Response to Tutor Report for Assignment 2

My comments on the report are bolded italics… Part 2 is about the close observation and interpretation of nature, paying attention to detail, working both expressively and more tightly, using colour and a range of media. Being able to look closely and analyse what you see will help you select the most appropriate tools and techniques to reposond to your subject matter. At the same time you will be exercising discernment about what is essential to include in your drawing and what can be disregarded. Being able to do this is key to making a sucessful drawing, it comes with practice. You were asked to use strong directional light to define forms and highlight details and textures.

Overall Comments

Well done Joanne, you have produced good work in all the areas above and I continue to be impressed by commitment given the fact that you have three small children. Your sketchbook and learning log show the quality of your preparation, reflection and analysis, which is admirable. – yes, doing the course is hard- and slow-going most of the time but I have sufficient support in place! I am naturally very organised and like this to be reflected in my work.

Your observation of form, surface, proportion and relationships of objects is very good. You use of colour and composition is effective. You are often too reliant on your technical skills and producing an ‘accurate’ observation rather than a drawing in its own right. All drawings are journeys of discovery and if the viewer can sense this journey, with it’s meanderings and getting lost, it makes a drawing more alive. – I think that there is still a way for me to go yet before my drawings really loosen up, and I wish I did find it easier, but I continue to push my boundaries and have dabbled in some media that I’m not particularly fond of, in the hope I can create work that is more spontaneous.

You need to explore a ‘felt’ or ‘kinaesthetic’ sense in your work. Be more confident about building on your sketchbook explorations. Now is the time to trust in your skills and find ways of bringing a more intuitive response to your subject matter into your finished drawings. Give yourself permission to play on a larger scale. – I completely agree! There will always be a part of me that wants to stick to a rigid way of working, but I do like the thought of working to a larger scale with my explorations. I guess the reason I do most of my experimenting in my sketchbooks is so that everything is in place; of course, this doesn’t always have to be the case.

Exploring coloured media

You demonstrate a confident and selective use of colour in your drawings but your should expand your materials and media. – I have become more aware of the suitable use of colour through my own studies/reading, as well as through the course, and have been happy with the choices I have made. However, I do agree about expanding my materials; oil pastels are slowly working their way back into favour, and I’m hoping to include more pen and ink work in future also.

Detailed Observation

Very well executed and observed drawing of leaf. You have combined technical skills – detailed observation with a range of marks and tones and kept the drawing vibrant. – I am happy also with my observational skills, but I feel I need to ease up on the technical side of things in the majority of my work, to create drawings that are more ‘alive’ (as mentioned before).

Still life

Ex.2 An interesting exercise with complimentary colours. There are areas where it’s difficult to read the objects as they merge with the shadows particularly on the left-hand side. I appreciate there were strong shadows but more gradation of tone with the purple or a blend of purple with the other two colours would have reduced its dominance. The colour blending of the yellow tones and description of different surfaces is successful. – if I am honest, in hindsight, I wasn’t overly happy with this piece; in my sketchbook prep work, the colour scheme appeared to work, but just not how I used it! I think I stuck to rigidly to what was outlined in the course folder (another of my ‘bad’ habits) and could have maybe tweaked things here and there so that the outcome was more satisfactory.

You were asked to use a strong directional light which is shown by your shadows but there aren’t any real highlights. There isn’t enough difference between the detail in surface of the orange close to us and the apple further away to create a sense of distance. The same strong purple colour in the foreground and background also flattens the perspective. – once again, I agree; next time I attempt an exercise such as this, I will be careful to vary the strength with which I apply the colours, to create a sense of depth. Drawing fruit and vegetables in colour

Ex.2 Good colour combination, nice loose mark making and well done on the very subtle lines on the banana. You might have been better off limiting the red as it makes the surfaces of the satsuma and melon rather similar. See your sketchbook drawings where the fruit are more differentiated. – I was aware, after application, that the red was somewhat overpowering; I would have been better off diluting or lightening this for the orange.

