Research Week

Apologies everyone, I am going into learning journal mode...

24th February-3rd March 2014

Last week, as I predicted, turned out to be quite a productive week despite having no classes during that time. Although I may not have done a great amount of pages than I had anticipated, I did make some research and was trying to catch up with sketchbook work.

What has been achieved?

• To break down certain tasks, I made several lists in order to know what tasks to complete.
• I have set myself mini goals, for example getting a double page spread of research within an hour. 
• Generally, I have began feeling more motivated for this project, which I think is a great achievement because I'm not as anxious as I was before. 
• I feel like I am becoming less distracted, finding myself more occupied in doing work 
• I have looked at some contemporary examples of contemporary children's illustrators (and have been building my ever growing library of children's books for inspiration)
• I have been updating my bibliography as I have been conducting more research for the project. 

Books filled with sticky notes

My workspace with my board of motivational quotes to keep me going. 

My array of children's books which I am hoarding in my room -most of which are charity shop finds. Hopefully I'll have towers of these books over the years!

Strengths

• I feel that making lists is helpful, as this indicates my next step of actions. 
• For once I have started annotating my research/ work early on in the sketchbooking process(within my previous projects I was just lazy with annotation and tried to avoid it until the last minute, which was a bad habit of mine!)
• I have started using the online resources on the AUCB Library website, looking at e-books, online journals and TV programmes related to issues and subjects to my theme.

On the Ebrary site I can type in a given word and this would highlight where it's located in sections of the book, it's so helpful!

Box of Broadcasts- containing TV programmes, films and radio. 

Weaknesses

• Having conducted my initial bits of research I realized that I don't often look at the news and contemporary issues, which is a shame because I may not have the knowledge to identify with modern day problems.
• I am still quite slow with generating sketchbook pages as I do often worry about the layout and presentation. 

I just take absolutely ages just to complete one page, on the plus side, I've stopped drawing guide lines!

Room for improvement/ next steps to take:

• Start looking at news websites such as BBC or the Guardian more often to gain a broad understanding of what is happening within contemporary society. 
• Definitely start picking up the pace of generating sketchbook work (maybe try not to worry too much about presentation?)
• Within my next stage of research state why and how I might use certain information to guide my work.
• Try to use technical vocabulary within my annotations to display certain devices I am going to utilise. 

Well, that's about it from me...I find the learning journal is so tedious! But it's quite an important requirement for the foundation course. I shall be back next time, and hopefully over the next couple of weeks/months I'll be able to show the journey of my project in terms of creating the book itself, which I know won't be easy. I just gotta work hard and keep motivating myself!

C'est la vie...