I plan to not have any problems as I am going to follow a time plan with projects and experiments to do with in them dates. However if anything was to come up the problem may be not being able to get things finished. From this it can be from either time management; maybe I get lost track of the dates or time. Things like this do happen and I do have dedications outside of university.
Speaking of such with dedication outside of the course and university I have had such a hectic year. I started off with the beginning of the course starting the academic year with a voluntary job as an artist mentor at the Artrium (Studio, 2019) studio based in Hartlepool of which I gained experiences in schools and working with young adults and adults with artist experiences and disabilities. I am currently working there and its coming up to a year of me joining the Artrium family.
I also started my driving lessons which are on the peak of finalising. I passed my theory first time which I was ecstatic about. I did come across a struggle at first when I started my driving and doing a course but then I managed to balance the two. I studied for my theory test on the train then did uni work during the day and then studied again for my theory of the trip home by train. I did this over the year and put in for my test in 2019 along side other news which as given to me on new years eve. I will refer back to this in a short while. My driving is still on going and I am in the end of my time with it. I have to apply for my driving test some point in the next 2 weeks.
The news I was announced on new years eve is that my partner and I were looking into buying a house together. We already live together in a bedroom so we decided we wanted to have a house we can call our own and make it ours. Since January we have house hunted until mid February and found the house we fell in love with. Over the month into March we have had to over come with solicitors, legal fees, mortgage acceptance, paying for searches and much much more. My partner and I can now say on April 23rd we own a house which we call our own. As much as this is such an exciting, stressful and agonising experience I have had to place a little hold of my work. I never stopped doing my work but the plans I had from the start have drastically changed. My set plan is now to represent the children and children with specific learning difficulties and disabilities and how I could show this into a protectional children’s book. I am now looking Into a sensory illustrated board which will have fabrics and layers for sensory feel.
I have also applied this year for my PGCE and teacher training over UCAS teacher training (Training, 2019). This process has also been so time consuming as I have add to go through the process of applying through UCAS and getting references from off my tutor and my boss at the Artrium. I have managed to go to two interviews. One interview was at Northumbria university (University, 2019) I didn’t have the best experience but I covered this in a blog post already. I will leave the link down below. My second interview was with Newcastle college’s Newcastle school of education (Education, 2019) I have mentioned in the blog prior that I loved my experience and you are able to read about my experience by the link below. Due to doing my PGCE interviews and buying a house and doing driving lessons while also doing my BA Hons illustration degree I have had a huge chaotic experience of time management and being organised and thinking about my future career. I did mention at the start of the year that I wanted this year to be my main focus on my future into becoming a digital arts teacher. I feel like I have achieved this goal. I have found a PGCE course that I found rewarding to me and I managed to gain a high 2.1 in my last two assignments which is leading me toward the track to become an teacher. I have bought a house with my long time partner and managed to do my driving; which I have done for my future career into teaching so that I am more mobile and employable to schools and teacher training placements.
Considering all of that I have managed to develop for my multi textual children’s book a research blog on children’s books along side a research file which you can read here Research File . I have done my case studies Case Studies and got a moderate understanding on children/ young adults with learning difficulties and disabilities. I said that I was going to develop a multi textual children’s book. I have created pages that are potential for a children’s book. I haven’t created the book but I have created a portfolio book from Vista Print which had my pages for the multi textual children’s book inside. I have created the script for the book along side some experiments with storyboards. However I have came to the conclusion that I am wanting to create a sensory board so that I have kept my promise and using the case studies and my research the board will have my character and its environments but I’ll be a sensory feel board to show a representation of the book in one big presentation. I figured because I did focus on my future ahead. I do need this course to get my grade to become a teacher. I made sure I didn’t forget what will get me from A to B.