Ex. 3 The coloured card deadens this drawing and unfortunately undermines the careful work of describing the fruit and vegetables. – I’m a little disappointed by this, as this was my first attempt in a very long time at using oil pastels! And as I understood it, the course folder called for a coloured ground. I figured that using the pale lilac/blue would act as a complementary to the lemons and orange-red of the pepper. I guess I need to experiment more with the effect certain oil pastel colours have on coloured grounds. Drawing plants and flowers

Ex. 2 You have clearly taken a great deal of care over this drawing and your skill is apparent. I like the visual interplay shadows on the plants and the wall and the striations on the plants, these are well observed. The shapes, proportions and relationships are all convincing and carefully executed. At the moment the drawing is leaning more towards 2D pattern than 3D form, a bit like a botanical illustration or textile design. It needs more substance. To bring the flower heads to the fore a greater range of tones would make a difference, darker darks and lighter lights. I would have liked to have seen you bring the vibrancy of the coloured pastel, ink and felt tip pen drawing of the flower head in your sketchbook into this drawing. – once again, my close observational skills have gotten the better of me! I interpreted the plant just as I had seen it, and yes, I could have played around with lights and darks more in the flower heads to make them advance from the rest of the piece. I did, however, study the very subtle tones that were present and worked hard to incorporate all of these (pinks, greens, blues, yellows) whilst achieving a realistic effect.

Drawing Animals

Fish on a plate. Good to see you loosening up here. You could go over the washed pencil with another subtle layer of pencil to bring the pull the drawing together. Make sure you pay attention right to the edges if you don’t want a fading out effect. – I admit to feeling a little out of my depth and also quite frustrated with this one. I’m not very experienced with watercolour pencils and felt that the addition of water after the initial drawing undid all the good work. However, I did find that reworking certain areas with pencil or ink helped to strengthen it and towards the end I felt much better about it.

Grabbing the chance. Lovely free mark making in the sketches. Again it’s good to see you working loosely and at a larger scale. I know this was drawn from a photograph but you have managed to give the cockerel some life. I think the sketchbook version is even more alive. – I would have loved to have drawn from life, but the opportunity just didn’t materialise! Luckily the photographs I did take were full of lots of movement. I wanted to do my chosen image (and the cockerel!) justice with my final drawing and I really consciously tried to keep the mark-making very gestural and loose, with lots of interesting colours.

Feedback on assignment

Assignment two asks you set up a still life of largely natural objects, contrasting in size, shape and texture. You are required to be selective in your choice of objects, not cramming in too many and removing those that do not contribute to the overall composition. You were also asked to use a strong directional light, natural if possible otherwise using a lamp. You say that the subjects depicted were not your first choice, this may be an advantage in that you may be less attached to them and more able to see them more objectively.

Well done on the thorough preparations made in a range of media, these are almost art works in themselves. – wow – that’s great to hear! I do like to take a lot of care in my preparatory work – something I never used to do before undertaking a large drawing.

Your final drawing shows a dynamic composition that makes effective use of negative.The interplay of colour the blue green of the vase and yellow green of the pairs works well. Biro used on top of another medium can draw attention to the fact that a drawing is just marks on a surface and undermine the three dimensionality of objects, especially if used to outline. See the difference in the pears and the bag flap in in the small scale study and assignment drawing. – I had begun with a biro underdrawing before using the watercolour pencils, but it appeared all but washed out once I had finished adding colour. But then, once I had drawn back over my original marks, I thought the same; its too strong. Perhaps one saving grace was that the biro was blue, and not black! I shall certainly bear this in mind for future. I guess what I thought at the time was, this is a pen and ink drawing, so the ink should be showing somewhat!

Sketchbooks

Excellent preparatory work. I am encouraged by your explorations like the third marker or dip pen drawing in A3 sketchbook. There some very direct and responsive drawings in your A3 sketchbook, try and bring this direct response to subject matter and range of mark making to your finished drawings.

Be careful of making your sketchbook pages too precious at the cost of free exploration. In the future I would like to see you doing some preparatory work on a larger scale, using brush and ink, charcoal, pastels. Your A2 pastel of the cockerel shows that you can work in a spontaneous way at this scale. – this is a tough one for me! I am aware that I keep my sketchbook pages can be too ‘neat’, and will actively work at letting go of this as time goes on.

