Evaluation

Leeds College of Art BA (Hons) ILLUSTRATION	Level	04
OUIL405 Visual Narratives	Credits	20
End of Module Self Evaluation

NAME	Christopher Martin Cooper

1.  Which practical skills and methodologies have you developed within this module and how effectively do you think you are employing them within your own practice?
I have found a big shift in my work process away from line based drawing with much of my image making focusing around the interplay of shape and negative space. This has in turn allowed me to explore the application, creation and execution of textural elements within my work something which I had been wanting to do for a while. The result of this has been a much more process driven approach to my work particularly with regards to the use of printed ink and dragging paint through sectioned off (with tape) areas of my page. Although I have once again experimented with digital media, something which I feel I am now reasonably proficient in, this project has made me realise I have a much stronger affinity with and feel for analogue processes and that something is often lost when image making becomes overly digitised. However It as a necessary element even within analogue image making so as to make work ready for, and work better when printed digitally or presented on screen.
2. Which approaches to research have you found most valuable during this module. How have you interrogated your research to identify appropriate ideas?
A mixture of both first hand field visits as well as secondary research into the cultural and historical backgrounds of my chosen themes was the most rewarding. This is because it allowed for very varied and in-depth background knowledge on which to ground more personal experiences and emotions that were felt first  hand.
3. What strengths can you identify within your submission and how have you capitalised on these? What aspects of your submission are you satisfied with?
The volume of research that allowed me to explore a wide varieties of themes and ideas visually. In turn this allowed me a lot more experimental and varied in my image making process which has led to, not always brilliant but at least interesting artwork.
4. What areas for further development can you identify within your submission and how will you address these in the future?
The process of narrowing down my ideas definitely needs development in future so as to produce more concise and readable final outcomes. This is due to the fact that I think, given the brief, one of the main flaws my submission is that it isn't completely obvious what is going on within my images. I did purposefully try to create ambiguous imagery which was a risk I was willing to take as I felt it best conveyed the themes of my research. However I'm not 100 percent sure if it worked effectively.
5. How effectively are you making decisions about the development of your work? What strategies informs this decision making? I think, in terms of development I made decisions pretty quickly, choosing to follow up and produce work in response to a variety of different themes/research. However this did result in a difficult and laborious decision making process when putting together the final book as it was how to narrow down what did or didn't need to be in the book. Although this did result in me having to take a lot more time in the creation of a final outcome which a positive aspect.
6. How effectively have you managed this project and organised yourself during this module? This project has definitely been one of two halves in terms of organisation. With practical work and research I was very organised having carried it out more or less everyday for extended periods of time, even over the Christmas break. However I was not blogging as I was going due to the fact I definitely side tracked it due to how into my work I got a points. In hindsight this was pretty poor management on my part as it has resulted in several days of none stop work.
7.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			X
Punctuality			X
Motivation				X
Commitment				X
Quantity of work produced				X
Quality of work produced			X
Contribution to the group		X
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.

·         A printed copy of this evaluation should be submitted with your work.

·         A copy of your end of module self evaluation should be posted to your studio practice blog. This should be the last post before the submission of work for this module and will provide the starting point for the assessment process.

·         You should also post a copy of your evaluation to your PPP blog as evidence of your own on going evaluation.

Notes / Comments for the Module Leader

Signature Christopher M Cooper

Date:22/01/16

Final Designs

The first four images were simply more refined versions of art work I had previously produced and was happy to include within my book from the initial roughing stage of my final out come. There were some slight adjustments made to them within photo shop, such as levels and cropping so that they'd work better as digital prints.

Having re worked them several times I finally came to a final outcome for my inner and out pages that I was satisfied with. To achieve this I brought in previous elements of modular synths and wire connection ( to serve as both literal reference to equipment as well as conceptually hinting at the the global links contained within electronic music). I decided to create them with a more three dimensional perspective within the composition so as to give them more depth. Finally I created them using cut out textures so as to aesthetically bring them in line with he rest of my images as well find a way to subtly bring in the yellow of the colour scheme.
In the final printing book I also added a brief bit of text onto the for most inner page. Aesthetically I think it slightly detracts from the original images however I do think it is need so as to give the book contextual grounding.

I did yet another redesign of the the comic book spread as I felt it still looked out of place. To try and solve this I brought in more texture and down played the lighting elements as the former is something consistently present in the rest of my work where as the latter was almost exclusive to this piece. Although I still don't think it's a hundred percent it does feel a lot more in line with he rest of my images and, within the final printed book it does flow/pace well alongside my other images.

