Self

AS A PRACTITIONER

5 strengths

• willingness to change. before the course I thought I'd ~found my style~ and was like 'cool, let's settle into it n make it good'. I came to the course and realised that was the most limiting thing I could POSSIBLY DO. I could have been stubborn and thought 'I know my practice, I know my work, my work looks like x and is this' but that would have limited me so much. I'm really pleased that I pushed myself to just ignore that and to be experimental and keep trying new things and to realise my work could be anything, it can evolve and change. I think being open minded is key, and a great strength to have, as it's opened me up to so many new things. I was scared of screen printing and book binding and loads of stuff, whereas now I feel like I could give anything a go and I might find something I love.
• I think I'm finding out what I really want my work to be about, the vibe I want it to have, the affect I want it to have on an audience. and with this I'm making sure my work does this, I'm thinking about it in every stage of making work now. I think making work that's driven and specific and has intentions and ambition is super important and I'm pleased this is becoming a really crucial part of my practice. even if my work isn't always successful, integrating this into my work really affects the outcome and is super conducive to making successful work.
• as a practitioner, I think my use of thumb nailing and roughing is super important. I've got into a good habit of spending a lot of time in thumb nailing so that I'm working through ideas and refining. I think this is helpful to composition and general idea generation.
• I think as a person I'm quite focused on my interests, my values, the things I care about and think are important. as a practitioner, I think these things are important and this is a success because I embed my values and my passions and my interested into my work. I think the fact I really care about people and human rights issues and that I'm mad about a lot of things is crucial to my work. without it I wouldn't take so much time to consider 'is my work representing people in an accurate way? will this uplift people, will this help young girls feel empowered, or inspire someone to do something they've always wanted? will the way I've drawn this persons body be refreshing for someone to see, or make them feel marginalised?'. I think having these concerns really makes my work valuable. I also feel like I'm a sensitive person and I like weird things sometimes and I want to capture something wonderful and nostalgic in my work. if I wasn't so into these things, what would influence my work and what would make it worthwhile?
• I think another strength I have is identifying my weaknesses, things I can't do, mistakes I've made. without being able to see where I've gone wrong or how pieces could be improved, my work would not improve. I think that I use my blog in a way that helps me do this, as I'm very reflective and always aiming to do better.

5 struggles

• one struggle I have is with composition, I feel this is something I definitely need to work on as I find that this needs to be planned and practiced a lot. I think this isn't a use struggle, just something I need to be conscious of and continue to work on. 
• my craftsmanship and level of professionalism is something I want to improve. I'm quite clumsy, messy, not very good at exact technical hands on stuff so when it comes to presenting my work I think it can look kind of weak and unprofessional. I think again this just needs practice, but this is very important as even if an illustration is amazing, if the finishing touches to get it printed or framed or how it presented can show where someones been careless or thoughtless. 
• exploring things that are new to me/that I know I'm bad at. this is something I'm currently working on, but I still see it as a weakness. I know that there's things I've yet to really dive into, such as collage/making more shape based work/more minimalist work/design/typography, and sometimes I find these things overwhelming because they're not in my comfort zone. I think pushing past this could help me find something new that I love or a new approach to image making.
• I don't make enough time for my own personal work to actually go anywhere. I think what I'm learning on the course is really important, and work that's still really important to me, but just drawing for fun or actually trying to make some personally driven work could be beneficial. I think if I had more time to draw for fun/make art with no real purpose I could work through ideas better, be more free and open in my work and play more. And I think dedicating to personal work is important, as working with my own set briefs would help be more independently led.  
• I compare my work to other practitioners way too much, and I should just try and love their work and be inspired rather than being annoyed I'm 'not as good'. I think it's helpful for me to be drive by aspirations, but instagram is full of amazing artists and trying to 'be as good as them' isn't helpful to my own journey as a practitioner. 

