unit evaluation

During this unit I have pushed myself to work in different ways and tried out new techniques. At the start of the unit I found it quite hard to get lots of drawing done as this has always been my weak point but as I got more into it I started to enjoy it, even getting up in the morning and going to sit in a cafe to draw was quite fun, and extremely useful for the project and developed my skills further. In the past I have been very reluctant in going out into the city and drawing as I haven't felt too confident in this area; but this unit has abled me to gain more confidence.As I chose print for my specialist area I knew drawing was vital to develop designs and motifs. I've always swayed towards print and will continue doing so. My aim for this unit was to better my printing skills and knowledge, I really wanted to push myself and go out of my comfort zone and I definitely achieved this!The discharge printing was something I've wanted to try for a while and now I've learnt how to do it, it will be something I will want to carry on doing in the future as well as other techniques.During print I have come across difficulties and felt that I have overcome them well. For example when I was using my screens, because of the nature of my prints and how they are precise; it was a pain to have to keep on masking some of the motifs off I didn't want at that time so probably in the future I will have a screen where its not as tricky to print and have it so I can print the whole screen at once as a design. Doing this, I feel that I would get more samples done. Another thing I found difficult was the photoshop workshops, I've alwyas struggled with photoshop and never seemed to grasp it. When I came to design my visualisations on photoshop I didn't really have a clue what I was doing and felt extremely stressed as i kept trying it after reading through my notes but it just wasn't working, but with help from a course mate I managed to get the hang of it and staying in uni all day (for a few days) to practice and complete my visualisations really helped. I now understand that photoshop skills are definitely something I needed to gain and didn't realise this at the start but sure do now! I definitely feel like I have learnt a vast amount of skills during this unit and I've achieved something and feel quite proud.I will keep pushing myself in the future as I still have a lot to learn (and want to learn). It would be good to collaborate with someone else from a different specialism so I could learn another specialist area but still do print. Its not been an easy unit but has been enjoyable and I have pushed myself to achieve what I wanted.