What were the main types of evaluation?

Peer evaluation - a type of performance evaluation that is done by one or more people of matching competencies

Self-evaluation - a way to systematically observe, analyse and value your own project and its results in order to improve it

Tutor feedback - information a teacher gives to learners on how well they are doing, either to help the learner improve specific points, or to help plan their learning

User testing - the process through which you trial your project by real users to see what they think and whether it works

How will you use these different forms of evaluation each week and timetable them into your weekly process?

I will keep a daily written record of what I have done and evaluate how effective any activities are in terms of developing or visualising my ideas. My sketchbook will also serve as a way of documenting progression and exploring new routes. I will look to my peers to see what they think of my work and whether there are areas for improvement. Tutor feedback will also play an important role, letting me know how well I am doing – it would be helpful to know if there is anything I could be doing differently, in order to enhance specific points or plan my learning further. We have class on Mondays and Wednesdays so this will be the main time to get this kind of feedback.

How will you go about defining and testing the success of your work as an ongoing part of your process?

Through peer and tutor evaluation mainly, as well as self-evaluation - if I am not happy with my own work then I will continue working on it until I am. When the project comes to an end, I intend to look back at my initial aims to see whether I have fulfilled the brief, communicating a clear message and delivering a visually intriguing outcome to the audience. 

Oliva was in charge of Commune Day 2. We met in Regent's Park to have our 1 hr 'Walk + Talk' discussing her chosen topic of 'Memories'. Olivia questioned us about various memories that were significant in our lives, as well as talking about the more technical side of how we remember things. 

After the initial discussion, we then went to the 'Play Well' exhibition at the 'Wellcome Collection'. I had never been to the Wellcome collection before and it looked like a lovely museum - I will definitely be visiting again! The exhibition explores how play transforms both childhood and society. Using displays of historic toys and games, artworks and design, we saw how play develops social bonds, emotional resilience and physical wellbeing. My favourite part was looking at the old toys, particularly how Barbie has changed over time. I could possibly use this within my project, looking at female perceptions of beauty and how they've evolved, much like Barbie.

After lunch, we had another discussion but this time about the objects Olivia asked us to bring with us. I brought my old toy, Ruby, and a photo of my mum and me when I was younger. Olivia interviewed me about them and recorded the session, hopefully providing her with some material so could use for her project. So then conducted another interview with Georgia about her objects. We then had a photoshoot of the objects - Olivia used an analog camera so it will be interesting to see how these turn out! 

Today was my Commune day! We met at Camden Town station and walked to the Vagina Musuem - I had researched feminist exhibitions in London and this seemed to be the only one open at the moment! I honestly wasn't really sure what to expect, but it was actually a very eye-opening experience, combatting many harmful myths about a very normal part of the female body. I was interested in the relationship women have with their bodies and I was shocked to see some of the archaic 'female hygiene' products that are still on the market today, such as 'virginity soap', 'tightening cream' and 'vaginal bleach'. While we were in Camden we also had a look round the markets as Camden is known for more alternative, often gothic (potentially witchy) styles - the shop fronts on the high street were particularly quirky.

The rest of the day consisted of our 'Walk + Talk' to various occult bookshops around London (Watkins Books and Treadwell's). I picked up lots of material that could be useful for my research, as well as ephemera I could use in a collage. There were also lots of opportunities for photos and the people in the shops were really helpful! We then went back to my flat and we filled out a questionnaire I had prepared about witches and femininity, rounded off with a drawing session. It was intriguing to see what my group associated with witches and how they could link the subject to feminism. Overall, the bookshops were very enlightening about the practice of witchcraft but ultimately I found the personal perceptions of what it means to be female and witchcraft more useful towards my project. 

Georgia set up a google doc for us to create our commune presentation and I worked on my slides today. I found looking back on the experiences of the week to be helpful and started to research some new routes for my project. 

