Brief
Assignment 1 required me to introduce myself by creating a greeting card, showing my interests and inspirations, the materials I feel happy working with and maybe what I would like to get from the course. The artwork could be in any size, format and created using any materials.
Initial Thoughts
I procrastinated a great deal with this assignment as I really dislike anything that focuses attention on me. For example, when joining a new class and having to introduce yourself to everyone else. This goes against my nature. And I don’t really see the relevance of it. I am a very private person and it takes a long time for me to feel comfortable enough to start giving things away about myself. Therefore I found it difficult to come up with any ideas for this task. I am more keen to move onto the next section!
Mind Map
Despite my reservations, I decided to create a mind map about ‘me’, circling the most important points.
To try and find some inspiration, I looked some other OCA students’ blogs to see what they had come up with. The majority seemed to have a self portrait of some sort with pictures of their likes, etc surrounding them. However, although I liked most of these and they have had a lot of effort put into them, I was not keen on this concept for me. It also seemed quite an obvious solution to the assignment.
Sketches
I sketched some rough ideas, in which I had some of my likes ‘lined up’ as if in an ‘evidence exhibition’, with A B C, etc. but I did not really like this.
I thought the best idea was something like the below, but I then thought it looked like I was speaking to someone online, which was not the desired effect.
I was becoming quite frustrated by this point and had reached my extended (!) deadline for the assignment, so I decided to go with the most simple card possible, which sums me up and is the minimalistic style I like.
Conclusion
In the end, this assignment was not something a I enjoyed and I found the longer I left it, the harder it became to think of any kind of suitable outcome. Personally, I feel that the final solution I came up with reflects me the best and I don’t think it is really necessary for me list/expand on my likes and dislikes. I think my personal tastes and preferences for ways of working will show in the exercises and (hopefully) develop. I am going to start on the next section and hopefully there won’t be any more tasks that require me to focus on myself! I would like to return to this assignment at a future time, as I’m sure I could create something better, but for now I need to move on to something different.