Response to Tutor Report for Assignment 1

I am pleased with my feedback, although generally feel that if circumstances were better I could have submitted more work; my thoughts and comments can be found in bolded italics throughout…

 

Overall Comments

Well done Joanne, you have made a good start under very challenging circumstances!  – my baby son was born on 22nd September 2013, smack-bang in the middle of my doing work for Assignment 1.  Needless to say, it threw a 9lb 6oz spanner in the works!

Understandably this first part is a little sparse, but do try and have a go at all the exercises in Part 2 if you can. You have shown that you have a good grasp of composition and form, and how light and shade can enhance a painting, and your experimental sketchbook work with paint texture is promising – keep up the good work! – as far as I’m aware, I haven’t skipped any of the exercises and they should (hopefully) all be found under the relevant headings.  Unless I’ve inadvertently missed something, of course!

I have set you a date of 12 weeks for your next assignment, but don’t worry if that’s not possible, just let me know – this could be doable, however I have to see how circumstances are closer to the time.

 Assessment potential (after Assignment 1)

 You may want to get credit for your hard work and achievements with the OCA by formally submitting your work for assessment at the end of the module. More and more people are taking the idea of lifelong learning seriously by submitting their work for assessment but it is entirely up to you. We are just as keen to support you whether you study for pleasure or to gain qualifications. Please consider whether you want to put your work forward for assessment and let me know your decision when you submit Assignment 2. I can then give you feedback on how well your work meets the assessment requirements.” – as it stands, I am keen to work towards a BA (Hons) in Creative Arts.

 Project: Basic paint application

You have been experimental with surface and texture – I particularly like the inclusion of gold on the textural work in your sketchbook. This form of exploration is really important and should form a essential part of your work as a painting student – finding out first hand the properties of various mediums and types of paint will inform your choices as you go along and enable you to find your creative voice. – I had become aware that I wasn’t experimenting with other materials, therefore I decided to make use of some gold leaf I found in my art materials, that I purchased years ago.  I admit, I wasn’t sure what the outcome would be an pretty much ‘winged it’, but I managed to surprise myself with the result!

I couldn’t find any evidence of the painting with pastels exercise – if you haven’t had chance yet, do make sure you experiment with this medium, too. Pastels can be used in quite a ‘painterly’ way, and are really worth exploring. – this can be found under Basic Paint Application, Exercise 3.  I do love pastels, having used them on the drawing course, and love their versatility.

Project: Working on Different Coloured Grounds

Both your tonal studies have worked well – you have observed and achieved a good range of tonal variations and have clearly got the right idea of working light onto dark and vice versa. The paint application could be a bit thicker in places, and try using a larger, perhaps flatter brush to achieve coverage in larger areas. A flatter brush with thicker paint will also enable you to create a more painterly, impressionistic feel. Experiment with how different brushes feel. A painting can and should have you reaching for a number of different brushes – think about the shape you are trying to describe, and the best brush for the job. – totally agree here; I noticed there were some ‘thinner’ areas of paint, however decided not to keep going over it at risk of ruining it.  I will endeavour to mix and use more paint in future.

Compositionally the objects are arranged well, although it would have been a better idea to leave the background plain in both cases – too much background detail can be distracting in a still life, and less is (usually) more; you don’t have to include something just because it is there – you are the artist and can leave out whatever you want! – a very valid point!  This is something that I am trying hard to let go of, namely including everything I see.  I will look at using my ‘artistic liscence’ more in future!

Feedback on assignment Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Quality of Outcome, Demonstration of Creativity

 You have clearly thought about the compositional elements of this piece, and made a number of thumbnail sketches to help you choose the positioning – this is good practice. However, I think the piece might have benefited from coming in closer and leaving out some of the background details you have included such as the side of the building, as elements like this can detract from the main focus and do little to add to the harmony of the picture. – I understand that, and in fact as I came to the end of the painting I realised that I no longer liked the upper right-hand side of the painting; although the roof provided an interesting angle, in itself it just wasn’t adding anything to the composition.