Speaking of projects I have done some commercial projects I did the penguins awards which was based on the book called wonder. I did a blog about this and I will leave the link down below. I created a final for my wonder project of which I placed an intense blog on what i did for the wonder project with imagery of what I have done. The blog also shown my zines I did for experimental work which I also go through the ins and out of how I did things. I have created content for the Association of illustration and the Vamos festival live brief. For the association of illustration we had to create a content about the Hartlepool Monkey (Monkey, 2019) I have found some research of which I already knew about the Hartlepool monkey story as it was a starter point into my relationship with my partner (chat up lines of which end up knowing where your partner is from are confused people who hanged a monkey thinking its a french spy). Here is the illustrations I did for those two projects. I will be placing little titles on each imagery so that you know which one goes where. Vamos festival is based on Latin America (Festival, 2019). Day of the dead theme (Dead, 2019). I did this as the content of Vamos is Latin American, sources states “¡VAMOS! was originally founded in 2006 with the vision of creating a community driven multi-genred Latin American inspired festival”(Festival, 2019) This company has partnership with Newcastle University hence the reason of how we got a hold of the festival and the live brief. I have created day of the dead to go with the art of Latin and my love for Mexico. Here is the illustrations I have done for both. Vamos has two illustrations due to my indecisiveness.
I also did a collaboration with a level 6 media student on campus of which I was asked to create 16 children drawn turtles. I will explain, my job was to illustrate turtles from children’s drawings. I had to neaten but keep the theme of that the kids crew the turtles. I had to use my Photoshop and illustrator skills to create the turtles. I will show what I created for the student below. I had to use my communication skills and teach myself how to arrange meetings and have a progress calendar in time for the deadline. I agreed with a 4 week deadline and managed to create the turtles within the time slot. However there was some technical difficulties of sending over the finished products. This was because of the illustrations had to be sent over in a PSD file (Photoshop file) as I was asked to make sure each body part on the turtles where able to be mobile, This was so that the student was able to create a stop-motion style animation for her project. We managed to communicate together and find a way to send over the final products. I haven’t been given any feed back since the last email meeting but I wished all the best with her project. Here is the final products of which I created.
I made sure over this year I based everything for my future career In teaching. I did case studies so that I had a moderate idea of children’s needs and safety recognition. I did a collaboration with a student who was also including children into her work of which I managed to mimic the children’s drawing and make them neater and more animated. I started a job which helped with my practise teaching role. I managed for 4 weeks for 4 days of the week to create a creative lesson plan from 9 am to 3 pm, teaching children from ages 5-11 diy arts and crafts from recycled objects. I did this with a few other people from the Artrium. We did the out reach projects to help children who come from middle class families who either cant afford summer activities or who are working parents. We provide the experience of being able to create art with anything they have in the house. An example was we created dreamcatchers with scrap cardboard and wool with beads and feathers. The children took great pleasure in doing the activity. They were delighted to know they could take home the dreamcatchers to show their parents/guardians. I have photo evidence of this which I’ll provide here. 
I based my commercial work on children’s books and stories. Baring the Vamos festival live brief. I did this so that I could help with my project and have more research and understanding of what children like. I finally based my project about children and children with learning difficulties and disabilities so that I am reasonably aware of every child and young adult who I may get to teach. As I, would want anyone to have the right to an education.
My PGCE Interviews: Planning a step towards my future.
Bibliography
Dead, D. (2019). Top 10 things to know about the Day of the Dead. [online] Nationalgeographic.com. Available at: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/destinations/north-america/mexico/top-ten-day-of-dead-mexico/ [Accessed 2 May 2019].
Education, N. (2019). [online] Available at: https://www.ncl-coll.ac.uk/courses/2287/pgce-young-people-and-adult-specialists-full-time [Accessed 29 Apr. 2019].
Studio, A. (2018). Artrium Home Page – Artrium Studio. [online] Artrium Studio. Available at: http://www.theartrium.org.uk [Accessed 26 Dec. 2018].
Monkey, H. (2019). The Hartlepool Monkey Hanger Legend!. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJLL_6htsQ8 [Accessed 2 May 2019].
Festival, V. (2019). North East | Vamos Festival. [online] Vamos Festival. Available at: https://vamosfestival.com/north-east/ [Accessed 2 May 2019].
Training, T. (2019). UCAS Teacher Training. [online] UCAS. Available at: https://www.ucas.com/teaching-in-the-uk [Accessed 29 Apr. 2019].
University, N. (2019). Secondary Art, Craft and Design PGCE. [online] Northumbria.ac.uk. Available at: https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/study-at-northumbria/courses/secondary-art-craft-and-design-gtfacd6/ [Accessed 29 Apr. 2019].
Rara's Blog 