I continued on with my research for 'Shaping Shapes' today - I have chosen to pursue my idea '3 Witches' which will focus on powerful female political figures.  I am intrigued by how women in power are often called 'witches'. I aim to highlight three prominent powerful women who have been fairly or unfairly associated with the term 'witch':

• Hillary Clinton - 'The Wicked Witch of the Left'
• Theresa May - ' The Wicked Witch of Westminster'
• Margaret Thatcher - 'Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead'. 

I have chosen to use 3 examples, redolent of 'The Three Witches' in Macbeth, as well as many other depictions of witches.

This is not a reflection of my own political views; it is not for me to say they are a 'witch' or not - I am merely displaying how the term has been thrown around, particularly on social media, when in relation to these women. Have these women been called 'witches' to belittle them? Are people too quick to 'burn the witch'? Why aren't powerful men called 'witches'? 

I have been looking at examples on social media and the news where Hillary Clinton, Theresa May, or Margaret Thatcher have been referred to as a witch. I have also been searching for a location for this installation that has some historical relevance to witchcraft; Marble Arch seems to be the best contender as it used to be a site for executions.  

I have just been working on 'Shaping Shapes' sketchbook work today - I have decided I would like to make numerous outcomes for this project. I will still create a large-scale outcome at Marble Arch (most likely photography based) but I want to make a small-scale installation as well which will require illustrations of the women, which I could also use to create a poster and stickers. 

I have also updated my workflow with more generic 'Witch, Please.' research, not necessarily pertaining to my '3 Witches' outcomes.

I saw this poster on the way to the exhibition last night and thought it could be inspiration for when it comes to my illustrations: 

I could use a more jokey, cartoony style like this, but I will most likely use a bit more of a life-like illustrative style, as my work should probably have a more serious tone; it's not necessarily comedic in nature. 

Today, I edited my prints from yesterday's workshop on photoshop, tidying up the print in general. I also created a second version of the prints, using the skeleton print I had made from matchsticks, as opposed to the bluetac imprint of the skeleton charm. It created a much cleaner design altogether and I prefer the second version to the original prints. I have also started on creating an animation from my prints - I want to make the flames grow from a flicker to a roaring fire but my animation skills are fairly lacking so this is taking forever! 

I have finished my Theresa May illustration today and overall I am happy with her likeness. I have also started on my Hillary Clinton illustration: 

As before, I have been working on the face first, using varying shades of pale green to create detail and shadows, using a black outline in places. The likeness to Hillary is okay but something seems a bit off - can't put my finger on it though.

Umberto led a linocut workshop today - I have never worked in lino before. While the concept is similar to what I had to do for my 'Don't be an Octopussy' prints in Part 1 of the course, the material is, of course, different (we used mountboard before instead of lino). Umberto showed us how to use basic carving tools and explained how to make two plates to create a dual-toned print. We had to draw our primary design on to our first piece of lino and carve it out, leaving the areas we wanted to be printed. After this, we would print the design onto tracing paper to create a transfer to prepare the second plate. Here are my two prepared plates: 

I was very happy with the resulting prints, but it served as a reminder of how important the correct registration is (there were definitely a few prints where it was a bit off!) My carving of the plates is a bit messy at the moment and I struggled to create super-fine lines but hopefully my skills will improve with practice.

I edited the photos from my shoot yesterday this morning. My photoshop skills aren't the best but I managed to edit some of the background noise out (such as cranes) to create a cleaner photo. I also managed to combine the figures into one photo, as well as trying to create passable shadows. I then messed with the hue of photo, changing it so the primary colours were green and purple. The outcome was more surreal than I had originally imagined but I liked it more than just the plain photo without the colour changes. I finalised the design in the afternoon creating a version of the large-scale outcome using the background patterns from my '3 Witches' illustration (Woman + Power = Witch). 

I have started to work on the small-scale outcome for 'Shaping Shapes'. I glued my illustrations of Theresa May, Hillary Clinton, and Margaret Thatcher onto mountboard then cut out the designs using a craft knife. I then created the 'stakes' using wooden dowel - I tried to glue it to the bottom of the cauldron pots but they kept falling over so I had to make foam board circles, with a small hole in the centre, to support the dowel within the pot. This meant I also didn't have to completely fill the pot completely with glittery wood chips; they just rested on top of the foam board. 