I’m afraid I disagree about the suncatchers – although they might make a lovely picture in their own right, I would have been tempted to leave them out for the same reason – there is enough going on without them and they distract from the flowers somewhat. – in hindsight, I can see why this is; they are so small and fussy, and cover up too much of the sky of which the effect I was very pleased with.

I like the way you have painted the sky in an impressionistic way, and the addition of yellow, as well as the green background, has worked well. I’m really pleased that you didn’t attempt to start the painting on a white background, I would always recommend starting from a background wash, usually in a complementary colour. – in the past I would have used white wholeheartedly but now that I understand the principles of colour and the effect they have on others, I always seek to identify the best coloured ground for my paintings.

I would like to see you painting a little more thickly and texturally. If you are using oils or acrylics you can really experiment with application and bring to bear some of the experimentation you have done (and hopefully will continue to do) in your sketchbook. Bold, impasto strokes can be used to describe flower petals, for example.  Keep experimenting – if you are working in acrylics you could try some of the mediums that can be mixed with them to prolong drying time or make them thicker, or you could try oils (although not very family friendly if you are pushed for space to work). – I do own water-based oils, which dry a lot quicker than the standard oils, although I still find this is longer than I’d like!  And with a young family around and not a lot of storage space, I have to be careful of little finger prints on my work.  I set out to make thicker, spontaneous marks in my work but then almost always find myself getting tighter and tighter and then ultimately the result is too smooth – I shall work on correcting this as the course progresses.

You are obviously thinking about light and shadow and how this can affect a scene – this is good. Strong lights and shadows can make for a more dramatic and interesting work, so keep developing this aspect. – I feel this is an important aspect of a piece, to establish tone and space; I am a big believer in the ‘eyes half closed’ technique!

 Sketchbooks Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Demonstration of Creativity

Your sketchbooks should include preparation for the exercises you have done from the course, but ideally also your own experimentation, as you have begun to do.  This can be anything – get playful! The assessor will want to see evidence of a visual journey, what you are thinking about and are interested in, things you might have seen and collected, etc. that might be relevant to the course, even just in a roundabout way. Leaves, feathers, photos, pictures from magazines – anything you might find inspiring or visually interesting. – I feel my experimentation with the modelling paste went extremely well; I was expecting a huge mess with pages stuck together, but not so!  I was amazed at how well it smoothed on with a simple cardboard template.  This is definitely a material I want to use more in my finished pieces.  I need to set aside time to get out and about, take walks etc and find objects that inspire me.  These are usually all outdoor things, such as beautiful flowers and colourful leaves, and I hope to have time to do more sketching of items such as this, around the actual coursework.

I am pleased you are making brief notes in there – this is important for each sketch, experiment or item you include and can point the examiner to what you are thinking and how you are reflecting on what you see. – at first I thought notes on a page of sketches might ‘spoil’ the work, but now I see that these pages could appear muddled and out of context if some brief notes were not added.

 Learning Logs or Blogs/Critical essays Context

 Your observations on the assignment piece were interesting to read; it’s important to be self reflective and think about what works and what we found challenging.

Although I don’t think you had much time for research this time, keep looking, browsing, watching out for art and artists, particularly those recommended in the course, even if you only get chance for a quick Google search.  Try and understand what they were trying to do and relate it to your own work, for example, how did they tackle things like light and shade, colour, backgrounds, composition, etc?  Your notes don’t have to be very long, but as a guideline, try thinking about: – I am ever conscious of my limited time to do research, let alone the course!  But I know how important it is, and its good to know that quick Google searches will suffice.  I am catching up with family on Facebook on most days and have joined countless art-related groups and pages that are always throwing up interesting stories.  These are almost always about modern artists – unless it is a post from a gallery about an old masters’ exhibition – so I guess I need to focus on researching artists both new and old.  My personal favourites are Degas and van Gogh, so hopefully I’ll be able to look at them in more depth soon.

Who? Who were they in relation to other artists / movements? Were they groundbreaking?

What? What did they paint?

Where?  Were their surroundings important?

When?  What era or movement did they belong to, if any?

And the final, most important questions:

How? How did they achieve their effects? How can that help inform your own practice?

