Anna Carver:
13136880
Unit X
Evaluation
Throughout
this unit, I have pushed myself to work in larger scale using various printing
techniques, with focus on preparing my portfolio for professional practice. At
the start of the unit, I didn’t feel highly confident about what I wanted to do
and took me a while to do so. Not having as much time as the last unit has
really been a struggle for me and has taught me that I need to work a bit
faster and be more organised.
My concept
for this project has been to hand print my designs as well as creating digital
and hand drawn, all coinciding with each other. I mainly focused on printing my
designs in large scale in the print room using my hand painted motifs for
screen. This has really pushed my practice and improved my printing skills. Trying
to stick to a time scale of two weeks in the print room was difficult, and did
not get as many prints as I would have liked as the ones I have took longer
than expected. I definitely produced what I wanted in terms of concept, and
found my process of printing and layering each motif individually, beneficial
to my practice and has grown to be a big part of my concept and development. Designing
my prints to a large scale has contextualised my practice more in depth, and
has widened my choices for certain interior products such as upholstery and
rugs. This has also prepared me for the degree show; and how to produce work
relative to the space we are given and scale.
As I have spent the majority of my time in the
print room, I feel that this has affected my time scale and time management. I would
have liked to produce more large-scale digital prints, and a different screen
printed design with slightly different motifs, but still feel happy with what I
have produced and has taught me that in the future I need to be more organised
with the initial stages of a project. I know that in the professional world, it
is fast paced so would need to keep up with the workload.
Having an
online presence such as Instagram to show and share my work has helped my
practice as it has kept me motivated to want to add things to it, and see other
practitioners work. It has made me more
aware of my context and kept me on track preparing my portfolio. Creating professional
photos for my portfolio and doing the photoshoot myself also taught me about
time management and organisation. Having these photographs has built up my
portfolio to a professional standard. I am in the process of creating a website
and business cards in time for the degree show, preparing me for after
graduation. Having been chosen to exhibit for new designers, this will be a
great experience and a confidence boost, and to talk to other practitioners I think
this will give me more insight of what I want to do after graduation.
Overall the
unit has taught me about how and where to contextualise my practice, and
prepare for after graduation. The skill and techniques of screen-printing has
prepared me for a professional practice after my degree; and feel extremely
motivated to find a job in this area of practice. I am happy and confident with
my portfolio and what I have learnt during my degree and have enjoyed my time
here at Manchester school of art.
