Responsive - Evaluation

For me responsive has been a module of mixed feelings. It has been of great value to me in that I’ve developed certain areas of my practice i.e. print methodology and digital processes. Towards the end of my Illustration Friday work I felt very comfortable composing images using these processes previously alien to me. I’ve also had a go at working with other people witch was fun and challenging in different ways.

Another great string to responsive’s bow is the fact that everything you submit not only counts towards your grade. Entering each brief with the chance of winning was a great motivator for me. More specifically I really enjoyed the clockwork orange brief as well as Illustration Friday. I believe I was more successful on these briefs as I was able to set more time aside for research. I also made images that I'm really proud of, especially clockwork orange where I feel my print / collage skills were used to great effect. Other brief’s suffered a little due to my awful time management and organisational skills. I made the mistake of taking on lots of extra curricular work around the time when a lot of the brief’s I liked were finishing. I regret this, and moving on I will always put my education before the cash make selling prints. 

Fever Tree did not go as well as I had originally hoped. At the start of many of my other briefs I vowed to progress with the shape/texture work i’d been doing however for some reason I saw it fit to take a step backwards and start making my resolved work using pencil again. I’ve already noted that I think my printmaking is more effective than pencil and I need to either marry my pencil work with printed imagery and collage or leave it behind completely.

Working collaboratively was introduced by responsive and alike the clockwork orange brief I enjoyed it as I was trying new things. I was a little disappointed that I had to draw in a certain way so the animators could make use my work however I began to enjoy the process when my characters started to move. It was quite rewarding for me to give somebody my work and they bring it to life. Meeting and working with unfamiliar people was also a great experience.

Overall i’ve learnt a lot with responsive, certainly some hard lessons on time keeping. Unfortunately I had to rush a lot of my submission towards the end including my design boards and project report. I still put this down to how I prioritise my work.