Assignment 1: Tutor report

Overall Comments

Thanks for sending the first batch of work. You’ve produced a lot of content on the blog and I’m not in a position to comment on everything. You have a background as a researcher so I’m not surprised by this attention to the archive. What’s important is to use the new knowledge to develop your practice. If there is a particular post that is a little ‘off-piste’ that you feel is crucial, then please highlight it when you email me. If you don’t there is a chance is will be missed. Your writing about exhibitions and books is already more than most students manage over the whole Unit.

Assignment 1: Evaluation and Reflection

Reflection and Evaluation

What went well?

I like the image overall, as stated previously. The items have meaning for me, and I am hopeful that at least some element of that shows through. The drawing was well received by my wife, who will have similar associations with the individual objects chosen. She called it “An homage to Greece” which fits my intention fairly well.

Assignment 1

 

Key Points

Preparation:
• convey feelings
• believable shapes
• use of tone, using light and shadow
• a few objects that trigger a response for you
• ordinary, funny, practical or ornamental or a mixture
• Set them up in a space so that they create interesting shapes and angles
• good light hitting the objects at an angle
• make the tones on the object obvious and the light and darks clear
• Look at the spaces between the objects as well as the objects themselves.
• Take the two experimental mark making sheets that you did exploring texture and gesture and pin them up nearby

Project 2: Basic shapes and fundamental form

Reworked following part 2 tutor feedback.

Ex 1: Groups of Objects

Approach

Considerations

• What subject to choose?
  • The examples imply kitchen and household objects, but that isn’t stated as a requirement. There should be some simple geometric forms and others that are more complex.
  • Despite not requiring household objects they do fit the brief very well, and there is plenty of scope for interest.
  • An alternative might be ceramic materials. Maybe a bag of clay, some glaze buckets and ingredients etc. This could make for an interesting composition. There is then scope to incorporate a concrete floor or the bench behind it.
• What surface to use?
  • It is stated A2 or A1, but encourages an imaginative use of materials.
  • Might be worth trying some of the paper we use as packing. Quite a robust material and probably suitable for use. In this case it would probably be worth having ripped edges rather than neatly cut to emphasise the “utilitarian” nature of the materials.
  • Similarly I have some yellowed wallpaper off-cut (I think its an underlay) which might make an interesting utilitarian material.
• How to “loosely describe” the objects? How to achieve representation of “weight, transparency, shine, etc.”? How might the contents help in the depiction of the form?
  • The sample image is a line drawing, but the assignment doesn’t specify that it must be. Definitely could be lines with basic shading etc.
  • In this case I like the start I made in my practice drawing: Light outlines, then darken for the visible lines and lastly a bit of shading and context using a variety of line strengths etc to provide the interest.
  • The answer to the follow-on questions clearly relates to what is being drawn. In the case of a plastic
• One colour is specified, but not the mark making material. What would fit the subject? What would I like to work with?
  • This partly depends on the material I’m drawing on. If I’m using a utilitarian surface then the mark making material needs to work with that. There
• What context should the items be placed in? (What sitting on and in the background.)
  • For kitchen items the kitchen itself would make most sense. Possibly the worktop and back wall, for example.
  • For the clay materials the best context is the pottery or glazing/kiln room depending on whether I am drawing the making or firing.

Project 1: Feeling and expression

Reworked following part 2 feedback.

Ex 1: Expressive lines and marks

This was an odd exercise, and one it took me a while to start. That may have had something to do with December not being a productive month in general though.

Odilon Redon’s tonal drawings

A quick Google Search (https://www.google.co.uk/search?odilon+redon+tonal+drawings) on Odilon and his Noirs (the name he uses for his tonal drawings) quickly brings a wealth of information. This can be further elaborated by wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odilon_Redon 

Warm-up: Temporary Drawings

The exercise reminded me very much of the work of Andrew Goldsworthy when I read the description. I had a day at a Christmas show in Broadstairs, and took a little time out of the day to make a start. The featured image followed his concept of using the colours of autumn leaves to make a drawing.

Considering personal visual language

Context

The course notes make the following observation:

“personal visual language by looking at some images by the following artists from different art historic moments, each working in a very different style, but each very firmly absorbed in the activity of drawing: Leonardo da Vinci, Käthe Kollwitz, Cy Twombly and Jenny Saville.”, Course Notes p13