I undertook a research project to find out more about a variety of drawing based art. I feel that I did this moderately well, there are a few gaps in my research, this is due to the short time period that this project has. I could have focused more intently on one subject matter and really driven into it, but instead I thought it would be better for my creative practice to cover more of a wider area of research. This meant I would end up learning about more things on a intermediate level, than becoming an expert in a specific area.
I found my research to be very valuable to my creative practice. It fully informed my practice and made me able to make informed decisions over judgements such as style, and line form. My research developed over the course of time, It spread from one subject to another, but I feel that I have a good range of sources from different places. I have a mixture of academic books and dissertations, to websites looking at very current thinking. It was important for my work to have a bit of historical and theoretical backing, but I was mainly interesting in what is happening now, and gathering the most recent sources. As these most recent sources will be more current and correspond to the most contemporary thinking.
I learnt about Harvard referencing, Literature Reviews, Contextual Reviews, Research Methodology, Practice led research, Research led practice, how to write a reflective journal, and, how to become a reflective practitioner. These have been important to my understanding of this module, and I can say that I have partaken in all of these areas. I decided to do a mix of research methods, and I used online sources, from places like Google Scholar, Jstor, and My Athens. I used websites that were current and matching my needs. I used the Library to find some academic research, and I collected a range of exhibition information. I carried out my own primary research by going into local art galleries and writing a small report on what they were like, how they were run, and what they contained. This was vital to my understanding of how small galleries run and has also improved the size of my fairly small network of art connections.
The most difficult thing about this project was finding sources that were relevant to my contemporary subject matter. I could not locate any academically sourced papers on internet trends. I am sure they are being worked on at the moment and will be published soon, But I have identified a lack of information on this subject area. It is a highly interesting and niche area that I might explore again in the future. The online sources that I have been using are not academic, the information has not been through any formality, and is just one person expressing a view, which lacks any merit. Random websites are not credible sources, but it was the only way I had of finding out certain information.
The most satisfying part of this project was seeing all of the information take shape, when it was all complied together. Looking at all of my hard work and hours spent typing out Harvard referencing, When it was all done, that was the best part. Another good part of this project was finding one or two really brilliant sources, such as 'The Daily Mail's articles on cats doing funny things. This helped to build up a key part of my experimental project.
If I had the time to do this project again, I would have done a few things differently. I would have gone to a bigger library and spent a few days skim reading for background information on kawaii before I committed myself to studying cuteness. It turned out there was not a great deal to research unless you went off on slight tangents all of the time. Kawaii has turned out to be something that I have no interest for. I have more of an interest now in illustrations that were produced by Beardsley in 1900, than I do for modern day Japanese aesthetics.
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