Wednesday, 10 October 2012

Project Review


For my final project I created a tutorial on how to draw a head in profile. I asked a few people of varying ages and artistic abilities if they would work through my tutorial and fill out a questionnaire. I then sent out a questionnaire for them all to fill in and send back. This gave me an idea about what was made clear and what should have been changed in the tutorial. The end result of my project was that I had created a tutorial on how to draw a head in profile and that I had gathered feedback. I enjoyed receiving the completed questionnaires and drawings that the volunteers had filled in and returned. I loved reading the feedback and seeing what people found easy to understand and what they thought I should have changed.

The thing that I found the hardest to do was to motivate the participants of my tutorial.  The feedback was almost totally positive. Only 20% of the people who took part in my tutorial did not realise that the eleven steps were to create only one face. Instead they thought they had to draw out every step separately. Apart from that the feedback was positive and people enjoyed the tutorial.  I thought that the feedback was very helpful. I agreed that I could have made it clearer that they were only meant to draw one face rather than all eleven steps. I also found it interesting that some people need the illustrations not the words in order to understand the process whereas others require just the words not the illustrations and some need both words and illustrations.

I have learnt that leadership can be hard and that motivating people over the internet is not easy and not something I think I will ever try to do again because I had to spend a lot of time chasing people up to submit their questionnaires. Communicating can be difficult. When I demonstrated something that seemed clear and easy to understand to me it was wrong of me to assume that someone would understand all of the instructions.
 
 
While doing the Silver Arts Award I have also learnt that if you plan something perfectly it could still go wrong or it might not be possible to do. I have learnt that it is a very good idea to keep a backup plan so that if I can not complete my original plan I have something else to work on. Another thing that I have learnt is that even though I find it easy to do illustration some people do not and need a little help. I learnt this by looking through all of the feedback that I was given. If I was going to do this project again I would make sure that it was very clear that the participants are only meant to draw one face and not eleven.
 
I would like to thank everyone who helped me complete the Silver Arts Award including my advisers Russell and Martin and also all the people who took the time to participate in my tutorial and send me feedback.

Questionnaire


Silver Arts Award – Unit 2 project

In order for me to assess how successful the step-by-step tutorial has been I have compiled a simple questionnaire for you to complete. Many thanks for helping me out. If possible please send me a photo of your finished sketch which I will publish in my blog as part of the assessment.

Questionnaire

  1. Did you find the eleven steps easy or difficult to understand?


  1. Did you find that the illustrations were easy enough to follow?


  1. Were you able to follow the written instructions?


  1. Did you feel that the written instructions were necessary?


  1. Did you find the tutorial useful?


  1. Do you feel that your drawing skills have improved after working through the tutorial?


  1. What, if anything, would you change about the tutorial?


  1. Did you enjoy the tutorial?


  1. Would you recommend this tutorial to a friend? Why?


  1. Do you think there was anything omitted from this tutorial? What?

Sarah



Corinne

Josey

Laura

Chicita


Sunday, 30 September 2012

Silver Arts Award - Unit 2 project

An eleven step tutorial done for my Silver arts award.  If you want to use this tutorial click on the picture and you will be sent to my Deviantart page where you can enlarge the image so the text is readable.

Silver Arts Award - Unit 2 project plan


My project is aimed at my friends on Deviant Art who are all involved in illustration and are aged between 13-16 years old. This project is my back up plan as the original project idea was not practical and required funding.

I am going to make an eleven step online tutorial on how to draw human heads, focussing on the eyes, nose and mouth. I am producing this on my own and will be responsible for designing and publishing the tutorial.

I will need access to a computer and tablet. To ensure that the computer does not lose my tutorial I will save a back-up copy onto a pen drive. I will not require help in producing the tutorial.

I will send out a questionnaire to those who have taken part in the tutorial and will collect feedback from it. I need to find out who is happy to take part in the tutorial, publish the tutorial to Deviant Art, send the link to the participants, and compile and send them a questionnaire. Finally, I need to publish the tutorial and feedback to my blog.

Monday, 24 September 2012

Progress


When I started the Arts Award my artistic style was very basic. It consisted of simple colouring and thick black lines. It was very Anime and Manga based as this was the style that I was most comfortable with. I did not go into detail and only used very basic shading. I did not like to shade in detail as this was a new technique for me. I used a program called GIMP to draw. GIMP is a good program to start digital drawing with but it is not very good for going into detail.
I then moved on to using Photoshop for my drawings a few weeks into the Arts Award. I started to go into more detail, adding in textures to my artwork. I also began to experiment with different brushes and stamps. I even designed my own virtual brushes and played around with opacity and texture. I then made a brush that, when I tested it out, reminded me of the bold brush strokes that you see when you look at an oil painting. After experimenting a little more I found that I could produce a drawing that looked like an oil painting. I also found out how to remove the thick lines that I had been using. This is my main style now but I do keep going back to my older style too.

I have recently started to draw eyes in different styles. I think that drawing eyes is a great way of showing emotion without words. When I draw eyes I like to go back into the Anime and Manga style I used when I started the Arts Award but I find ways to incorporate my new style as well. Doing this has made me more aware of how much my style has changed. My art style had gone from childish and messy to rather neat and far more mature.

Before -

Now - 



I have recently been inspired by a few people since I started the Arts Award. Here are two of the artists who I know that have inspired me.
http://mdragonheartlove.deviantart.com/ - Someone whose colour choice in her art has inspired me to use more vibrant and shocking colours in what would usually be plain.
http://afrosamurai091.deviantart.com/ - A friend who has supported me with my art and given me much inspiration from role plays that we have done.

I have also attempted some cartoon-style artwork based on Roy Lichtenstein's paintings.