I used today to finish off bits and pieces before embarking on the next part of my project (tarot cards). I finished off the animation from the basic printmaking workshop (please see in 'PRINT WORKSHOPS / OUTCOMES' section). Here are a few key frames:

I also worked on the first of our mini-projects set to make sure we're working at home: 'scale'. The aim of the brief was to produce a 1m² sized image and contextualise it in a space that is suitable for the communication of your project. I struggled with this a little bit, but I started off with taping a 1m² square on my floor. My flatmates looked at me like I was mad, especially when I started creating an inverted pentagram within it. I then placed my small-scale installation for 'Shaping Shapes' within the pentagram and photographed it - I particularly liked the shadows created. The photos were edited in photoshop again to make green and purple the main colours, sticking with the colour scheme within my work so far. I then experimented with tiling (using the slice tool in photoshop to split up an image so it can be printed across multiple pieces of paper). I adapted a design from my '3 Witches' illustration and filmed myself building the large image within the square. I also took photos as I went along so I could create a frame animation to accompany the timelapse video. 

I started to use the information I collected through my questionnaire to create illustrations. I want the focus to be on the words themselves rather than the image as a whole - it will be more like word art than an illustration. For my first design, I took all the words people associated with the term 'witch' and formed the shape of a witch's hat. The more frequent the word was mentioned, the larger it would be within the word art; meaning that the most common word would be the most prominent in the design. Black, green and purple came up in the witch word association so I used these as my colour scheme. I then repeated the process again, but this time for the words associated with 'feminist' - I created the venus (female sex) symbol and used various shades of pink, as well as white for the font colour. Both these designs appear very simple in shape, but they would not have been possible to create within a proper analysis of the questionnaire data.

I spent this morning on sketchbook work and then worked on the new idea I had for 'Scale' yesterday. I took the print outs anf patched them together to create large images. I used masking tape to hold the rows together and then stuck the rows to the windows with bluetac. I photographed the resulting images from outside my building, both during the day and at night time to see which produced the best photos. In reality, I was probably a bit far away to get decent photos, especially as I was using my phone camera, which has shit zoom! The illustrations were also tiled together a bit messily but overall I was pleased with my creativity for this idea - I would definitely consider creating a more polished outcome at some point.

I also had another idea for the 'Shadows' project. I created simple line drawing based on Fuseli's 'The Three Witches', as opposed to my '3 Witches' (Theresa May, Hillary Clinton & Margaret Thatcher). I then made a line cut out of it (I had used the silhouette method for my 'WOMAN + POWER = WITCH' cut out yesterday). I hung my design in my hallway using a very fine thread and used my iPad torch to create the shadow on the ceiling (a white surface was needed). I enjoyed experimenting with the different methods of creating shadows. 

Feeling unwell today, so didn't get any work done! Hopefully, I will be feeling better tomorrow so I can continue on with my tarot project.

Now I am more aware of the meaning of each card, I decided to research usual iconography as well (based off the Rider-Waite deck). I noted down in my sketchbook key elements and symbols which are incorporated in a particular card and started to think about how I could represent both meaning and iconography in my designs. If a certain card had obvious connections to some aspect of witchcraft (such as 'The Devil', 'The Moon' etc.) I found it easier to come up with ideas. I looked to witch stereotypes, historical treatment of women/witches, folklore, fairytales, and other literature to serve as inspiration for the rest, but I am still struggling with a few, namely 'Hierophant' and 'Temperance' (I didn't even know what a Hierophant was until recently!) I think I will rely on the standard tropes of the Rider-Waite deck for these cards. 

I continued on with drawing today and completed designs for the next seven cards (from 'The Chariot' through to 'Death').