Bring more play into your sketchbook activity. – I will certainly try!

Learning Logs

A comprehensive learning log with relevant research into masters and contemporary artists. Apart from continuing to develop your drawing practice think about what you want to explore through drawing. What concerns might you be able to express through this and through painting? – interesting question, one I’ve never thought about before…

Suggested reading/viewing

Have a look at John Virtue’s bold black and white landscape work.

Bonnard’s mark making and colour in his landscapes and interiors.

William Kentridge’s drawings of trees.

John Piper’s atmospheric descriptions of architecture.

Eric Ravillous’s almost childlike landscapes.

George Shaw’s naturalistic descriptions of places without people.

19th century Dutch landscape painters for their clouds and skies.

Assessment potential

I understand your aim is to go for the Creative Arts Degree and that you plan to submit your work for assessment at the end of this course. From the work you have shown in this assignment, and providing you continue to commit yourself to the course, I suggest that you are likely to be successful in the assessment.

Pointers for the next assignment

Part three is about getting outside and drawing the world around you, an enormous source of inspiration; however your assignment drawing uses A3 paper and therefore requires you to think carefully about selecting what you want to include and leave out. Pay attention to composition and perspective with plenty of quick sketching both to explore whole compositions and important details.

1. Do some sketches with charcoal and/or ink on A2 sheets, just relax and respond to your surroundings. Fortunately we’re coming into summer so you can do this outside.

2. Try to express the atmosphere of the environment you’re drawing.

3. Carry around a small sketchbook and do lots of quick sketches when ever you can.

4. Try collaging newspaper, print from magazines and other monochrome paper to create distance in landscape, individual and groups of trees.

Assignment 2

Unfortunately, my assignment 2 didn’t get off to the best start due to my rather small collection of natural objects being ‘accidentally’ disposed of by another family member.  I tried to take this as a positive sign that I should think creatively about alternatives, however I’m not sure my final choices are exactly along the same lines as what I had gathered previously.  The rhododendron bush in my garden has fully bloomed now, so I took a small cutting of this, and rummaged in my fridge for edible natural objects.  I came across two pears with distinctive markings, one of which was slightly bruised and on the verge of rotting at the very bottom!  I also selected a textured turquoise vase and a faux-bronze effect clutch bag with intricate detailing.

The course book asks us first to select media for the drawing, which I thought was odd as I hadn’t yet experimented with compositions.  I chose both pastel pencils and watercolour pencils, along with ink and biro, and tested ways of expressing the objects’ colour on a A3 sheet.  Pastels, I feel, are always a great choice for subtly blending colour, but after I drew the pear (top left) I was sure I didn’t want to go down this route, as I was after more vibrancy in my colours.  The ink and watercolour pencil version of the pear showed promise, as I was able to render some of the more distinct detail as well as crisp colour.  I continued down the page, drawing each of the separate elements of the still life in colour; although I don’t normally work in this way, it was almost as though my thought process evolved as I went, with pastel pencil being gradually phased out until I had settled on biro and watercolour pencils at the very bottom.  I had been conscious all the way through of not wanting to revert to the ‘safe’ materials I was more comfortable with, deciding instead to go with the one that I was least comfortable with, with a view to stepping out of my comfort zone and being spontaneous with my mark-making and colour choices.

I wanted to familiarise myself with my objects and their ‘feel’, therefore I conducted some tone and textural studies in charcoal on an A3 sheet.  The speckling on the pear lent itself well to being represented by charcoal, however all of the other objects were smooth and required some blending to achieve the desired textural effect.

Next, a suitable composition was required that would do justice to the shapes, textures and colours of the objects I had chosen.  I was quite aware from the beginning that the turquoise glass vase was complementary to the bronze-effect bag, and this made me want to take it further, resulting in a corner of my bedroom being used for the set-up; this was due to the overhead light being very orange-toned, and the wood of the  bedside table is also a very warm hue that looked good against the glass.  It is suggested that something be added for contrast, therefore I believe the vase does the job.  Due to circumstances that meant I wasn’t able to comfortably set up a still life in natural lighting, I opted to use a lamp instead (as well as the ceiling light, dimmed a little), which threw some interesting shadows as I moved it around.  Try as I might, I just couldn’t see a suitable. landscape-oriented composition that worked, therefore all of those I roughed out were portrait.  I worked quickly in black biro while I had someone stand and hold the lamp in place.  I struggled to chose just one from the five, as they all had their merits, but no. 4 was the composition I settled on, as I liked the way the lines interacted with eachother; the lines of the bag and the upright pear run almost parallel, as do the lines of the pear on its side and the surface of the bedside table.  I also like to let objects run outside of the picture plane, and here it is the edge of the bag and the tips of the leaves, at opposite corners of the drawing for balance.

