Week One

To start off our ways of seeing project we were tasked to do blind drawings of the people at our table, I found this task slightly challenging as we weren’t allowed to look at the paper. With practice though I gradually started to get better at it. One of the difficulties I found during this task was not looking down and fixing the mistakes I had made, I know realise that just because there are mistakes doesn’t mean that the work is bad. This task has taught me to embrace the mistakes, own my drawings and stop thinking everything has to be perfect.

Our next task was to do a portrait of one of our class mates whilst the person we were drawing asked us questions about ourselves. I was drawing Helena and at first I wasn’t very happy with the drawing but looking back on it now I am quite proud of what I did. This task was quite challenging as answering the questions took a lot of my attention away from the drawing, but in the end the drawing turned out a lot better than I expected it to which is probably due to not concentrating as much on what I was drawing.

 

We were then tasked with creating circuits out of conductive ink, this didn’t really go as planned as the ink took ages to dry and wasn’t the best conductor so my LED’s wouldn’t light up. After messing around with the conductive ink for a while we were to try and incorporate a circuit into one of our portraits. I decided to do a self portrait and add an earing with the LED again I struggled to get the circuit to work so ended up just taping the LED to the battery. I realise that this isn’t quite what the brief asked for but it was the best I could do with the time and resources I had at hand that worked reliably. I would like to try this task again and get the conductive ink to work as part of my drawing just to prove to myself that I can get it to work and that i was trying to make excuses as to why it wasn’t working.

 

Our final task for the week was to do a portrait of our partner based on the answers they gave during an interview before hand. This was a really interesting task as I got to learn a lot about my partner and saw a new side to her. I found it good fun to put different sketches and ideas down onto the paper and see how they all worked together and separately. I’m not hugely happy with how they all turned out but I did use a few different materials which I wouldn’t normally choose, such as hot glue. This tasked showed me that any material can be used in a drawing not just pen and paper and that the more you explore materials the more interesting and unique your drawings get.

 

Week Two – Reading Week

Our task for reading week was to do 5 drawings and 5 maps – one of each a day.

I quite enjoyed this task as it was very relaxed and didn’t feel like a lot of work. The only thing I found slightly difficult was thinking of different ways to draw the maps of my day so they didn’t look exactly the same each day, this turned out really well and I have a range of unique maps and sketches. The drawings were good practice and I tried to do different types of drawings each day to broaden my drawing experience and skills, I feel I managed this quite well as I didn’t do the same thing twice and this made my sketchbook look varied and not like I just stuck to what I knew.

Week Three

This weeks task was to create a visual CV and timeline of our past, present and future. At first I was really confused by this task as I didn’t quite understand what was being asked of us, however after talking to Jason about it I had formed a rough idea in my head as to what I wanted to do.

I started by drawing a visual CV, I found this part of the task really enjoyable and I think it turned out really well. I like how colourful and vibrant the images are and how it is easy to tell what each image stands for.

Next came the more confusing part of the task – the visual timeline. I had no idea what to do for this and was really struggling with ideas so i started drawing out a rough timeline of my life so far and how I would like it to go. This ended up being more or less scrapped as I realised i was thinking way to much about the task.

I started drawing out small, simple sketches for my timeline to take onto the computer to edit them and add colour. I wasn’t completely sure how to do this so I asked Jason if he could quickly show me the basic tools I needed to make  my idea a reality. The brief tutorial was very useful as I learnt how to create a vector image on Illustrator and take it into Photoshop to add colour and further edit the image.

I then decided to explore InDesign to create my timeline for my past/present as I hadn’t really tried to use it before. This proved exceptionally difficult and I found it hard to believe such a widely used program was so hard to figure out, however, I persevered and managed to create some form of timeline using my images and a bit of text. I must say it’s not my best work but I was determined to use new programmes and learn some new skills – which I did.

If I was to do this task again I wouldn’t be so adamant on using only new programmes to create the timeline as there is no shame in using what I know to create the best work I possibly can. I think the desire to learn new programmes is all fine and well but using programmes you already know along side the new ones is even better practice and will help create the best work.

 

Week Four

This week we were tasked to create a 3D character with a built in LED light programmed on Arduino. The thought of this task terrified me as I found the Arduino workshop we did the week before very challenging and I struggled to write out and remember the coding. However, having Shaun in the class really helped with this and he was able to help with any coding problems we came across.

For my 3D character I decided to make a fish swimming in the sea. I tried to make my fish out of origami and this turned out really well, however the fish didn’t really pop off of the page the way I wanted it to and so I decided to draw out a cartoon fish on some tracing paper and use folded paper to make it jump off the page, I also layered the tracing paper in a way that made it look like the fish was swimming across the page.

The next part of this task was to programme the Arduino kit make the light flash, I managed this fairly well but did end up using a stationary light to make my fish glow. The one problem I ran into with the light was getting it bright enough to make the whole fish glow, I tried everything from taking pictures in a dark room to taking the resistors our or the circuit neither of which seemed to work.

After ages of trying to get my fish to glow with no luck I decided to use an RGB LED to see that would work better. The RGB worked really well on the fish, however, it still didn’t make the whole fish light up so I added a second LED and finally after some manoeuvring of the lights I managed to get the fish to glow. I found this whole part of the task quite stressful as i knew it was possible to get the outcome i wanted I just had no idea how to get it to work.

After finishing my fish I decided to make a 3D dolphin out of strips of paper. This turned out a lot better than I though it would as I turned out to be able to be bent to look like it was swimming, which I added a bit more character to the dolphin and also made it completely different to the fish I did previously.

I tried out the LED’s with the dolphin and I love the way it turned out, I really like how the light glows through the spaces in the paper to create an almost shimmering affect. After Talking to Andy about my project I started to think about other ways the dolphin could be used, such as, a large exhibition, a tunnel or a large wall mount with paintings and artwork attached to it.

Conclusion

Overall I have really enjoyed this module and I have learnt a lot of new skills from simple drawing to coding on Arduino. I know that I still have very basic knowledge of most of the things we have covered in this module, but I now have the basic platform needed to broaden my skills and build upon what I have learnt over the past 4 weeks. Not all of my work is perfect or to my best standard and I know i have a lot to improve on but i feel I have come a long way in the last 4 weeks, both in skill and confidence as a designer.

Sketchbook Tour