TUTOR: Overall Comments
Many thanks for sending me your second assignment.
I have read through your blog and it gives me a good idea of how you have responded to the course and this assignment.
I was delighted that you at last had access to my online blog.
Part 2 is Your own environment and you are encouraged to use a variety of materials from pastels , pencils inks markers and different paper.
Working again on a simplified still life of a bottle of beer and lemons partly inspired by a Dutch still life you have produced a really good drawing. It is difficult to work on mechanically textured paper but for some reason it doesn’t seem to matter and I think that is because the accuracy of your drawing and the colouring trumps the texture and there are areas such as the shadows where it disappears so giving variety.
Thank you. I was initially frustrated with the textured paper, but I did like how the colours sat well on a coloured paper.
Your detailed observation of nature is well done with this drawing of a shell. Your still life using line is sensitive but is given more excitement when done with different inks and splattered watercolour.
I appreciate your struggles with the still life in tone using colour. It is difficult to follow written instruction, which I assume is asking for the planes to be broken up and agree with your interpretation when you relate it with Gris. Doing subtle shades of white with coloured pencil is difficult. I find that pastel pencils come with a greater range of grey tones and can be easier to work with but on the other hand you can get a hard precision with working over with the harder coloured pencil that is quite attractive. Your experiments with mixed media has produced some nice pictures from the daisies to that well drawn beer bottle again.
The sketches for the monochrome exercise are lively in comparison to the high finished objects in a bowl.
Whilst I was very pleased with the finished drawing for the monochrome exercise, and was excited to have explored the impact of reduced and controlled light and shade to create more atmosphere, I do totally agree with you that the small exploratory sketches, with the watercolour pencils are much more vibrant and lively.
I cannot comment on every drawing going around the house except to say that they are well drawn and perceptive.
The drawings I like are in the composition interior section and are the sketchbook pen and wash drawings that feature the chair and the living room. The resultant large drawing of the same scene is a good exercise in using graphic drawing notation weakening on the right hand side with the preponderance of white. If its light outside a window its going to be darker on the wall beside it and continuing this drawing in this way will improve it.
There is a long wall of south facing patio windows at 90 degrees to this view which do also provide a lot of light on this left hand wall. However,I can certainly see there needs to be a darker tone on this wall to more accurately reflect the shadow that is on that wall. It will also help then to highlight the white of the window edges, and also help balance the picture as a whole a little more. I will add that to the drawing and repost it on the blog once I have amended that.
I have since added tone to the wall with the window, and indeed found that there were other areas in the artwork that needed darker values, in particular, around the settee and chair on the floor. I feel these additions have strengthened the artwork.
Feedback on assignment
Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Quality of Outcome, Demonstration of Creativity
For the final assignment you have chosen a still life influenced by Chiaroscuro and as such have researched the subject, set up your still life and developed the original sketches. These sketches have a spontaneity that is appealing, the hurried approach often giving a lively result. Experiments with white on black echo the traditional process of either working from dark to light or else working on a mid tone from which you can introduce darks and lights.
Where the composition is concerned I think it was right to loose the key which looked too self consciously like it was meant to be an entry into the picture. The remaining problem, as you point out yourself, is coping with the amount of light from the lamp and how to balance that within the picture.
Looking carefully at the four pictures the happiest resolution is Experiment 3 in all areas. The jug has a range of tones revealed by light that is missing in the finished picture, the book pages are more engaging, the combination of the better drawn glass and lamp is more exciting and the textured effects on the lampshade gives it more body. Overall the darker tone balances out better the chiaroscuro effect.
I did contemplate submitting Experiment 3 as the Assignment itself, but because the paper was slightly smaller than A3, so I thought I ought to give it another go on a bigger piece of paper. I think I had lost a bit of enthusiasm for the composition by the time I did this final one, and the image lacks the same energy and vibrancy of experiment 3.
Sketchbooks
Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Demonstration of Creativity
Your sketchbook demonstrates your technical skills, which are of a high order, and there is much that I admire. Its best to keep your drawings together in a sketchbook . You can scan individual drawings and put them in your blog for me to look at but otherwise keep the sketchbooks in one piece as they are easier to look at and they wont fall apart when they are studied by the assessors.
I hadn’t been sure what to do about sending my sketchbook again. Living in France, postage to the UK becomes very expensive for a large art folder, and I was conscious that my sketchbook, as I used it, was getting heavier and heavier. It was unquestionably the main part of my ‘postage by weight’ costs. I considered that as you had already seen half the work, it was a good solution to send just the unseen pages in isolation. In light of this, I took a scalpel to my sketchbook and submitted the unseen pages in a plastic folder. There has been a fair amount of chat on google about tutors who were happy with that, which was primarily where I got the idea. A compromise I might have found is to try and get thinner sketchbooks and send those each time, perhaps using a new one for each Part of the Project? Another issue I had seen in discussion was that for the final Assessments when working towards degree level, pages had to be mounted onto boards for assessment. I understood from this that the pages had to be removed then for that anyway? I will email you directly to inquire further about that.
Research
Context, reflective thinking, critical thinking, analysis
Reflective and critical thinking is evident throughout the blog and you relate well in terms of context to other artists. Interestingly there are two artists called Lucy Jones who have two distinct styles. I prefer the Edinburgh one.
It is funny you mention this. I only ‘discovered’ Lucy Jones through reading a Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/jun/21/lucy-jones-paintings-exhibitions-flowers-gallery . ‘Lucy Jones: ‘I paint on the floor – it’s less far to fall‘ by Charlotte Jansen. When I decided to research her other work, I came across the ‘other, Edinburgh’ Lucy Jones by mistake, but was delighted to find, like you, that I much prefer her style of artwork.
Learning Logs or Blogs/Critical essays
Context, reflective thinking, critical thinking, analysis
As above the learning log /blog is well put together and records your journey throughout the course.
Suggested reading/viewing
Context
You will know yourself what exhibitions are on in Basel and your surrounding area and of course You Tube is quite a repository of art demonstrations.
Art Basel is a massive world renown Art Festival here in Basel every year. I did visit it this year, but as yet have to write up my experience. I was looking at artwork with different eyes this time and was particularly drawn to ‘drawn’ pieces of art.
If you can get BBC I player then I would suggest you look at the Andrew Graham Dixon series of three programmes on Nash, Sickert and Bomberg repeated I think because of World war one anniversaries . Not anything to do with the course but rather out of general information as they are three of the best British early modernist painters.
On your recommendation, I have already watched the ‘Paul Nash. The Ghosts of War’ episode and intend to watch the Sicker and Bomberg ones over the next day or two. I will write more about these in my Blog.
There is an article you might find interesting called ‘From Drawing room to scullery’ by Juliet Kinchin at
I have also bookmarked this page to watch after the video featuring Sickert. I will also comment on this in my Blog.
Sickert
Pointers for the next assignment
- Reflect on this feedback in your learning log.
Well done, I look forward to your next assignment.
Thank you once again for your prompt and valuable comments on the submitted work and for the really interesting links and follow up which I certainly I will engage with.
Once I receive my submitted artwork back, I will also add some gentle tones to the wall behind the settee, in my interior pen drawing of our sitting room, as suggested.
Cathy's OCA Drawing 1 Blog 