Something I always find rather helpful now is the small-scale colour study; I felt I needed to do this as there were some curious colours in the composition that I wanted to get down on paper.  For this, I used a light orange toned paper as it is one of the main colours of the composition and a complementary to the turquoise glass, and drew with pastel pencils.  I roughed out the objects in a sepia tone, before adding light colours and building up to darker ones.  The curtains in the top portion of the background are cream but had some dashes of lilac here and there in the shadows, plus the pears – that may appear just a dull green – seemed to take on all manner of shades such as yellow ochre, terracotta and crimson when in shadow.  I was also intrigued by the beautiful, rainbow-like reflections on the bottom part of the bag, which was reflecting everything around it.  I blended as I went as the tooth of the paper gave it a texture that made it difficult to gauge the colour mixes correctly.

Something I always find rather helpful now is the small-scale colour study; I felt I needed to do this as there were some curious colours in the composition that I wanted to get down on paper.  For this, I used a light orange toned paper as it is one of the main colours of the composition and a complementary to the turquoise glass, and drew with pastel pencils.  I roughed out the objects in a sepia tone, before adding light colours and building up to darker ones.  The curtains in the top portion of the background are cream but had some dashes of lilac here and there in the shadows, plus the pears – that may appear just a dull green – seemed to take on all manner of shades such as yellow ochre, terracotta and crimson when in shadow.  I was also intrigued by the beautiful, rainbow-like reflections on the bottom part of the bag, which was reflecting everything around it.  I blended as I went as the tooth of the paper gave it a texture that made it difficult to gauge the colour mixes correctly.

Once I was satisfied with this composition and the colours, I selected an A3 sheet of thick cartridge paper.  First, the composition was drawn in with biro; this part was most enjoyable as I find that any mistakes you make drawing with biro are ‘happy’ ones, as they never really look that out of place.  I also love the spontaneity of it, and the fluidity with which the tip moves over the smooth paper.  The detailing on the bag was a real challenge, but I didn’t want it to look like a ‘design’ drawing, so I tried to keep up the spontaneous marks and didn’t think too much about getting it completely symmetrical or perfect.

Since my last use of watercolour pencils had me a little frustrated (fish on a plate), I expected to fight with them a little here.  I aimed for the same approach – layering colours, starting with the lightest – however I found even some of the lightest ones turned a little too dark when water was added (the lilac in the curtain, for instance).  Since completing this piece, I have come across an article that suggests creating a colour chart of all your watercolour pencils when water is added; I WILL do this in future!

Some parts of the drawing I aimed to keep white, like here where the pears are hit by the light.  I added a base colour of lemon yellow and then built the layers of other colours around it, taking care to preserve the white of the paper.

Once I had most of the colour on, I went back over the whole drawing making sure it worked tonally, and darkened certain areas by layering more colour, such as the shadows in the leaves and the cast shadows on the wall and bedside table.  I was aware that the boldness of the original drawing had been lost, so I strengthened the lines by drawing over them again – not perfectly, but almost, once again to add some movement and spontaneity.

