the full on evaluation

Evaluation- Unit 3/4
Kim Smith
May 2011

Group Work played a large role in the Author Project- especially when we were asked to create a Manifesto. I was extremely happy with the outcome of my costume, and was ready to incorporate it highly into the work itself- but after discussion with my group (who all thought the ideas behind the costumes-in general- were better than the objects themselves) we decided to go for a more abstract approach. During the first meetings, there was a lot of great discussion going on about what it should be like, and we threw around a number of different final outcome ideas. I was getting antsy to get on and make something- not just talk about it- so I encouraged our group to go with one theme, and draw layout ideas on paper I taped to the studio wall. This seemed to kick off a momentum of work, and we tried a great number of processes- even coming together one weekend to make potato print stickers. Once we got going, it was hard to stop- and we found that delegating specific (decided as a group) jobs worked to our advantage- i.e. Alice was in charge of laying the text out, and I put together the whole website. This helped people's strengths to come out, and allowed others to learn from them. From the beginning, we set up a blog and facebook group to help communicate with each other (there were several illnesses) and share the work we'd been doing. This proved very beneficial.

Since before the Christmas holidays, I've been experimenting with adding Knitting into my Illustrations. As this is a very 'slow but steady' process, it wasn't until we changed tutors, that I really had a good amount of Handknits to show. I'd been drawing on inspirations from my favourite Vintage Sci-Fi films and trips down to Brighton, finding patterns and designs that I could change and draw onto graph paper- which would translate into knitting. I've also been broadening my skills, by learning to knit socks, do colour-work, and even spinning wool. I was growing in confidence- but still shy about my bag full of swatches. After an encouraging tutorial with Geoff, I went to see the owners of Prick Your Finger (a shop in Bethnal Green), and they were very excited by my out-of-college work. I've been doing some Work Experience there, and it's been a real eye-opener. I feel very lucky to be involved there. At the moment, I've just finished translating one of my designs into a knitted garment and I'm looking forward to exploring this more- trying to incorporate it into my illustrative work (Object or Image?). I've been documenting my collection of wool and other knitted-related inspirations on my blog. Also, frequent trips to the library to check out as many Kaffe Fasset and William Morris books as I could carry.

The Bio project started out very slow for me. I wasn't wholly captivated by my person, and it took some time before I really got going. I started my research by looking for what made him 'famous'- but all the scandal seemed overly talked about, and I wanted to uncover something a more unique about Lord Byron. I began with his childhood, researched into the schools he attended, and then found out about his numerous pets. Never really having drawn animals before, I set about practicing with several different mediums, crayon & pencil etc until I settled on watercolours. It seemed to give the most 'romantic' effect. Then I put together the story and worked out appropriate text to go along with it. As he was a poet- I wasn't sure how to best go about it, but found an old letter of his, and went with the 'romantic' cursive, interspersed with stanza-like print.

Overall I think my college-work research has been mostly from books, films and websites- where as my knitted research has recently been very 'hands on'. I'm aware. of course, it would be better for them to be more evenly spread- something which I'm working on- but is made difficult by my illness(CFS/M.E). Getting to Workshops and Galleries has been a problem for me this last term, as I usually need 2-3 days a week in bed. I've applied for some Disability Student Allowance, which, if successful, will allow me to work better from home and make it to 'outings' more often.


((I have to cut this down, nearly 200 words. HOW?))