This is the reflective cycle of which our tutor and this is a demo that he presented to us to help with our reflections as an artist and show what our knowledge is to ourselves and our art work (Hails, 2012). Of what I have gathered from the lecture and the lesson which introduced this reflective cycle. Here is my quick brief of what I understood. The circles represent in action reflection, on action reflection and action research. they are connect together to show you need either one to create action research. Once you have both in and on action reflections the red loop has the knowledge in action this has what you know about yourself and your work and how they are inter loop with the in and on actions. The loop that is located on the outside is the learning plan objective this is to show that you are continuously learning to improve yourself and your work with in the mean time of the action plans. Now the radial thinking that branches off from the action plans are the ins and outs of what you are or have done or doing while being an artist. An example of this is personal and professional and as you see my tutor has placed what he’s good at and what he does as an artist which includes projects, sculpting and even 3D design.
In our lesson as we were taught about the reflective cycle when got told we had to create our own and place into our blogs and give a quick review of our own reflective cycles. I will be placing my reflective cycle into this blog but I am going to give a SWOT analysis on what type of artist I am and how I want to improve myself to into becoming an digital arts teacher. I will be able to show links on how my reflective cycle can show how I am able to improve myself and how I will always be improving skills and attributes towards my future. Here is my reflective cycle. 
Now my reflective cycle is spaced themed. I did spaced due to the fact I really like space but also showing that I relate to space as I feel like as a person and an artist I live in my own little world however I like to venture out into the galactic galaxy to visit more planets. In a way I am saying I like research. I tried to show I am research driven and find that I work better when I look into things and find deeper meaning toward a project and have wider ideas.
SWOT:
Strength:
Ive shown that one strength of mine is research and I am always doing my best to include more styles and resources to find exactly what I want for my project so much so that I look outside the box and find some references which don’t link to my project but I figured that looking at some referenced that don’t have any connection could help with my development into an idea plan or final product. Another strength I would include is project building/analysis, I am able to work and gain experience while working along side people and contribute to team work. I love being able to follow through with a team plan and working together of which can show a final outcome of a project. Final strength that I am presenting is experimental work. Like I do with my self and my work I love to experiment and make things into different versions of itself. I find that like a makeover you don’t know exactly what you like unless you experiment and my work and work ethic is the same. I use the skills and tactics that I already know and collide them with new and more interesting ways. Yes, like most things. Experimenting doesn’t always fall into place but I find being able to who where and how things go wrong your able to evolve more experience and knowledge to make summit great or a questionable intake.
Weakness:
With thinking about my weaknesses. I feel that word is too negative so therefore I’d call it Improvements. To start with my improvements I would include future skills and techniques. I am very basic in what I know for my skills which include traditional, digitals and techniques such as painting, drawing and water-colouring. I definitely want to improve my skills and technique, I am able to do this by opening doors to different styles and using my research into what current trends are so that I can see what techniques everyone is using. I can do this to build a better profile into becoming a digital design teacher, as I think how can I teach pupils skills if I don’t know or aren’t open to new and current techniques. Another improvement of mine is contemporary practice, I believe a can alway improve on my contemporary art within 2D and 3D design. I am willing to improve to help with my future career I want to show and prove to myself I am able to improve my work and style with opening new doors into using techniques. This I believe will transform myself into a more experienced artist.
Opportunities:
I believe everything I come across is an opportunity to take on board. Ive managed to gain some fantastic work experience and have gained some brilliant contacts over the 3 years on my course. I’ve done work with Hadrian Border Brewery (Brewery, 2018), Live Tales (Tales, 2018) and being a volunteer as an artist mentor at Hartlepool Artrium studio and gallery (Studio, 2018) which include outreach projects in schools (Project, 2018). Without taking on opportunities I wouldn’t be able to say I have had some experience in art or be able to say I am equipped to have knowledge in the department that I want to go into. I agree with having opportunities I am able to say I am eligible to take on responsibilities and being able to use my strengths and weaknesses to improve in my work and professional profile. I am keen to carry on with opportunities that life throws my pathway and take on them with an open mind and have a will to improve my ethic. This can be done by using swot analysis, one to ones and regular feedback from a client, learning guide and self assessment.
Threats:
Threats come in many shapes and forms. A threat to me can be time management and over loading myself. Example being I am taking on so much and not doing somethings more than others. To help with organising myself as a whole I took up with a time table and academic diary. I look more frequently into what I need to do other than what I should do. I’ve had to learn to take acquittances on the chin and not have such a sponged heart. I figured with the profession I am going into I need to make sure I have full understanding on what I can do as a future educator. I need to make sure I take on hold that I am only human and that I cant do everything. However while using my strengths and my weaknesses I can improve upon what I thought and will be doing.
An overall summary of what I am going to be doing with myself and further on Is that I will be combining all my strengths and weaknesses and making the two work together as one. I am only as good as my last performance. I am willing to gain more opportunities by opening more doors to myself and able to not gain to many threats by using my strengths, weaknesses and opportunities as a guide to improving myself and an artist and as a future educator. Without any of these I wouldn’t be able to further myself as a professional employee without having any fall backs to learn from.
For a little of proof of myself doing some teaching here is a photo of which I got from my volunteer job from the Artrium website (Project, 2018). a very proud moment for me :).
Until next time
Rach
🙂
Bibliography
Brewery, H. (2018). Hadrian Border Brewery | Newcastle upon Tyne | Brewery. [online] Hadrian Border Brewery | Newcastle upon Tyne | Brewery. Available at: https://www.hadrian-border-brewery.co.uk/the-brewery [Accessed 26 Dec. 2018].
Hails, D. (2012). Reflective cycle. [Digital] Newcastle college.
Project, O. (2018). Outreach – Artrium Studio. [online] Artrium Studio. Available at: http://www.theartrium.org.uk/outreach [Accessed 26 Dec. 2018].
Studio, A. (2018). Artrium Home Page – Artrium Studio. [online] Artrium Studio. Available at: http://www.theartrium.org.uk [Accessed 26 Dec. 2018].
Tales, L. (2018). Live Tales Story Writing Workshops. [online] Live Theatre. Available at: https://www.live.org.uk/creative-opportunities/children-young-people/live-tales-story-writing-workshops [Accessed 26 Dec. 2018].
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