Finished drawing – biro and watercolour pencils on A3

Reflection

So, looking back at the criteria, I have to ask myself if I have satisfied them with this assignment…

• an understanding of the use of colour in drawing – I am certain that my colour choices are true to those I saw in my chosen objects, albeit it maybe ‘heightened’ in places to achieve a more striking effect i.e. the colour of the glass is a very bright turquoise in the drawing, when in real life it is less though.  I was of the understanding that tweaking colours for the good of the drawing wasn’t such a bad thing, and I’m glad I did so in this case.  Also, I was working with a slightly limited palette of colours and was pleased that I managed to ‘mix’ this particular colour on the paper using what colours I had.  I also would hope that my knowledge of complementary colours was applied well with the selection of the objects and their surroundings.
• an understanding of the most appropriate choice of medium for the subject and skill in using it – the objects I chose do, I feel, lend themselves well to being drawn in watercolour pencil.  Take for example the delicate vase; this may have appeared quite heavy and ‘clumsy’ if drawn exclusively in pen, or very thick pastel.  The watercolour pencils have a certain fluidity that represents glass rather well.  The colours of the reflections in the bag are also quite subtle but at the same time rather crisp in appearance, and I was able to render these successfully with the use of my fine water brush pen.  With regards to the skill in using watercolour pencils…I believe I have more practice to do with these, but at the same time I am happy that I turned my back on my usual choice and threw myself into being completely and utterly experimental and spontaneous with these pencils.  Although I did a colour study in pastel, which did help, my selection of colours in the final piece were almost intuitive and I actually worked rather rapidly.  This is a way of working that I could get used to.
• the ability to set up and interesting composition – as can be seen in many of my other drawings, I am rather fond of extreme angles and try and achieve them where I can.  In this instance, I hit upon a composition that had interesting line relationships, such as diagonals, going on between certain objects.  Sometimes this can be accidental, but in this case it wasn’t.  Together with the objects beyond the picture plane at opposite corners, I feel the composition really works as a whole.
• variety in mark-making, depth, contrast and tone – hmm, mark-making – I think I am a little guilty of getting carried away with colour here and not using enough marks.  Perhaps the best example of mark-making is the speckling of the pears, and the grain in the wood, for which I used the edge of the pencil to push deep into the paper.  I always used this technique to apply colour in other places but the effect may have been lost unintentionally with the application of water.  When colours are laid down, I always go back over the drawing and use the eyes-half-closed technique to judge the balance of depth and tone, and I feel I have done that in this piece.  Contrast has been achieved with the shiny, reflective surfaces of the glass vase and bag against the more natural appearance of the pears, rhododendrons and wood surface.
• accuracy and demonstrable understanding of form – it is general practice for me now before completing a large pieces to do preliminary studies of my chosen subjects.  In this case, I feel I did enough with my colour and tone/texture studies.  As the course has gone on, and I have had experience with drawing many different things, I feel increasingly comfortable with almost all subjects now.  The study of negative space recently also has helped me to place a particular shape and form within a picture plane.

Response to Tutor Report – Assignment 2

My comments on the report are bolded italics…

Part 2 is about the close observation and interpretation of nature, paying attention to detail, working both expressively and more tightly, using colour and a range of media. Being able to look closely and analyse what you see will help you select the most appropriate tools and techniques to reposond to your subject matter. At the same time you will be exercising discernment about what is essential to include in your drawing and what can be disregarded. Being able to do this is key to making a sucessful drawing, it comes with practice. You were asked to use strong directional light to define forms and highlight details and textures.

Overall Comments

Well done Joanne, you have produced good work in all the areas above and I continue to be impressed by commitment given the fact that you have three small children. Your sketchbook and learning log show the quality of your preparation, reflection and analysis, which is admirable. – yes, doing the course is hard- and slow-going most of the time but I have sufficient support in place!  I am naturally very organised and like this to be reflected in my work.

Your observation of form, surface, proportion and relationships of objects is very good. You use of colour and composition is effective. You are often too reliant on your technical skills and producing an ‘accurate’ observation rather than a drawing in its own right. All drawings are journeys of discovery and if the viewer can sense this journey, with it’s meanderings and getting lost, it makes a drawing more alive. – I think that there is still a way for me to go yet before my drawings really loosen up, and I wish I did find it easier, but I continue to push my boundaries and have dabbled in some media that I’m not particularly fond of, in the hope I can create work that is more spontaneous.

You need to explore a ‘felt’ or ‘kinaesthetic’ sense in your work. Be more confident about building on your sketchbook explorations. Now is the time to trust in your skills and find ways of bringing a more intuitive response to your subject matter into your finished drawings. Give yourself permission to play on a larger scale. – I completely agree!  There will always be a part of me that wants to stick to a rigid way of working, but I do like the thought of working to a larger scale with my explorations.  I guess the reason I do most of my experimenting in my sketchbooks is so that everything is in place; of course, this doesn’t always have to be the case.

