Having received feedback for my work in part 5 I wanted to write a brief reflection and think about how to approach future OCA courses.
I was a bit disappointed to hear that some of my work appeared rushed, based on my tutor feedback.
In some respects you have not always taken full advantage of opportunities here to really develop your use of different media, practice techniques, use digital programs and establish your style. Some exercises appear rushed, whereby you haven’t always fully explored potential of each brief.
For this final part time management did become an issue, despite that I spent far, far more time than the recommended guideline for this section. One of the biggest challenges with distance learning and self-directed study is staying motivated to work consistently and utilising time effectively. There’s a point with all of these exercises where you can iterate forever, and there has to be a point where you submit the work that you’ve completed in as finished a state as possible within the timeframe you’ve given yourself. I stand by that I worked to a high personal standard and engaged with all the exercises. The work was completed over a long period of time and delayed several times to ensure I was happy with the quality of the work I submitted.
Hopefully I’m not sounding overly defensive, but I do think that I really tried to engage creatively and fully, even to exercises that I didn’t necessarily think that I would enjoy, and I’m happy with the body of work that I created.
Of course there are areas for improvement. I particularly struggled with certain areas of illustration that I maybe didn’t have a huge personal interest in, and definitely my methodology sometimes led me down what I considered sort of creative dead-ends. I admittedly found myself frustrated with where I had taken myself in a few of the exercises and I should have thought harder about what exactly I wanted to do and accomplish with each. My next goal is to focus on submitting for assessment and I’m keen to look at how I’ve developed as an artist, and how to improve my processes for future academic work.
Throughout part 5 I produced some of my favourite work for the course so far, and I feel like I’m closer to understanding where I want to go as an artist and developing a personal approach and style.
The next course I’m going to enrol in is Drawing 1. Some initial goals are to catalogue more of my work-in-progress and be more descriptive about those processes. I also think there’s more room to have a little fun and think laterally, producing more work that is satirical or transgressive.
I plan to write up a summary of my learning logs and collate the work that I’m most happy with for presentation.
Josh Robbins OCA Learning Log 