Evaluation

This module went really well for a group project as we worked well as a team and were able to discuss ideas without arguments. Normally I find it difficult to work as part of our group because I am not a very confident person but my group helped me work around my anxieties. Best of all we all managed to help each other to complete our goals and more importantly reach the deadline without fail. 

There was a lot of research involved in this module as you had to be well informed on the theme to be able to write the articles. I enjoyed learning more about one of my interests for my work as it caused me to learn some new skills which will be useful in the future if I ever decide to make another newspaper like this. As part of my work I was able to research an artist I admire (T-koni) and look in more depth at their works while also using it to my advantage to further my knowledge. 

It was a challenging thing to write two articles when I had never had the experience of doing it in the past, but I now feel more confident in writing articles in the future. I feel that the book 'How to write an article' really helped my group to understand what you need in order to write a good article, in which you can capture a readers attention. I also learned what you shouldn’t do in an article and I hope that I have achieved this by using the advice in Chapter 5.

I have found that writing an article is extremely different to drawing an illustration but I have also learnt they do have some similarities. The ways in which they are different are that when writing an article the key aspect is the background research, as without it, you wouldn’t have an article. Whereas when creating an illustration it’s all about your own creative ideas and you do not necessarily need to do any background research. One of the similarities they do have is the fact you can choose any topic/theme and make it into something that is your own.

Another thing I enjoyed about writing the article was that I got to read lots of different versions of my tales ‘The fairy Horn’ and ‘Female prisoner’ and it sparked curiosity in my mind to explore these tales in my own time now that the project is completed. I am particularly interested in the Female prisoner and what will now happen to Gloucester Prison. I found that Lyn Cinderey was a very useful source and has an extensive knowledge of the paranormal especially in the Gloucestershire area. I think that if I interviewed her for the newspaper like I had planned to it would have been an interesting contribution to the articles as she showed strong interest in the female prisoner tale in numerous articles.

Out of my five illustrations for the newspaper, my favourite was the blue fairy. I think that the drawing was simplistic but also captured the delicate nature of a fairy so I believe that it was a successful illustration which fitted well with my article.

Another favourite of mine was the pointing hand, I like the way the pencil lines show through the markers as it creates a softer feel to it rather than going around the image with a bold outline. My dragon painting was more disappointing as I realized after painting it that I didn’t like it as much as when it was a sketch, I feel as if it lost something. However, I did think the textures the gouache created was effective and made a rough skin like how you would imagine scales feel. I was extremely disappointed with the horn that I illustrated as I felt it didn’t fit the colour palette as well as it could have. In the future I would like to explore more with painting because I would like to improve on my technique and skill. I find that I am more used to digital painting rather than analogue. I would like to practise with the programme InDesign as I did not get to use it as much as I would of liked to.

The aesthetic of the newspaper overall fit well together and contrasted nicely with the darks and the lights in the palette. I think that the colours we decided on were successful in the finished product as they worked well with the illustrations we all produced. If we were to work together in the future I hope that we would be more outgoing and produce higher quality illustrations that show our skills and advantages in different materials.

I feel like we made a successful newspaper seeing as it was our first attempt. It was very informative, captured the stories well and had illustrations which were relevant to each individuals article.