26th March

This week's interactive session gave me significant inspiration from the hoogerbrugge website which uses very clean cut and stylized illustrations in a humorous and thought-provoking way. I was immediately able to start bringing ideas together for my own interactive postcard. Before the session I had difficulty collecting ideas as it was unclear to me how the postcard might or could work. There are lots of examples of interactive images online but the most successful are those which use the interactivity in a meaningful way. For instance, on the website for Colors magazine I once viewed, the interaction of clicking with the mouse actually provoked a gunshot and a bullethole would appear in the images on screen which would thereby change as prompted by the gunshot. Thus not only is the viewer in control but s/he is actually practising what the site addresses - a broad outlook on global violence. This sort of interaction is more effective in my mind than simply being able to click and prompt the next movement on-screen.

This session also challenged my thinking about the animation to be drawn over Easter. I am now considering the actual form of the animation. If it is to be themed 'old and new' then maybe there will be a difference during the animation in the illustration of 'old' i.e. using black and white and maybe a crooked way of drawing, and of 'new' i.e. the use of colour and borrowing forms of more modern illustrative techniques. Again I am in full agreement with the words of the Tomato creatives in that 'it is not what it is but how it is done' and have decided to explore this idea in my animation.

Having acquired the book Vitamin D I was enlightened this week with a better sense of illustration today. During life drawing sessions I sought to manage the factors of my work that Simon claims are the strongest - my method of describing the forms and objects and spaces inside a composition. Generally when concerning illustration I always wish to challenge my weaknesses - which currently seem to be accuracy in figurative drawing. This is in no way an attempt to be an accurate illustrator but merely to have the ability and understanding of accurate drawing with which I could then deconstruct and use in a more interesting way. However if I explore and develop my techniques of drawing objects and everything around the figure then maybe they will make such a contrast with the figure that it will be stronger in its own right. Either way I am definately no longer afraid to tackle a pose from any viewpoint and continue to allow my eyes instead of my expectations to control the accuracy on paper.

I have realised that during most of this past 2/3 months I have not been drawing or collecting imagery enough and I must admit that I still find both to be tasks rather than hobbies as they should be. It is mostly due to the fact that the work we are given tends to take a lot of thinking and preparation and when I get time free it seems more practical to relax instead of draw. In fairness I have spent hours at a time each week drawing on illustrator and taking life drawings into Illustrator to be worked into, which was therefore a big part of my personal research and a unique addition to my work as an art student.

Plans for Easter include completing the drawings for my animation, extensive drawing and exploration of my abilities, looking into getting my personal Illustrator work sold - thus improving my cv and to take time to get my thoughts together and organise my work so that I am able to get it together quickly when assessment comes.