Exploring coloured media

You demonstrate a confident and selective use of colour in your drawings but your should expand your materials and media. – I have become more aware of the suitable use of colour through my own studies/reading, as well as through the course, and have been happy with the choices I have made.  However, I do agree about expanding my materials; oil pastels are slowly working their way back into favour, and I’m hoping to include more pen and ink work in future also.

Detailed Observation

Very well executed and observed drawing of leaf. You have combined technical skills – detailed observation with a range of marks and tones and kept the drawing vibrant. – I am happy also with my observational skills, but I feel I need to ease up on the technical side of things in the majority of my work, to create drawings that are more ‘alive’ (as mentioned before).

Still life

Ex.2 An interesting exercise with complimentary colours. There are areas where it’s difficult to read the objects as they merge with the shadows particularly on the left-hand side. I appreciate there were strong shadows but more gradation of tone with the purple or a blend of purple with the other two colours would have reduced its dominance. The colour blending of the yellow tones and description of different surfaces is successful. – if I am honest, in hindsight, I wasn’t overly happy with this piece; in my sketchbook prep work, the colour scheme appeared to work, but just not how I used it!  I think I stuck to rigidly to what was outlined in the course folder (another of my ‘bad’ habits) and could have maybe tweaked things here and there so that the outcome was more satisfactory.

You were asked to use a strong directional light which is shown by your shadows but there aren’t any real highlights. There isn’t enough difference between the detail in surface of the orange close to us and the apple further away to create a sense of distance. The same strong purple colour in the foreground and background also flattens the perspective. – once again, I agree; next time I attempt an exercise such as this, I will be careful to vary the strength with which I apply the colours, to create a sense of depth.

Drawing fruit and vegetables in colour

Ex.2 Good colour combination, nice loose mark making and well done on the very subtle lines on the banana. You might have been better off limiting the red as it makes the surfaces of the satsuma and melon rather similar. See your sketchbook drawings where the fruit are more differentiated. – I was aware, after application, that the red was somewhat overpowering; I would have been better off diluting or lightening this for the orange.
Ex. 3 The coloured card deadens this drawing and unfortunately undermines the careful work of describing the fruit and vegetables. – I’m a little disappointed by this, as this was my first attempt in a very long time at using oil pastels!  And as I understood it, the course folder called for a coloured ground.  I figured that using the pale lilac/blue would act as a complementary to the lemons and orange-red of the pepper.  I guess I need to experiment more with the effect certain oil pastel colours have on coloured grounds.

Drawing plants and flowers

Ex. 2 You have clearly taken a great deal of care over this drawing and your skill is apparent. I like the visual interplay shadows on the plants and the wall and the striations on the plants, these are well observed. The shapes, proportions and relationships are all convincing and carefully executed. At the moment the drawing is leaning more towards 2D pattern than 3D form, a bit like a botanical illustration or textile design. It needs more substance. To bring the flower heads to the fore a greater range of tones would make a difference, darker darks and lighter lights. I would have liked to have seen you bring the vibrancy of the coloured pastel, ink and felt tip pen drawing of the flower head in your sketchbook into this drawing. – once again, my close observational skills have gotten the better of me!  I interpreted the plant just as I had seen it, and yes, I could have played around with lights and darks more in the flower heads to make them advance from the rest of the piece.  I did, however, study the very subtle tones that were present and worked hard to incorporate all of these (pinks, greens, blues, yellows) whilst achieving a realistic effect.