Now I have a much better idea of what my cards are going to look like, I can set up document templates that I can easily insert my finished designs into, keeping the cards consistent across the deck. I am going to use Procreate to create my illustrations initially then use Photoshop to insert certain elements. The details I have used to create these documents are noted in my sketchbook. After I have completed an illustration, I will export it as a .jpg to later insert into the master InDesign document, where I will keep all of the tarot card designs. Again, I have recorded how I set up the file in my sketchbook. Today, I also decided on the exact colours I will use - my tests, as well as the chosen palette (using hexadecimal codes) are in my sketchbook. In terms of background colours, I will rotate between the 3 colours (yellow, green, then red) and continue repeating this pattern throughout the deck. I have made some typographical decisions as well, settling on the font 'Kill Switch' for the card titles and 'GhostTown' for the roman numerals (the titles will be inserted using InDesign whereas I will add the numbers in when creating the initial illustration in Procreate/Photoshop). 

I have been able to be a bit more creative with the illustrations for 'The Lovers', 'The Chariot' and 'Strength' - I have enjoyed working on these cards today and I am getting used to drawing in this style.

• The Lovers - I tried to think of a tale of lovers that incorporated a witch and came up with the Frog Prince. The prince had been cursed, most probably by a witch (in the 2009 film 'The Princess & the Frog' this curse came from a voodoo witch doctor). I wanted to include some tarot tropes though - the standard design for this card features an angel, so instead of giving my witch angel wings, I gave her bat wings.  
• The Chariot - Unsurprisingly, 'The Chariot' card features a chariot but a black and a white sphinx, as well as a wand/baton are also commonplace. Witches travel by broom so this becomes her chair and I replaced the sphinxes with bats, almost as if they are leading her (pulling the chariot). 
• Strength - I had a couple of ideas for strength. I initially thought of the witch getting crushed by a house in 'The Wizard of Oz' so imagined her showing strength by holding the house up. However, I thought this might be a bit too vague so looked to the Rider-Waite deck for inspiration. Many of the cards for 'Strength' feature a lion so that led me to 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'. 

I had tutorial this afternoon with Umberto, but before this, I had finished the 'Temperance' card.

• Temperance - another of the cards where I stuck to the Rider-Waite Tarot staples. My character has wings, albeit bat wings, opposed to angel wings, and is pouring liquid (water) between 2 cups.

I showed Umberto the cards I had completed so far and overall he liked the style and designs but suggested a couple of changes to improve them further. For 'The Chariot', the clouds should run in a diagonal from the bottom left to the top right to create a more dynamic composition. In 'Strength', the lion looks too 'nice' and tame - I should make it seem more ferocious, to highlight the strength. The most major change I will have to make is to 'Temperance' - Umberto stressed the importance to the card that the figure is naked, representing innocence and purity. He also thinks that 'The Lovers' might need tweaking slightly but couldn't put his finger on why. I will continue to work on the rest of the cards and make these revisions when I've completed the deck. 

I finally finished an illustration for all the cards today, having just completed 'Judgement' and 'The World'.

• Judgement - this card normally features an angel blowing a trumpet with naked people rising from their graves. It usually seems quite jubilant, as if they're being called up to heaven. As witches as more closely associated with hell, I subverted the imagery and had the witch, with bat wings, condemn the people to the fiery pit below. 
• The World - I didn't use much of standard iconography for 'The World'. I drew my witch with her hands over a crystal ball, which contains the world, in order to symbolise that the future of the world lies in her hands.

Looking at my deck of tarot cards, I am very happy with their appearance so far - the colours are bright and attention-grabbing, the style is blocky, angular and bold, and there are lots of links to witchcraft, and even feminism, within the designs. I just need to make a few revisions over the next few days, as well as creating a pattern for the back of the cards and designing a title card. I feel my project may be nearing completion. 

I have a couple of last things to complete: the title card and the pattern for the back of the cards.

I want the title card to fit with rest of the cards, featuring angular lines, as well as the key information. I have created 3 versions:

While I like the designs with the illustrations, I think the simpler version with just text is the best option - it introduces the deck, utilising the style I have developed, without giving everything away.

I wanted to continue this jagged, angular star pattern on the back of the cards - here are 5 versions I created:

I think the stars are possibly too big and bold on the first 3 designs and the last design seems too cluttered and busy so I think I will use the 4th design as a happy medium.