Reflection...

Practice makes perfect, as does reflective thinking on a piece of work. Sitting back and analysing our work allows us too be our own critic, there is always something to improve. It allows us to engage, evaluate and compare are visual thoughts to previous ones. Of course visual language plays a massive part in being reflective, it is essential that an artist makes as many sketches as possible in order to improve. The most successful outcomes will be achieved if annotation is added to such sketches. In the image to the right, we see an art student's sketchbook. She has made quick, rough sketches, allowing her time to create more, and has clearly annotated and highlighted aspects of the sketch which she can improve on, change, and challenge. Annotating work also allows a person to describe a certain factor of their work that cannot be said visually, known as textual language. It may seem strange to some people to criticise your own work, but it allows an artist or designer to question and push their own skills to the highest they can be. Annotations are much more important than thoughts in your head because they can be referred back to, you can be reminded of what you want your main outcome to be. 



In order for our reflection to be recognized clearly, our annotations should be clear, well presented and straight to the point. an examiner is not going to spend more time than he or she needs to reading our mountains of annotations. Sometimes, more detail is needed for us to explain something, but most of the time we need to make clear what the main aim, problem or achievement is within our RVJ's. We need to engage a reader, use text visually and keep it legible to read. To the left I have shown examples of how this works.  The first RVJ is extremely crammed and cluttered, something that a reader will automatically avoid. There is no clear indication of what the purpose of the two pages were for, the only way we would find out is to read the whole thing. The second RVJ is a much better example. Sure, its simple, but it gets straight to the point. The student has used the technique of a 'spider web diagram' to show the reader his main aims, worries and success's. It is legible, therefore it more appealing to the eye. 
Even as a photography student, reflecting back on sketches and annotation are still essential to my progress. If I can imagine what I want to capture, but have not yet found it, I can make a quick sketch of what I want to achieve and refer back to it at a later date. I can also note down composition, the depth of the image I want to create, and possibly make annotations of what I want my main outcome to be so this can be reflected on. Also, when I have taken my images, I always need to annotate why I did such things and why they worked or didn't.