For my first assignment I have been asked to choose a few objects that trigger a response from me. I am currently away from home so don’t have too many objects of significance with me. However I chose both of my sons ‘special’ items my youngest son Teddy who is 3 has ‘baby’ a raggedy old teddy bear and my eldest son Leo who is 5 has ‘babby’ a raggedy old blanket. We have been living in Australia for the last few months but are due to leave in the next couple of weeks. I have chosen a bag with the name of my sons school on it. It is a wonderful loving and vibrant international school and it has been a big part of all of our lives whilst we have been here. I have also included my sons goggles as both my children have learnt to swim in Australia and this has been a really big deal. These chosen objects I think really summarise my last few months here in Australia and will always allow me to look back on a wonderful time in my life. I spent a little while placing these objects in different positions to create the perfect layout. I tried to set them up in a space where they could create interesting shapes and angles. I also tried to consider lighting hitting the objects at an interesting angle. I did this by experimenting with positioning my bedside lamp at different angles. Below are some photographs of my different arrangements.

For my drawing I worked on a3 paper. I started with a pencil and I tried to take my time blocking out proportions and positioning. I tried to utilise some of the experimental mark making skills I have discovered in this course so far and I tried to think about applying shadow. I finished my drawing using charcoal where I tried to draw out the darkest areas.

Reflecting upon my drawing, I am pleased with some of my mark making technique and some areas of accuracy on my drawing. However I still feel that my drawing looks flat in areas and I am not especially pleased with it. I feel that adding charcoal on top of my pencil work to draw out darker areas almost ruined it and it was better before hand. (I unfortunately didn’t photograph this though.) I am however aware that this is just the start of the course and hopefully as the course develops so will my work.

Reflection on my progress: I looked at the assessment criteria for the course and I tried to review my work using this criteria. For the first assessment criteria point I was to demonstrate my technical and visual skills, materials, techniques, observational skills, visual awareness, design and compositional skills. I feel I have demonstrated all of these above points not only in my assignment but in my project work leading up to my assignment. The next assessment criteria point was the quality of my outcomes, content, application of knowledge, presentation of work in a coherent manner, discernment, conceptualisation of thoughts and communication of ideas. Even though I achieved all of these points I think I may loose marks on the quality of some of my outcomes. The next assessment criteria point was a demonstration of my creativity, my imagination, my experimentation, invention and development of a personal voice. For this criteria point I think my work may be lacking as I feel for these projects and my assignment I was following a set of very clear instructions and had limited opportunity to demonstrate my own creativity and imagination. The final assessment criteria point was on context reflection- research and critical thinking. For this point I have tried to reflect upon my work as best as possible but without any feedback or guidance so far or without examples of how to best achieve this I feel I am unable to comment further on this area until my work has been assessed by my tutor.