Why?  Why did they paint what they did, and why is their work worth looking at?

Suggested reading/viewing Context

This assignment also focuses on with interiors and still life, so take a look at artists who have focused on these subjects, for example Mary Cassatt, Gwen John and some of the 17th and 18th century Dutch old masters.  Also try and look at how contemporary artists are approaching interiors and still life – googling ‘contemporary still life’ should give you a good selection, and just generally keep an eye out for this subject and how it has been handled. – I have noted these artists and shall be researching them at my earliest convenience.

Pointers for the next assignment

Exploration of colour is the key here, so this is what you need to concentrate on in your sketchbook. – fantastic!! As well as figures/portraits, colour is my next favourite subject.

Also, make a viewfinder and use it look around interiors to get an idea for what makes a good composition. Keep shifting position to see how that creates a different composition.

When preparing a still life, think carefully about the background. Does it enhance or compete with the subject? If in doubt, leave it out. Think also about shadows – what colour are they?  Avoid using black (or even Payne’s grey) but try and mix your darks chromatically (using complementary colours such as purple and yellow). – I shall be using the colour mixes I did from the beginning of Part 2 to help inform me when mixing darks.

Fabric: this can be the downfall of an otherwise competent still life if it is rushed or overworked. Practice describing cloth by doing some preparatory work – try drawing or painting a white handkerchief (squinting helps) and just really look at all the areas of tone – light, mediums, dark etc. Think of the fabric as a landscape and really try and look at its shape.

Assignment 1: Still Life painting

If I’m honest, this assignment was a little slow-going for me.  I’d managed to complete my first assignment for my Drawing 1 course but then my baby was born and kind of threw a spanner in the works!  I had been trying to work on this assignment simultaneously but the time just wasn’t there, and I was a little worried about getting too far behind.  Therefore, I am highly aware of the possibility that I probably didn’t do enough preliminary work before starting my painting.

I was toying with the idea of doing an exterior painting, i.e. a section of my garden, but the weather continued to put paid to that idea.  That, plus having a young baby that wanted constant attention and the fact I could sit out in the cold garden for too long!  The idea then came to me about possibly merging the different aspects; a still life that was also an interior/exterior study.  I had received some lovely flowers following the birth of my son, therefore I decided I wanted to include them, along with a decorative cushion and dining chair.

To bring in the elements of the exterior, I set my still life up on my dining/kitchen table, which looks out of the patio doors and onto my garden.  Due to fact our garden is south-facing, we are fortunate to get strong light throughout the day and therefore this created some interesting shapes and shadows.  It is at that point that perhaps I should have undertaken some studies of the objects, but in hindsight I could argue that I wanted to free up my painting style and become much looser, and that studying the objects in too much detail would have stopped me from doing this somewhat.  Therefore, as I had a pretty good idea of where I was headed, I decided to play around with composition next.

Using pencil and an A3 sheet, I set about drawing a succession of thumbnails to explore the most pleasing viewpoints and qualities that the objects/views were presenting.  It appeared to me that those thumbnails showing slightly higher viewpoints also had a much better range of tones.  Number 3 appealed a little but I realised I didn’t really like the angle of the dining chair, which made it appear quite narrow and odd-looking.  It was then a matter of choosing between no. 2 and no. 5, as there were both strong tonally and had interesting compositions in terms of line and negative space.  The thought of adding the lovely, colourful sun-catchers my children made on the patio doors eventually won me over, as well as the chance to include more outdoor space, so I decided to go with no.5.

Pencil on A3

To develop my idea further and to establish whether or not the composition would work on a larger scale, I undertook a larger charcoal tonal study.  As well as satisfying myself that the lights and darks were in balance, I wanted to be sure I was capable of depicting objects with finer details without actually drawing/painting in everything I saw.  It was whilst drawing this study that I noticed the interesting verticals and diagonals that draw your eye around the composition; the slope of the neighbours roof running parallel with the line of the sun-catchers to the top of the flowers, down through the vase and then radiating out in all directions out of the drawing with the top of the chair and cushion, and also the shadows thrown by the vase and the window frame on the table.

