Overview

The current module is Ways of Seeing. The aim of the module was to help us view things from different perspectives. There are many ways in which you can interpret an image or object – different individuals view the world different and have their own approach to viewing it. This topic really intrigued me as it is very interesting to see others perspectives on things, but to also try to personally see the world in a way you don’t normally. An example being, during one of our tasks where we had to draw without looking at the paper, everyone had their own technique and it forced us to draw in a way that weren’t confident with. Overall, whilst I was nervous starting the unit I hoped I could test my creativity.

1. Blind Drawings

Beginning the module with this task worried me a bit as my drawings seemed to be worse than others around me. Nevertheless i wanted to try my best. The task involved drawing a classmate whilst ‘blind’ – we were given a short period of time to take what we saw in front of us and draw it while not looking at the piece of paper. I realised that there are a couple ways to do this. Firstly, not lifting the pen from the paper at all and using a line that almost looked like a face – most people in the class used this technique. Alternatively, I tried a method where I did lift the pen from the paper but speed sketched where I believe certain facial features were. The task also involved sketching the person three times with different coloured pens (red, blue and green) on the same sheet of paper. The way I ended up doing this was by layering the different sketches on top of each other so that the drawings would be over lapping each other – another option would be to draw them separately.

My favourite completed portrait was one where i didn’t layer the sketches exactly on top of each other, but they were slightly above or to the side of one another – i thought this created a very pleasing effect. Nevertheless, i was unaware to what i was producing so this surprised me. Overall, by the end of the task i was very frustrated as it was difficult to draw blind, but created a very interesting and abstract effect.

2. Quick Interview/ Portrait

For this task we were to sketch a classmate while the other person was to give a quick fire interview getting an insight into their personality. I sketched Derick while he asked me questions about my life, such as, Why I came to the university of Dundee and why I choose social digital as my degree. He then asking about my hobbies and interest. Next, we swapped roles and he sketched me while I asked him similar questions about university and his interest in football.

During this task, I enjoyed it compared to this last one as it felt more comfortable as we were now allowed to look at what we were sketching. This made me feel more confident in what i was sketching, but it was also annoying to have to focus on more than one task – sketching the person and also answering questions. This meant i could not focus on my sketching as much as usual, which was challenging.

3. Conductive Ink/ Circuit Drawings

Next, we moved onto circuits, combining design and portraits with technology. By using conductive ink we could create a circuit that turns on a LED. We started by testing the conductive ink and the LED we had. To begin with we found this difficult because our conductive ink didn’t seem to create a full circuit. The LED didn’t light. We tested the LED by connecting it directly to the small battery and it came on, thus we decided there must have been a problem with the amount of current going through the ink.

When it came down to the portrait I decided to take the concept from the previous module, where I designed an ear piece to be worn by the visually impaired. I sketched onto some paper a side-on profile of a character with the ear and ear piece clearly visible. I then flipped the paper over and traced what i drew when the conductive ink. Finally, i attached the LED to the part of the ear piece roughly were it indicated if it was on or not. Once again however the LED did not turn on, this was a bit frustrating. If I tried it again I would double up the layer of conductive ink to see if it would work.

4. Visual personality profiles layered portrait interview

Using a variety of open ended questions to interview a class mate we had to create a picture of their personality and then draw a portrait of the individual. Firstly, we got to chose to choose our own questions, so my partner and I decided on a maximum of 25 questions but we were allowed to make up our own questions. To get an idea of my partner’s personality i decided to ask questions about their interests, hobbies, personal details and goals – I hoped this would give me a good picture of what they are like. Nevertheless, i found it difficult to create the open ended questions as it is hard to know what aspects of someone make up their personality.

During the interview, my partner gave a mixture of long and short answers, but unfortunately it was still hard to grasps the persons full personality just based on their answers. Next I began my interpretation of what he said and started to create my portrait of him. My approach to this was to sketch him in the centre of the page and illustrate some of the key things he talked about around about him, for example, that in his future he wished to be happy and content. Overall, this unit helped me see people as more as their features and taught me how to include this in portraits of them to create a deeper interpretation of them.

5. Reading week, observation drawing and Mapping task

For the reading week task we had to draw what we do in everyday life. In total we had to create 10 drawings, five of these were to be of a space, a place, an activity, object or a person. While the other five were to be representations or maps of each of my days during the reading week. I found this particularly hard to visually display my movements during that time, but in the end i came up with maps ad illustrations to portray my routine. This included things as simple as walking from my flat to work; this was a boring concept for me to begin with as it is something i do everyday, so I tried to put a comedic spin on it to make it more interesting. Overall, I did end up enjoying drawing my comings-and-goings.

The other five pieces were to be of objects that i use often in my daily life. For example, i chose to draw my my xbox one and its controller, and some movies I had watched at the cinema or on Netflix that week. I preferred this element of the task as I got to draw something much more concrete instead of a representation of something more abstract like in the first half of this task.

6. Journey Map and Visual CV

This is a continuation from the reading week task that challenges us to use the skills we have, for example, if that is computer skills or illustration/ sketching. The task was to create a journey map of your life that has lead you to this current point in university. I decided to imagine as though this was a CV you were sending to an employer. I tackled this by creating a digital CV journey from my time in further education in the format of a timeline. Alongside the information and timeline, there were several images of my past work to show an employer what I can do.

Throughout this unit I was reminded of my talents using the adobe software to create a colourful and visually appealing document. This unit made me think about where I am now and where I hope to be.

7. Arduino character, storyboard, image of character

This project was an introduction to the arduino circuits. Beginning with a short class with Sean, showing us how to use tinkercad and how useful it can be to set up your circuit on there before you use the real board. He took us through the coding process and how it looks complicated but in true fact quite easy when you have a small understanding of the terms.

Moving on from there we had the task to create a character that was embed with LEDs to showcase our new found skills with arduino. This character had to be made considering flatpack, popup and paper engineering. This all had to be supported with an annotated story board giving our characters a background.

This character had to be able to fit into our sketchbooks and with only a few days to complete this project, I had to make it simple yet intriguing. This challenged me to think creatively and quickly. I chose an origami spaceship, thinking that I could use LEDs for guns on the front and LEDs on the bottom for landing lights. Feeling that this idea could work I began researching different origami videos until I found the one for me.

Developing my idea was easy because I enjoyed this brief and was passionate about having a fully explored final result. When attempting to do the origami spaceship I started with plain paper to see if it would work and then tried slightly thicker card to make it a stronger and larger structure. This was a success.

I found the coding slightly harder to complete because I have never done anything like it before, except from the intro class. Sean helped me understand the programme and I managed to get my idea for my circuit to work. I had two red LEDs that stayed on when connected to power and two blue LEDs that were controlled by a button.

Conclusion

Overall, the unit Ways of Seeing, challenged me to look at what I was drawing in a different way and interpret it differently also. Whilst this was difficult at times, it allowed me to test my creativity. This module has been enjoyable and introduced me to new technology that will be useful for future tasks. I had high hopes starting this module as i thought I could build on my previous knowledge and display my work professionally, all of which were met.