Written reflection: Assignment one: Drawing portfolio

Note to tutor: Although the instructions say not to mount or crop the drawings that I have submitted, I have mounted and grouped some of the smaller drawings onto larger pieces of paper for my own organisational purposes, so that I could more easily see what exercise they belonged with.

My first response to the Tropical Tourist brief for the Introductory project was a mixture of excitement and trepidation, wondering if I would be able to produce anything that was 'good enough'. I immediately could think of a few different items that would be suitable, but needed to search around to complete the composition, and then take it back a bit, simplify it, as then I had chosen too many items I think. I could probably have made the composition of the initial photographs but I think I was trying to hard to follow the example photograph given in the course notes.

My first response to the textile archive brief was to try to think of a suitable place that was accessible to me, but that perhaps had not been exploited by other students. I initially couldn't get much help from the National Trust staff, but eventually managed to get access, by which time, from studying the photos on the National Trust Collections website I had narrowed down the selection of items of interest to me.

I think that of the three items I chose, only one would be considered a traditional textile: the whitework embroidered sampler. The fire escape chute would be a non-traditional textile, but I am pleased I chose this as I think it has helped me to widen my view of textiles as potentially very practical as well as interesting to look at and feel. My third item, the stationery box, could be argued to have only a limited amount of textile material, the linen tape that connected the flaps of the box, but I prefer to think of it in the same vein as wallpaper designs which can be viewed as textile.

The techniques I employed during the projects included photography, mark making using a range of media from pencils to pens, to made and found and tools, printing, rubbings, stencils, painting, drawing with wet and dry Inktense blocks and pencils, drawing and rubbing on wet and dry paper, using ink and resist, collage using found and painted papers, digital drawing.

I feel that I have tried to use new techniques and push myself to try new ways of observing and capturing the qualities of the items under study.

I find it hard to put into words what I think the strong points of my work are, however, I am able to show what I think are my strongest pieces in the work produced so far:

I think that perhaps my work is weakened when I don't have the time and patience to capture a detailed drawing of the subject I am studying, preferring instead to capture things quickly and in broader strokes.

I think that I have gained some new skills in using a smartphone app to draw with, manipulating the settings to try to get the result I want, but I think I need further practice to really master this technique.

I would really like to develop my work in the context of collage, printing, rubbings, stencils, extracting patterns and repeating them in new ways.