 So as to give my book a nice sense of rhythm and pacing I decided to produce another double page spread of a dramatic landscape, this time based off of my trip to Redmires reservoir, that would make up the second to last spread so as to mirror the first landscape. I don't think it is quite as strong as the first image, mainly due to the lack of dominant negative space will really helped break apart the other image. However I do think the pulsating lines that make up the water do demonstrate the the feelings/sounds I was experiencing whilst on the research trip.

The last image I created is by far my favourite. Strangely enough it was the one with the least planning ( although a lot of time was spent crafting/figuring it out on the page) and to an extent it can be seen as an extension of the one take, abstract piecing I produced earlier in the body of work that were a response to the creative process of Manuel Gonzales.
The main reason I like this image is the strong muscular feel to both the individual elements and overall composition that has resulted in something that feels simultaneously dynamic and full of movement yet tense and static.
Furthermore the minimal use of figurative elements has helped maintained a sense of rhythm and consistency with both the comic book spread and the image of the creator figure without out taking away from the ambiguous and ephemeral feel of the book as a whole.

The main issues I have with the actual printed book over the final designs is, although I edited them in photo shop to make them more optimised for print, I do feel they're missing some the rawness and evidence of human craft that gives the originals a certain level of charm and  authenticity. 

To solve this Jamie suggesting printing it on the roughest, toothiest paper possible so as to bring out the textural elements of the work. However As you can feel with the printing book, due to the printer we were using to printer double sided, I was restricted in what paper I could use as anything more rougher and textual than what I chose would have jammed the printer.

Final images: Further development

There were a few pages I felt still needed working on rather than completely redesigning. Mainly the inner and outer pages as well as the storyboard/comic strip.
The inner/outer pages felt too dry and, although I wanted them to be quite subtle and understated in their design, they felt far too much like filler. With this in mind I decided to add in a layer of yellow and black acrylic paint dragged through a section of the page much like in my other images.
This did serve to add both visual consistency and intrigue to the images and, as stand alone images I think they do work and tie into the themes of my project.
However when I got them up in Indesign it felt like there was too much going on and that they were slightly too full on for the inner/outer pages. For the final design something more understated with more negative space will be needed.

Although I quite liked the layout of the comic strip which involved predominantly intersecting diagonals rather than squares, aesthetically it felt out of place with the rest of the images within my book. However I didn't want to scrap it as I felt it was of fundamental importance to communicating the themes of my research, especially given the ambiguity of my other images. It seemed important to include it as some sort of conceptual grounding. 

I made slight adjustments to the figures as I already quite liked the composition and pacing of the panels, particularly the close up of the hands. Despite this it still seemed out of line with the rest of the images so once again I tried to draw in elements of yellow and black paint to give it more consistency with he other images.

Creating the final book: Initial designs/full scale rough

Given that I had now decided my book was going to be a collection of interrelated images rather than a straight forward narrative I first decided to draw out a series of very quick roughs. Initially these were just words relating to pieces of work or themes within my research that I then drew out so as to gain an idea of how my book would feel and pace.

There were some key aspects of my work that I was definite I wanted to include: mainly the more cinematic soundscapes as well as the pulsating circular one, the dramatic but ambiguous creator figures and finally the brief storyboard referencing (but not explicitly showing) the creating of the first record for Warp). I then created I full sized, full colour mock up of all 16 pages.
With this in mind I had six, solid roughs produced that I would simply need to further refine however there was still a lot left to be worked out.

In the last image I decided to add in images of wires and aux cables so as to better communicate the aspect of electronic creation. However in hindsight this seemed slightly dumb and ham fisted so in my final version I'm not going to include them.

In my mind the inner and outer pages of my book needed to be slightly more minimal with a lot of negative space left so as not to be too jarring right at the start/end of the book. I therefore decided to go with images of the rhythmic landscape I had produced within my mock concertina book.

Although they do serve the purpose and fit the aesthetic I wanted for the them, they do seem slightly dry and perhaps need some way of working the yellow of the colour scheme in so as to add a little more intrigue.

With four pages left I attempted to create a double page spread showing another creator figure so as to give the book a sense of visual and thematic consistency. However I really didn't like the rough for a variety of reasons such as composition and tone (it seemed quite dark and violent).

