Invisible Cities; Reflective Statement

The Invisible Cities project has finished, and I have my first 3 fully developed pieces of artwork to show for it. There are elements of the project that I was quite proud of, and others that I think fell way short, so in all it's been a valuable experience; for enjoyment, and learning from my mistakes. My pacing was a problem during this project, oddly enough not in the places I would have expected it to be. 

When we were asked to thumbnail; putting out dozens of small quick pieces very quickly, I found it difficult to be motivated; it sapped my energy, and I found myself procrastinating moving on by spending far too much time and effort on a single thumbnail.

I don't have a problem spending long periods of time working, funnily enough I did the final pieces each in a single 7-8 hour stretch quite comfortably, and it didn't feel like a drag because I was absorbed in the work. I need to find a new way of approaching thumb-nailing, because I have a feeling it's going to come up a lot in the future. Perhaps rather than churning out dozens over a several hour stretch, as I like to do my longer paintings in, I need to cut up the work and try to find odd moments where I can doodle out a few thumbnails, so that I don't lose my attention, and it feels like less of a drag, because I know it shouldn't, and I want to enjoy it.

On the positive side, I found the written development process unexpectedly fun, and got completely carried away writing a very unnecessarily detailed back-story for my city, and it actually turned out to be incredibly useful. As long as I don't let it bleed into more important work, I think I'll be doing more of this in future projects. I was also pleased with my final paintings. They're far from perfect, especially looking at some of the jaw-dropping work of past students, but I was anxious about digital painting because honestly I've never really done it before, and considering that, I'm proud of them, and even though the time-frame I was working in got a bit tight, they weren't rushed, and I enjoyed making them.

In all, I'm aware that I didn't hit every mark on this project, and probably dropped a lot of marks that I could have easily kept by being more organised. Despite this, this project has had a positive impact on my confidence in my ability, and I'm optimistic about moving forward and improving with future projects.

(Addition; Post presenting my work to the group, and watching other people's feedback, I think I need to be a bit mindful of style creep. I think, in this instance, the style I used worked well for me, and I genuinely picked Baucis because I liked it, however there was an element of convenience; I like drawing in a very Blocky, flat shaded manner, and tend to avoid colour because I struggle to control it.

If you look at my final project from last year, you'll find a lot of similar elements in the drawing style, despite it being a completely different subject matter. If I was asked to capture a much more lively and organic subject, I think I would really struggle. I've tried painting in the much more fluid and impressionistic manner some other students are starting to get a hold of, and I find it very hard.

So, don't get me wrong, I like my final paintings of Baucis very much, and I think they effectively capture the mood I was going for. However, it may have been that I was drawn to that interpretation of Baucis, because I tend to prefer dystopia over utopia, and it fits my drawing style. Where as in the future, I need to learn to choose a drawing style that fits the subject, not the other way round.)