AS A STUDENT

5 strengths

• I think as a student I'm pretty ambitious, I'm driven to try and achieve good grades and work I'm proud of. The grades aren't that important compared to learning, but striving to always be making work that fulfils me is important because I feel that without that drive I wouldn't really be in uni. If I wasn't always reaching to something new or better I think my work/journey as a student would be pretty stagnant.
• I feel like I'm quite self reflective and critical of my work/studies. I think being able to use the ILOs in a constructive way in helpful as a student, as well as in my practice. Uni in general helps me with my work because I think there's more room to analyse and critique what I'm doing, question if my work is successful. If I was just working on my own, without goals or ILOs I'd probably be far less introspective.
• In general my punctuality/attendance is good and even though it's simple, it's an important part of being a student. Especially with illustration, if you aren't spending time on it and you aren't in that learning environment enough it can hinder you, half of the decisions I make/successes I have come out of conversations I have at uni and because I'm always working and thinking.
• I think the way I work as a student is a good habit I've got into, so I'm proud of that. I work most nights for a little bit with meg, me and meg go in together fairly often outside of scheduled uni time, I try to do some work everyday. I think doing this is really helpful because having someone around you who's a workaholic is very motivating, having people around who talk about their work and care about their studies is again motivating and keeps me where I want to be. I know when left on my own I can be an awful procrastinator so I'm glad I've got friends who are supportive but help me feel like pushing myself and motivate me. I think being mindful of where you want to be/what you want to be doing and having a circle who share those ideas is good because it keeps you happy n working.
• overall I'm pretty pleased with my first year, I think my main strength has been my enthusiasm/willingness to try and be wrong or make mistakes. accepting that I'm just gunna have to be terrible and make ugly work and try again has helped me grow so much. I think if I didn't have such a passion to learn and get better I'd be doing terribly, I'd have gotten no where, and I'd probably hate the course. I absolutely love the course and love learning so that helps me get through everything.

5 struggles

• I think something I need to work on is finding a balance between critical analysis and just being negative, and feedback in general. I think sometimes just me trying to look at my work and find problems with it can be unhelpful because it's hard to avoid your own disappointment in a piece or the fact you might just love it even if it's not actually successful, whereas finding good critical feedback is far more fulfilling. However sometimes if I'm being honest I can listen to someone's feedback and think 'I hate that idea/I hate your taste in this/I don't wanna do that'. So feedback is hard. I don't want to dismiss people's opinions, and I know I can't just look at my work by myself, but I feel like sometimes people don't value the same things I do so when they see my work, they're looking at things I like and hating them/thinking they're unsuccessful. It's hard because I can sometimes think 'I'm not making work for this person, they don't like it because they're not my audience' but then I think that is that even valid? Sometimes you can't pick your audience, should I be making work that people understand and like and making it so everyone 'gets it' because then it's successful? or should I be making work that I like about things I want and then find the audience I think will be into it, and have them see if it's successful.
• I think I need to immerse myself into more things, into more culture and art and things I love so that my work is more enriched. I think I need to go out into nature more, go to more gigs, talk to people more, be more present in a community so that I'm being more ME and then my work has more influence from things I care about. I think more fun, more things, more loves in my life will be just good for my work/my studentship.
• I need to commit to finally having a planner. They make me anxious because I'm always worried the minute I finally plan what I'm going to do everyday, I'm going to make a schedule thats unachievable and I'll never do anything on my to do list and I'll fail. I know this is stupid and I think if I had a planner and a routine that was a lot more exact and committed, I'd get more work done. I think I need to do this about my personal life as well, so I can see when I have time for breaks and fun and stuff. If I plan to work little and often I think I'll find that I way more free time than I think/way more time to commit to work than I think. Right now my plan of 'just work all the time till it's done' is exhaustive and messy and bad.
• I need to talk to more practitioners and 2nd/3rd years and just be less shy. I know if I tried to talk to more students n stuff I'd get more help/get more inspiration and insight/get more friends tbh but I'm too shy about it. ask questions to lecturers more, if I'm at a fair or art show TALK to the bloody artist. and if I'm being cheesy, it never hurts to know more people in art/leeds for when I'm trying to work.
• go to the library more!!!! read some fucking books!!! I don't know why I'm so busy apparently but I know reading more books will help my studies. the uni has such a good library, get some knowledge, draw from reference, find some new artists. also draw outside more/for life because I know it's good for me but I have no attention span. tbh my attention span is awful and I need to work on it. I'm so stubborn, if I don't like something I just can't do it. I need to just get on with it and try. read a book more, draw outside more. try.