Having reached the end of the module, I feel that my practice has developed through focussing on one extended research project. I had identified from my COP project that my concerns for practice are aligned with sustained research and not quick, applied briefs; a discovery that felt both confusing and assuring. At the beginning of 603 I thoroughly explored the live briefs that were open to me and created a plan of how I could tailor them to my practice. Working to live briefs would have offered momentum and structure but I decided that working on one sustained project was more appropriate to me as I was unlikely to be working to commercial briefs upon graduation.
The most transformative learning took place in my typographic work as I started to move away from the varied and naive approach I had previously applied to text, and instead apply a more consistent and refined approach. This movement from varied, playful type, to consistent, sophisticated letter forms was really informed just by changing my paint brush. For a while now I have really enjoyed the use of brush and ink in my practice for achieving painterly qualities and rich tone, qualities which have been refined further within 603. Working with a broader brush allowed me to create clear and consistent letter forms that resonated with my contextual references of heritage sign painting and mining banners. A challenge my work now faced however, was that this brush and ink took away the play and texture synonymous with my practice; driving another transformative moment. Uniting the play and texture of my wider work, with the new refined type, achieved a much bolder and visible aesthetic, supporting accessibility and the relevance of my work to the context of a banner for marching.
Screen-printing has proven to be a highly effective medium to extend my practice. My work often sits within quite a tangible and tactile quality, mainly through my use of layering, but translating these compositions into screen-print allowed me to get a real hold on the interplay of colour and texture within my banner designs. Screen-printing is a process I have practices across my degree and I feel comfortable in saying that I think I have certainly solidified the skill now. Half-tones are really important to me when screen-printing as they attain a lot of the texture in my prints and I have consolidated quite a complex knowledge of how this are created and applied through quite a rigorous approach to positive making. This has really benefitted the project as preparing the compositions for screen-print meant that I had a better grasp on the interplay of colour and texture that could apply to my digital outcomes. This was particularly important with my proposal to produce 14 screen-printed banners for the EOYS as my digital banner designs were construct in line with them being translated into positives.
Difficulties or fears impacting this module were mainly connected with my long term intent for practice which is focussed on research and post-graduate study. There were times in this module where I felt that perhaps I wasn’t producing enough refined outcomes and maybe I had disadvantaged myself in not carrying out live briefs but I have reached the end of the module feeling much more sure in my own work. The way I have learnt to see it is that I set myself off on an extended research project for COP, this project needed further visual investigation, I identified another, more specific route of research within that initial frame work, and I intend to pursue these concerns both theoretically and practically in post-graduate study.
The very personalised nature of the module has been really rewarding as I have been able to realise a brief, and concerns, important to me and my goals as a research based practitioner. I want my practice to continue to operate within a research context and I have solidified an ethos and approach to practice that will support my development within post-graduate study and on into the heritage industry. I am yet to feel as though I have fully completed my work on the brass band banners, but this is something that I’m sure with come to fruition with the production and execution of an installation in the EOYS.
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