Critically review your own sketchbook:

Overall I am happy with how my sketchbook looks so far however there is defiantly room for some improvements.

Firstly, I feel the methodology through out my work is quite well shown. I started my project by producing a clear brainstorm showing all the different aspects and main parts of China Town. From this point on I focused in on certain aspects of China Town starting with the lanterns and then jumping into the pattern, then exploring this further. Even though there is not a clear pattern through out my work I feel that showing all my different ideas shows my way of thinking and in the long run I will have more research to work with. I made sure I clearly annotated my work to show where I got ideas from and what reference they have.

 

To have improved my working method I could have stuck with a key idea and developed that further instead of doing lots of different ones that could have more development. However saying this I feel the more ideas you do the more you will have to work with. Another way to improve my working method would be to produce more sketches at the beginning of the project, this would have given me more to work from.

 

Throughout my work I have tried to do as much drawing as possible because I think this is a key element of producing my ideas. I have drawn from first hand observation and from the photos I have taken of China Town. I then use my drawings and turn them into different ideas that are related to the workshop I am doing. The ideas I have produced come from Primary and some Secondary research. I have then used my ideas and developed them into a design I could use, e.g. a print. I feel contextual references is something I need to improve on in my sketchbook. I have started looking into a few artists however I think to improve my work I should visit exhibitions and places related to my project. this will then give me more to work from and expand my knowledge.

From looking at other peoples sketchbooks it has given me a couple of ideas to how I can improve my own sketchbook. Firstly, what I noticed in quite a few peoples books is when using colour people created a colour palette to show where and why they are using the colours. I also saw a few print techniques in someones book that I want to experiment with and use in my own work. Lastly I found a lot of people had lots of sketches in their books, this is something i need to work more on.

When first starting my sketchbook I always knew I was going to start off by doing either a mood board or brainstorm therefore I wasn't to afraid about starting on a white page. However I did feel a bit of pressure because I wanted to make sure my first page was exciting to look at. When we had to show our work to other people in the group I was a bit worried because I don't always like showing my work to other people. However when i read through some of the feedback i found that some of it was really useful and people were positive about my work.