Reflection On My First Year Of Study

Overall I think that my first year of study was successful. The first semester was exciting for me as it was a new start and a chance for me to take my interests further, learn new skills and work under more professional time scales and environments, as well as mixing and meeting people with similar interests and career aspirations as me. The first project for me was really interesting as it combined history and learning about a new era with more modern ways of thinking and contemporary design. I was really pleased with the way that my final designs turned out as I think they were creative and original. I was also pleased with my skill level. I think that with many of the new techniques that I learnt I carried them out well. I was worried that my skill level would not be high enough. However in my first semester I achieved a first for my make up practical which settled my worries and boosted my confidence. I was, however slightly disappointed in my skill level for the hair side of the course; I struggled with many of the techniques that we studied. Eventually I think that I learnt most of the skills but  I need to work on my skill set and practise more. I also sometimes worry that I am not creative enough, but after careful planning, research and looking for inspiration I was pleased with my designs. I think that initially I struggled with what was expected of my work and how much I had to do. I also think that my expectation of what constituted a big workload, involving recording of the steps and processes, as well as research was incorrect and I needed to be much more thorough. Because of this I was disappointed with my grade for the first project. Although it was difficult to understand where I went wrong initially, as I thought I had done a good job, after hearing my feedback and learning the areas where I could improve, it was clear that there was large room for improvement, but there was nothing that I'm not capable of achieving.

My Design Carried Out By My Partner

The Design I Carried Out On My Partner

In the digital image side of the course I really enjoyed the first project. I found the use of the studio and professional equipment really exciting and for the first time felt very professional. I really enjoyed the styling element of the project as well as the make up and hair designing. I thought that the brief of having to keep to one colour scheme was interesting and original as it meant that I had to think harder about the concept and emotions that I wanted to portray through the use of clothing and colour. I think that I initially struggled with how to portray my chosen ones, but after the feedback session the areas and things that I could do were far clearer and helped me to produce better work. Using photoshop was also new for me; I have not previously used it and to be honest have always been a little scared. I did struggle to begin with, but made sure that I took down detailed notes that I could follow when not around one of my photoshop lecturers. I think that this helped me as I could spend lots of my own time on it meaning that my overall work was better.

Due to my disappointment in my first project I made sure that at the beginning of the second project, Great Expectations, that I knew exactly what I wanted to achieve, the standard of work expected and how to go about creating a good project. I worked harder on my ground work first as well as research and my recording. I think that this helped my project and blog flow better which meant my final images could be understood better and the meaning and processes behind them more clear. I was pleased with the way that my Miss Havisham images turned out and was pleased with the continuity element of the work. I think that overall my second semester work was far better then my first and am pleased to see that my extra effort and drive has paid off in the form of a higher grade. I was determined to prove that my practical ability could be matched by the blog work through the use of my writing skills, which I know are at a reasonably good level.

My other second semester work of digital image production and essay writing were also enjoyable for me. I think that I have enjoyed the digital side of the course more than I expected and am looking forward to studying it further. I think that I do however need to improve my photoshop skills further and, in some ways, take the digital side of the course more seriously. I also really enjoyed my essay and found researching and cumulating sources and pieces to write about very interesting. Initially I was daunted by the word limit, feeling that it was too large, but ultimately thought it was too little!!