Interim evaluation 4

Deciding to change course and work solely on narrative was a really good choice. I think I did need that time away from working with publishing and editorial illustration to gain a full understanding that this is what I want to do. Part of the reason for my blip could be down to that I am scared and worried about the prospect of freelancing. But working with narratives and telling stories is something that I relate to strongly and ultimately where I naturally sit and have a passion for. Now that I have made this decision I have a stronger sense of direction and aim. One thing that has been a problem for a while now is the length of time it takes me to make images. For example with the 1^st Bronte print as a summary of  Wuthering Heights ,which is a strong image. That took me a few days to make. And if it was sitting in the context of editorial, the time frame would be much shorter. My core aim now is to continue the development of speeding up my process. A successful attempt in doing this was the first image for the story of ‘ The Twelve Brothers.’ I made this image during the Easter holidays so I was forced to work with no print room.  So I used black paper and gouache as a substitute for lino and this worked surprisingly well. It doesn’t have the exact quality which is a shame, it works in a very similar way. Once this was done I was able to build up the layers using print textures and different colours. ( see post dated 12^th april) When finished it there where strong similarities between the image and screen print. But printed out digitally the textures are not even and this is something I need to work on. Using other print textures other than mono print could work? Mono tends to have quite a noisy texture so can easily make images very grainy, a smoother more even texture would be better, then this can be applied across the whole image evenly. Within the brief too I’m trying not to screen print the final image, as when I graduate I won’t have easy access to a print room. There are advantages to printing digitally. You don’t lose as much detail on the finer elements of an image and it is overall clearer and sharper. But screen print has that bespoke and more personal rawness to it, which is appealing. Moving forward I am going to continue for now printing and creating images using prominently digital techniques but I need to start making some more up to date editorials as this need to be in my portfolio and with many papers moving to digital platfrom and not in print , this is somthing I need to bare in mind.