Drawing Animals

Fish on a plate. Good to see you loosening up here. You could go over the washed pencil with another subtle layer of pencil to bring the pull the drawing together. Make sure you pay attention right to the edges if you don’t want a fading out effect. – I admit to feeling a little out of my depth and also quite frustrated with this one.  I’m not very experienced with watercolour pencils and felt that the addition of water after the initial drawing undid all the good work.  However, I did find that reworking certain areas with pencil or ink helped to strengthen it and towards the end I felt much better about it.
Grabbing the chance. Lovely free mark making in the sketches. Again it’s good to see you working loosely and at a larger scale. I know this was drawn from a photograph but you have managed to give the cockerel some life. I think the sketchbook version is even more alive. – I would have loved to have drawn from life, but the opportunity just didn’t materialise!  Luckily the photographs I did take were full of lots of movement. I wanted to do my chosen image (and the cockerel!) justice with my final drawing and I really consciously tried to keep the mark-making very gestural and loose, with lots of interesting colours.

Feedback on assignment

Assignment two asks you set up a still life of largely natural objects, contrasting in size, shape and texture. You are required to be selective in your choice of objects, not cramming in too many and removing those that do not contribute to the overall composition. You were also asked to use a strong directional light, natural if possible otherwise using a lamp.

You say that the subjects depicted were not your first choice, this may be an advantage in that you may be less attached to them and more able to see them more objectively.

Well done on the thorough preparations made in a range of media, these are almost art works in themselves. – wow – that’s great to hear!  I do like to take a lot of care in my preparatory work – something I never used to do before undertaking a large drawing.

Your final drawing shows a dynamic composition that makes effective use of negative. The interplay of colour the blue green of the vase and yellow green of the pairs works well. Biro used on top of another medium can draw attention to the fact that a drawing is just marks on a surface and undermine the three dimensionality of objects, especially if used to outline. See the difference in the pears and the bag flap in in the small scale study and assignment drawing. – I had begun with a biro underdrawing before using the watercolour pencils, but it appeared all but washed out once I had finished adding colour.  But then, once I had drawn back over my original marks, I thought the same; its too strong.  Perhaps one saving grace was that the biro was blue, and not black!  I shall certainly bear this in mind for future.  I guess what I thought at the time was, this is a pen and ink drawing, so the ink should be showing somewhat!

Sketchbooks

Excellent preparatory work. I am encouraged by your explorations like the third marker or dip pen drawing in A3 sketchbook. There some very direct and responsive drawings in your A3 sketchbook, try and bring this direct response to subject matter and range of mark making to your finished drawings.

Be careful of making your sketchbook pages too precious at the cost of free exploration. In the future I would like to see you doing some preparatory work on a larger scale, using brush and ink, charcoal, pastels. Your A2 pastel of the cockerel shows that you can work in a spontaneous way at this scale. – this is a tough one for me!  I am aware that I keep my sketchbook pages can be too ‘neat’, and will actively work at letting go of this as time goes on.

Bring more play into your sketchbook activity. – I will certainly try!

Learning Logs

A comprehensive learning log with relevant research into masters and contemporary artists.

Apart from continuing to develop your drawing practice think about what you want to explore through drawing. What concerns might you be able to express through this and through painting? – interesting question, one I’ve never thought about before…

Suggested reading/viewing

Have a look at John Virtue’s bold black and white landscape work.
Bonnard’s mark making and colour in his landscapes and interiors.
William Kentridge’s drawings of trees.
John Piper’s atmospheric descriptions of architecture.
Eric Ravillous’s almost childlike landscapes.
George Shaw’s naturalistic descriptions of places without people.
19th century Dutch landscape painters for their clouds and skies.

Assessment potential

I understand your aim is to go for the Creative Arts Degree and that you plan to submit your work for assessment at the end of this course. From the work you have shown in this assignment, and providing you continue to commit yourself to the course, I suggest that you are likely to be successful in the assessment.

Pointers for the next assignment
Part three is about getting outside and drawing the world around you, an enormous source of inspiration; however your assignment drawing uses A3 paper and therefore requires you to think carefully about selecting what you want to include and leave out. Pay attention to composition and perspective with plenty of quick sketching both to explore whole compositions and important details.

1. Do some sketches with charcoal and/or ink on A2 sheets, just relax and respond to your surroundings. Fortunately we’re coming into summer so you can do this outside.

2. Try to express the atmosphere of the environment you’re drawing.

3. Carry around a small sketchbook and do lots of quick sketches when ever you can.

4. Try collaging newspaper, print from magazines and other monochrome paper to create distance in landscape, individual and groups of trees.