Furthermore when reviewing the images in sequence I felt it had become to figurative so instead I decided to do another rough based off of the the spread of 4 audio landscapes drawn within my sketchbook. Although I think this image does work better, particularly with regards to visual consistency due to the blue and yellow, I still don't think its spot on. This is because, in my mind, much like the images for the inner and outer pages it feels slightly like it's just serving as a filler page and not really offering much.

Finally I went about creating a series of more three dimensional feeling, sonic mountains. These started out as a series of roughs that were tempting to create another double page spread within my book. I was pretty happy with these images from the start due to the dynamic yet minimal aesthetic to them.

However, although in the rough they started out as a spread I soon decided that I wanted them instead for my front and back covers. This was so as to have something bold, simple and slightly ambiguous that contained references to both sound and landscapes to both draw the viewer in and give them some sense of the content/themes of the book.

Artist study: Shape, texture and ink

When looking for artists to study for this module I wanted to try and find artists that had battled with similar processes to me. In light of our lecture before the Christmas holidays the first name that came to mind was Eleni Kalorkoti. Although her portfolio in general is a lot more figurative and her use of ink much more refined and tight than mine has been in this module several of her projects did stand out in paralleling my own work.
Visually her zine exploring collage contained a lot of processes that I have been using within my own practice and could look to so as to further refine them. This is primarily due to her use of shape, texture (particularly inky textures) and negative space to created minimalist images that have a highly dynamic and bold feel to them.



Her 'Held' zine also stood out to me in how, as well as the figurative elements, she again used abstract collages. However in this case they were being used more specifically to try and convey complex emotions that she was experiencing such as loss and vulnerability. Although it is a greatly different subject matter to mine it is interesting to see how abstract images can be used to convey more intangible concepts and experiences, something which I have been trying to achieve within my own work.



Looking for more artist who have tried to achieve a similar marriage of abstract concepts and images I came across a series of images called 'Memories of a Place I Have Never Been' by visual artist Erosie. This idea of creating imaginary spaces and landscapes through shapes is highly intriguing and, on an aesthetic level highly effective. Much of my work has focussed around trying to reinterpret landscapes and what I was experiencing/feeling/hearing a process which this work has further informed particularly with regards to placing flat,simple shapes next to areas of rich texture.



Finally I came across an artist named Tamsyn Mystowski. I couldn't really find out much about him (her) but their playful use of ink and collage to create simple, ephemeral images really spoke to me as something I can try and apply to my own work.

Too much going on? How to construct a readable narrative

The main problem up until this point with my work is that it's proving incredibly difficult to narrow it down into a straight forward narrative with out losing key themes/content.

I created several mock up books as well as a comic book panel strip to try and see how it may look as I finished product. These focussed on singular aspects of this body of work such as soundscapes, movement and rhythm and the creation of warp records rather than trying to draw all of the various strands together.

After speaking to Matt he agreed that it felt too much like I was dumbing my content down by shutting out key ideas and themes due to trying to create something more concise and foccussed on a singular element of my research.

Therefore he suggested I try and draw together a series of stand alone images that serve to ambiguously communicate the the themes of my research/journey through this module when they're all gathered together.

As well as this he also suggested adding a brief bit of text, perhaps just a small paragraph to give some grounding to what my book is about.

All in one take, audio visual expressionism

Following up from the chat I had with Jon K I decided to look further into the recording artist Manuel Gonzales due to the bizarreness of both his music and position within the music world. After reading an interview on line with him I found out he forgoes almost all forms of modern, digital/midi, music production in favour of older analogue equipment. Furthermore most of his tracks are recorded in one take, leaving odd layers of textures, feedback and rhythmic errors that serve to add an extra layer of depth to his music.

With this in mind I decided to create a series of collages in response to music. The result was a series of bizarre rhythmic constructions and landscapes. I like the variety of textures and colours present as I feel the mirror the warmth of the sound of the analogue sounds present in producers such as Manuel Gonzales' music. I don't think that they are the strongest images in terms of composition seeming somewhat hectic and crowded. However this could just be seen as a result of the approach I took in creating them. 

To try and give this process some more solid ground I decided to exploring what would happen when I combined them with figurative elements. Once again when creating these figures I wanted them to have an ambiguous look and feel to them so as to re affirm this idea of an audio craftsman rather than a specific artist/musician.
I think these are a lot stronger than the above images as compositionally there is more thought and care to them. Furthermore I feel the harsh rugged textures created using block printing ink contrast really nicely to the free flowing drawing ink lines of the figures.