Charcoal on A3

The flowers, for me, were to be the main focus of the piece and I decided I wanted to experiment with their colour, and the possibility of using a coloured ground.  I established that the complimentary colour of the pinks and purples present in the flowers would be a yellowy-green, therefore I found some drawing paper of this colour and did a colour study of the flowers in pastel to see if this ground colour could work for my final painting.  I did use more yellow and white on the background to bring it to more suitable colour, and found that this made the flowers appear more vibrant.

Pastel on coloured A4 paper

I was now determined that I would use this green as the ground colour for my painting.  I selected an A3 canvas board for ease of use, and applied a thick layer of this colour using acrylics.

Next, I did a loose drawing with charcoal directly onto the board, using my tonal study as a guide (the light had now faded and I couldn’t copy directly from my still life setup).

I wasn’t going to assume the colours that were present (i.e. white doors), so instead paid close attention to the ‘hidden’ colours that I could see, such as the purple shadows on the white door frames due to them being hidden from the light.  I began by painting these in to establish a dark interior area with which I could compare subsequent tonal areas with as I progressed.  The shadows cast on the table were a little warmer in comparison, due to the colour of the wood, therefore I added a little of the purple used on the door frames to the maroon colour of the shadows in order to establish some consistency.  I painted the sky in using a stippling technique and a mixture of Ultramarine, Cadmium Yellow and white to mimic the cloudy, mottled sky – and because I was desperate to add a touch of light to the piece!

Next, I began to work on the vase of flowers.  I found this tricky as the vase had light passing through from behind it and was casting strange reflected light patters on top of its shadow.  I painted these in, although I’m not sure if they clearly depict what is happening to the light or if they just look like I’ve forgotten to paint the shadow properly… I was careful to observe the way the light acted on the water in the vase, the way the surface is almost opaquely white but then the rest is transparent and warping the stems of the flowers.

It is at this point that I cracked on ahead with the painting and unfortunately forgot to take any more progress shots.  Ultimately, I was aiming for a looser style of working and therefore intentionally made a point of not obsessing over the details.  I used the ‘eyes half-closed’ trick to obliterate detail so that I could focus on tonal barriers instead.  Some areas were painted smooth, whilst others show a much rougher application technique (such as the stippling  on the sky/bushes).  My colour choices were a combination of carefully chosen and intuitive, whilst at the same time remembering throughout that I was using a green ground and the colours needed to be, for the most part, in harmony with this.

Final painting, acrylic on A3 canvas board

Conclusion

In hindsight, I would have liked to have spent more time on preliminary studies; I just unfortunately let myself panic about getting behind and that coupled with sleepless nights with a newborn is not a good combination. However, the one positive thing I can draw from this is that I felt I had the ability to be more spontaneous when starting my final painting.  Without the many object studies and colour notes (apart from those I did for the flowers), I found the decision-making a more exciting experience.  If I had colour studies to work from, I feel I would have followed these too slavishly, or perhaps not been able to achieve the same colours again when I came to mix them.   Therefore, I am quite happy that I had what I felt to be a successful composition study to work from, and that I was able to make intuitive colour choices at the time of painting.

Perhaps one element I am not so happy about is the quality of the acrylic paint when it dries; in places where it is laid on not so thick, it gives a rough appearance that can detract from other areas where the paint is applied more sumptuously.  I am not sure if my patience got the better of me or if this is simply what one should expect when painting with acrylics in a loose style.  I am happy with the tones and hues of my flowers, but feel the overall appearance is a little sketchy; I would look at using a finer brush if I were to paint this again.

What I do feel works is the bottom right of the painting; the shadows are strong, especially on the cushion, and its a shame I didn’t manage to get the same dark, tonal quality on anything else in the piece, except maybe for the bushes behind the chair.  I am happy also that I decided to include  the sun-catchers on the window; they provide a pop of soft colours that help to detract from an otherwise bland, dull sky.

For my next assignment and future exercises, I shall look at making a more varied batch of supportive preliminary work and will also experiment more with my brushes and the consistency of acrylic paint with a view to achieving a more satisfying, even coverage.