LAUIL503 - Printed Pictures - Reflective report

I'm happy with my final outcomes for the brief even if time management and organisation could have been better. I stuck to the initial proposal idea, developed it and realised the outcomes successfully without too much deviation from the core conceptual themes of hallucinations experienced by Oliver Sacks' patients.  

The first few weeks had been unproductive. I focused heavily on creating drawings without enough thought about how to eventually combine them with print processes.

The drawings were linked to the themes and concepts but early combinations with print testing felt forced together with no subtlety.

A few days in the print room speeded things up. It was a good experience using the print room properly and trying different colours. The mono print marks and patterns started to become the focal part of the images. However, it was still clashing with the drawings I'd done and around the Christmas crit period they looked clumsy and lacked a solid background base to hold it all together as a composition.

A useful experience has been the problems faced when scanning the prints for digital use. Bright and vivid printing inks felt appropriate to set the tone for an unsettling vision a patient might have but even high resolution scanning couldn't capture the fluorescent colours so I had to rethink my colours. Advice from my tutor and peers led to a more muted colour choice.  

The most significant thing was tracing the pencil drawings in Illustrator which gave more refined clarity and allowed me to contain the printed textures.

Although peer crits were helpful for feedback it seemed right to change direction despite positive peer feedback on some of the early testing. The work was perhaps commercially friendly but I didn't like them aesthetically and felt it was important to go with my gut and continue pushing myself to create work I loved myself.  

Despite spending a long time working with reds and yellows it wasn't working for the themes and moods I wanted to convey so even though a last minute decision to change to black and red it was right to do.  

The skills and experiences learnt have been a step forward in terms of my practice developing. The new process of taming my loose, abstract drawing, using Adobe Illustrator is genuinley an exciting breakthrough for me and is a technique I want to expand and explore more in future projects. It meant I was able speed up my image making significantly and spend more time towards the end putting finishing touches to the textures and tones.