The following mindmap captures the outputs of a retrospective after handing in the final assignment for Responding to a brief.
Retrospective outputs
Stop, Start, Continue
Stop
| Action | What is being done to achieve this? |
| STOP doing favours for free (where there is no development value in it for me) | Remember the yes/no sandwich approach to turning people/ideas down: “That’s a really interesting idea…… but unfortunately I can’t help this time because….. I hope the venture is successful”. |
| STOP posting poor quality work to Instagram | Pause before posting – enough to see the work with a fresh pair of eyes. Don’t cheapen the other work with sub-standard quality. |
Start
| Action | What is being done to achieve this? |
| START to explicitly build practice research into the work | Follow through on the thinking and activity started in Practice research approach |
| START taking more creative risks | Add this as a topic to cover in more detail as part of my practice research.
Immediate ideas:
|
| START to write/work on critical reviews/written work in parallel with practice i.e. don’t leave it right until the end of the unit | Build this into my work schedule once signed up to Visual Dynamics |
| START writing up exhibition visits as part of structured research | This is already built into my Practice research approach. |
| START to find themes that resonate | Start to capture ideas somewhere. Links slightly to the idea of building a glossary to capture areas of interest. Create a place and format to do this when I create the glossary (see below) |
| START to catalogue and store my sketchbooks | Buy and plastic crate to store my growing pile of sketchbooks. Start to label up new sketchbooks with dates and do this retrospectively where possible. Possible add more storage space in studio. |
| START a glossary and using it as per tutor advice (see Creative Arts Research: Doing Thinking ) during Visual Dynamics | Create a glossary. |
Continue
| Action | What is being done to achieve this? |
| CONTINUE daily drawing practice | Currently evidenced by You are here. |
| CONTINUE using study guides | As well as the Repotgage study guides that are informing my daily sketching for You are here I’ve also signed up to a dynamic figure drawing course on Udemy and may take this further into looking at figure drawing and anatomy if this seems valuable. |
| CONTINUE figure/life drawing | Currently attending Zoom sessions with Anna Catherine and Soho Life Drawing. Will also continue daily commute sketching etc. with a vengeance as the lockdown is lifted. |
| CONTINUE Urban Sketcher workshops and meet-ups | Monthly meetups with the London Urban Sketchers are diarised and I’ve signed up to a Veronica Lawlor Paris workshop in September. More to be added although these are subject to lockdown restrictions being lifted. |
| CONTINUE experimenting | Use study guides to experiment with mixed media and different subjects and themes.
Use gestural figure drawing. |
| CONTINUE to get out-on-the-wire (take more risks in making work) | Workshops and collaborations are good vehicles to enable me to take more risks. Also aligning OCA exercises to more challenging work/work situations is also a motivating factor. |
Illustration 