Learning Diary

Student number#515631
Illustration 1: Key steps in illustration
Drawing 1


Latest Update: October 2018

The last three assignments have been a long hard struggle between work and finding enough time to dedicate my own worth to study. But I have managed what I can and wish I could assign myself to less work hours and more study time in between. However, saying this, slowly I am learning what I want to learn and if this ends up being unfortunately a place I do not excel in it will have had enough influence to hopefully give me the courage to become an artist in a form or another. Currently I have had a tough few weeks.
One being the lack of motivation and the other being the unfortunate bad luck to have damaged my leg which did result in not being able to get to life model classes 50 miles away! (yes, that is unbelievably the nearest! I located books, and hopefully influenced persons to sit for me in the future, so onward and upwards!
Update: August 2017
Well, I got through the first stage of this year in Illustration 1. I have to be honest, I was a little disappointed with my grading, I had watched videos from the OCA from tutors discussing work and assessments prior to my wok being sent and I thought that I had compiled a fair sample of my assignments and sketchbook. My sketchbook was crammed and I had spent a great deal of time over what I was going to send and displaying the work favourably in a A3 binder. Alas, the grade was not expected I had been hoping, but still it was getting me through this part. I looked over the assessment feedback and report and think my downfall maybe that I did not communicate well enough my understanding of the exercise points. So, point taken! Will try better next time! Ha..Overall an enjoyable course but I think the work of 8 hours per week is greatly underestimated for the first foundation section. So if you are doing the course and you are aiming for a decent grade my personal advice would be to give yourself as much spare time as possible. It is a fairly educational ride. I read the exercises but think, the time needed is to absorb the exercise/assignment and figure out the direction it is feeding you. What is the point of the exercise? why does it want me to do this? what is it showing me? I think, if like myself you read literal into the exercises it can kind of miss the point! I was very lucky, my tutor gave me good feedback, good criticism and overall very helpful. It was my first attempt at HE grading in a long time so I should not be too disapointed! Oh well..on wards and upwards. Next section is Drawing 1. Just found my tutor email.  Drawing 1 coming up!!  So looking forward to breaking the back of it!

Update: May 2017
It has finally reached my formal assessment time. I have completed all exercises and all assignments within the 5 sections of Illustration 1. It has been a very stressful and consuming time but in the most positive way! I have found out so much valuable and important information in such a short space of time that it has been without a doubt worth it even if my grading comes back under what I hope. I have taken each exercise separately and through each stage I have found what I am good at, what I excel at and what I am not so good at and what I need to practice more of. 

Some aspects which have played a great part have come to be precious tools in all aspects of anything in my future I may under take. For instance the use of thumbnails, learning this method has taken the use of sketches and ideas and helped me understand processing and not to go with the fist idea but to elaborate and expand from that first idea. I am going to look at what will be m next stage within the path of this course. Fingers crossed I do well in my assessment. I think I have been very lucky that my tutor as offered me positive and critique feedback in my reports that has pushed me to try and look at my work through others eyes such as my clients or audiences. This sort of feedback is invaluable to say the least. It has helped push through the assignments and offered me some greatly needed guidance.  

Update: October 2016


Now in to the 4th section of the Key steps in Illustration! It has been quite difficult not only finding the time, but committing myself to using my days off to dedicate time to the course. The hardest part I have found is segmenting hours to process and research work in between the working day. It can be very easy to rely on the next week, or a day off somewhere in the near future. It is a case of buckling down and dedicating an hour or two early in he morning etc. to keep myself in a state of flow as if the space from one study period to the next is long, it can be frustrating and feels like it is two steps forward one step back. However, I have stuck with it and made it through the summer! Now feeling a little more positive towards the next assignments. My feedback from my tutor has been extremely helpful and always gives me food for thought. Also, discovered Inktober this year, via Jake Parker's facebook page which has helped me establish a continuing selection of sketchbooks!!!!And you can now find some of my work on instagram! #ocasketchbook #ocafriends

Update: June 2016
Half way through the first segments of the Key steps in Illustration. So far I have found the course work a joy to proceed with, there has been times when I have lost motivation which often co-insides with work pressures and timing. However I have kept going and at the moment it is working. I have taken advice from my Tutor and joined groups on Facebook, used instagram (look for #ocafriends) and also tried to communicate via the OCA student website. 
Hopefully I will progress and in the next few months complete this part of the course! 

Start: January 2016.

It has taken sometime to decide on which path I want to follow, it is often difficult to choose from so many directions. Art, illustration, design all have such an umbrella that unless you are specific in one field that you naturally excel in, without much effort, it is hard to pinpoint your map route! The reason I feel this, is that the boundaries are easy to blur and what some may state is obviously a just a "drawing" or "sketch", may in for example my eyes, be classed as an illustration or piece of art. An image, or set of images that tells a story, lets the viewer read what is there but more importantly be able to read what is not there and fill the story or message in. If we look at illustration in this way, it is probably the oldest art form, the cave man illustrated on the walls of his home, how they hunted for food, what the food source was and how they caught it. The dwellers would look and hopefully with their imagination, picture the wild chase and what the imagery tells. Which in turn has just dawned on me that in fact, art and illustration is more powerful and stronger than any written word, it is how we started and how we still, whether being: You tube videos, instagram and TV, continue to use as a high percentage of story telling and communicating. 
I feel working in the area of illustration is what I am naturally drawn to do. I find that being able to create something that is bespoke is a wonderful process. Making a page come to life just from its lines, colours and texture. Sparking imagination comes directly from three things, the spoken word, the written word and the images we create. Everything that makes us imagine descends from these. 

I hope from taking this course I am able to use what abilities I have to start to explore illustrating on a commercial level. I want to rekindle what I had years ago, and spend what remaining time I have of my working years doing what I have passion and thirst for. 
Above all I am very excited and thankful to have this chance to be lucky enough to try to establish myself as an illustrator.

David.




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