece. My final idea was produced, which I was able to be experimental with and continually develop the idea into a possible future plan for my clients. My main idea was to create an inflatable theatre to promote ‘The Lion King’ performance, with a 10 minute preview of the show for a family audience. I thought that this would be a great idea because it’s a flat pack piece that can be put up and taken down quickly. I was particularly influenced by the work of Camille Walala which explores inflatable interactive designs (see my research).Overall, I feel that my main strength in the design project was with my idea development and my theatre designs. This was because I thought of a variety of different ideas and designs of the theatre that I could use if my original design didn’t go to plan. In particular I interviewed a theatre director who was very complimentary about the idea. However, a weakness of mine in this project was with my time management because I didn’t manage to finish my theatre Marquette design, ready for the client’s presentation.

I was looking forward to the media project because this was where I could develop my skills in photography and moving image. I feel that the media project went well because I used my skill of photography but in an inventive way, that I normal wouldn’t. I choose the collection of Russian dolls because I wanted to experiment with bringing objects to life. One of my weaknesses here were that I didn’t really explore other collections I just straight away thought of how I could use Russian dolls. I wanted to explore other ways of using photography so I decided to create a stop-motion animation. I thought that this would then show my skills in photography and my skills in editing using premier. A main strength of mine was using premier to edit my animation because I had never used it before and had really enjoyed creating a short animation film. The workshop support was very helpful here. Another weakness of mine in this project was that I didn’t capture much artist research because I was struggling with researching other animation directors other than Jan Svankmajer. However, the stop frame animation workshop that I attended later was very useful in providing further research and context.

The art project also surprised me because I thought that it would be more drawing and painting based rather than imaginative, creative thinking. I liked the ‘chance’ theme because I was able to work with themes and ideas I may have not chosen myself. I felt like this theme was a way of making my ideas more imaginative and inventive. The workshops that I did for this project were great because they got me thinking about what I’m going to consider making for my final piece. My final theme for the project was ‘light’; I came to this decision by rolling a dice. At first I thought that light could be quite difficult to show in a final piece but when I researched into light artists, my ideas expanded into vivid designs. For example my initial designs were a sundial to show shadows or a lightbox to project colour and words onto a wall. Overall I chose to create a lightbox to project colours onto a wall. I felt like I worked well with this idea because I was able to incorporate the idea of photography into my work.

My main strengths throughout stage 1 have been developing my ideas from my primary and secondary research. I feel that I have researched into artists that I can use for future projects. Another strength was to do with my organisational skills because I would regularly up-date my blog and keep on top of all work. My main weaknesses throughout stage 1 were to do with my time management because I struggled with finishing each project and then moving straight onto the next project. This is a skill that I will definitely work on with other projects.