Summer Stuff

Well it seems I have around 4 months worth of free time ahead of me. Though confident that I've at least passed the first year of my course I' don't think I've done as well as I could of, or at least I feel that my skill level is nowhere near what it needs to be for me to be successful in the 2^nd year. So this summer is going to be a summer of studies and practise. 

Looking back on my work there's a lot wrong with it technically, and although I've been going out and drawing a lot though the course I feel that now I would benefit a bit from sitting at home and learning from books for awhile,since I've found myself just drawing without thinking too much about what I'm doing, Which is something I want to change. Obviously I've improved from where I started but I've still got to push it. I also need to keep doing 3D work so I don't get out of the habit of it.  There's a vague idea of a bigger project in my head that I could work on over the summer, but I'm not quite sure if its doable right now so more on that later. The biggest aim of this summer for me is to  apply what I've learned beyond studies, so every week with whatever I'm studying I'll draw at least one illustration from imagination since I've  kind of lost how to do that during this course. Something that I used to do all the time took a back seat somewhat as I adjusted to the workload of the first year, neglecting my personal work, now I can get back to that. As for the blog I'll be documenting my progress every week with what's been happening. To starts things off here are a few things I drew in the week before heading back home.

Some studies from Newark Museum in Leicester

Random WIPs inspired by passer-bys

End of the year

The final hand in for all of my work was a few days ago, so I've officially finished my first year of university. Frankly I'm not sure how I feel about it. I'm glad that I've completed a fairly large body of work in the past like 7 months. But there is a certain level of indifference towards the work that I produced, though it's not really as bad as it sounds. How I look at my own work has changed since I started this course. Now I can look at my sketchbooks and feel proud of a collective work, but if I took a page out at random and threw it away, I wouldn't loose sleep over it. Beforehand everything was precious, and everything had to be perfect. I would feel terrible about drawing  the bad drawings in my sketchbooks, like I'd ruined the whole sketchbook with a page, and that would frustrate me and stop me drawing. Now if I draw something bad in my sketchbook I'm like "eh" likewise if I draw something good,  there's still an "eh" element to it, I've done it, it looks cool but I can quickly move on from it. That being said that doesn't mean there isn't work that I'm proud of, and I can see overall improvement with my work, which is great, that's why I'm here.
I've improved at drawing in general, I'm  faster at getting work done, I don't stress (as much) about the end result of my work. I'm definitely more confident in my abilities, which manifests itself in the fact that now I do a lot of my drawing outside and around other people, rather than by myself something I couldn't have done beforehand, at least not without hiding my sketchbook from passer bys. But I think the main change is less in the end result of my work, and more in my work processes/ethic and mindset.

Some favourites from the year:

Out of the 150 or so images I produced for this particular  project, this is my personal favourite

This was the last project of the year, a 2 hour sketch. and it was just nice to wind down to produce something I felt proud of.

Oh and I also won a little texturing competition, which was a nice confidence boast in terms of my 3D.

Over the next week or so I want to look critically at my work and begin summer study.
I plan to keep this blog updated with work and goals over the summer, so the next post will probably be about that!