Renal Colic

I've had renal colic as a result of kidney stones getting stuck in my left ureter obstructing the flow of urine. This is an extremely painful condition which has really knocked me sideways and has meant I have not been able to sit up straight let alone concentrate on drawing anything specific. I decided to make a drawing of the experience using some new inktense block I had bought.

I closed my eyes and imagined the edges and the shape of the sensation. I then imagined the colours it might be and sketched it.
 



 

 

 

 

My portfolio goes on a tour of Europe!

My work for part 1 of the course arrived back to my work address and was in the Head Receptionist's office. I told reception that I would organise a courier to send it back to Italy and I was allowed to leave it where it was until it would be collected.

The next night I arrived at work and one of the receptionists handed me a receipt from the courier for the collected parcel . The blood drained from my face and a few choice words escaped my lips......You see......The thing was.......I hadn't had time to organise a courier. My portfolio was on its way to the head office of IDEXX laboratories in the Netherlands!

A few frantic emails and a conversation with avery nice Dutch lady later and my work was returned safe and sound. I decided not to courier it to Italy after all but to book it as hold luggage on Easyjet for my return journey (although I don't on balance think that's any safer). One of the perils of being an overseas student.

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

6th March 2013

I have recently re-established contact with my mother after a long period of estrangement. (It's complicated - we have our ups and downs. I was brought up by my father from the age of 4). Anyway the reason I mention her here is that since we were last in touch (about 7 years ago) she has become a pensioner and has also completed an honours degree in painting.

My mum recommended 'Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain' by Betty Edwards as she said she found it quite helpful in her first year of college. I thought I'd take a look as it appeals to my 'science geek' nature with it's references to research into left and right brain functions and the experiments performed to ascertain the functions of the different sides of the brain based on work with patients who had surgery to sever the Corpus callosum (the link between the left and right hemispheres) as a last resort procedure in the treatment of refractory epilepsy.

The book is quite interesting although I do think it takes some liberties and makes some sweeping generalisations and assumptions based on little evidence. I did, however decide to suspend my over-critical and very left-sided thinking to have a go at some of the exercises!

I tried the 'upside down drawing' exercise. the theory behind this is that you want to achieve a switch from left brain to right brain mode. Turning an image upside down is supposed to stop the brain from identifying what the image is, naming it and then drawing what it knows rather than what you actually see. You are supposed to make a conscious effort not to name the parts of the body in your head whilst drawing the upside- down picture of a person.

I didn't find the exercise entirely successful. One reason for this is that turning the picture upside down did not prevent me from seeing what the image was. I found it very difficult to push away the tendency to name things in words in my head and describe them in words in my head and the exercise- if anything made this more pronounced. The exercise stated that the reading of an image upside down is difficult and that reading text upside down is difficult. I've always found that reading text upside-down is quite easy. Does that mean the book is inaccurate or does it just mean that I'm so left-brain dominant that learning to draw will be very difficult ?!!?

Although this particular exercise wasn't helpful, there are some exercises further on in  the book which look like they might be useful- in particular the exercises on negative space as I did struggle with that in the last section of the course. I fully intend to dip back into this book at a later date.

Playing Catch Up Again

Once again I've allowed my practical work to streak ahead of my blogging. This occurs largely because I really enjoy and get absorbed with the practical drawing aspect of the course. Typing and research points seem a bit too much like 'proper' work (as opposed to playing with crayons) and I therefore find it much more difficult to motivate myself to do them. 

The cause of the current big gap in blogging is being held up by a research point on Albrecht Durer. I got overwhelmed by the amount of information available and procrastinated so much that I ground to a halt.  I need to start applying the adage 'On time is better than perfect' and give myself a time-limit for the research points. 

I've got three days now before I go back to work so will make an effort to update my blog to my current place in the course. 

Tutor Feedback on Assignment One

Link to Tutor Feedback

I received this feedback on 10th March which was a very rapid response after submission. It was clear that Hayley had looked at all of my work and she made detailed and constructive comments. I was encouraged by  the feedback I received as I had been struggling with confidence. This gave me renewed vigour and enthusiasm.

The comments that Hayley made about me struggling with the negative space exercise are spot on. I really did find this very difficult.

I've included here a couple of shots that I took on my phone while in the process of doing the negative space exercise. I did approach the exercise initially in the way described in the text.

Unfortunately I then misinterpreted the part of the instructions where it says " fill in what is referred to as the object space, or the space occupied by the objects, rather than the space around them. In other words you now draw the objects themselves. It could be, at this point that your drawing is slightly distorted or out of proportion. Don't worry about this, just persevere with the drawing and make the necessary adjustments". I ended up producing a much more detailed drawing than was desired. I fully intend to revisit exercises on negative space as I can see how useful it would be  to grasp this. 

Hayley suggested looking again at the work of Patrick Caulfield and Gary Hume in the context of the negative space work. There's an exhibition of their work ay Tate Britain which I'll visit during my week off in July. I'll report back.....

I found Hayley's choice of words "the lazy side of your brain is in charge when you look at object detailing" interesting in the light of the fact that I had coincidentally, in the same week been looking at 'Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain'. The left side of my brain was in charge when I included that detailing. It's analytical voice jumped in to say 'no one will recognise what it's meant to be unless you fill in the details!' I am trying to overcome this tendency to draw what I know rather than what I see and the L-R shift advocated by Betty Edwards in her book may be part of that process!

(Incidentally, the left side of my brain is the wordy side and it is quite argumentative - It objects to being called 'lazy' as it points out that it has got me safely through quite a number of other endeavours so far in life -- It prefers the label - analytical/mathematical or scientific!!!!! The right side seems to be more laid back and hasn't objected all these years to being argued into a corner by the dominant left side)

This also put me in mind of some comments I came across recently in the context of being the anxious parent of a 12 year old who is struggling at school. The comments are from Ken Robinson who is an outspoken critic of our (British and American - but I also include Italian) educational system which, he says discourages creativity owing to the hierarchy of the subjects with maths and sciences at the top (harking back to the requirements of the industrial revolution). He says that as children get older we progressively educate them further above the waist and then slightly to one side. He also says that an education system that instills shame over mistakes or a 'fear of being wrong' will destroy creativity. That does not mean that he equates  being creative with being wrong - quite the opposite. 

He says: ' when they are very young, kids aren't particularly worried about being wrong. If they aren't sure what to do in a particular situation, they'll just have a go at it and see how things work out. This is not to suggest that being wrong is the same thing as being creative. Sometimes being wrong is just being wrong. What is true is that if you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original'

This resonates with me. I can clearly recall the decision making process when having to choose a career. I was not a secure and self-confident individual at the age of 17. I studied A levels in art and in sciences. I chose to go down the science route because Art was 'too subjective'. In science I felt that if you studied hard enough you could always come up with the 'right answer'❊ whereas in Art there wasn't necessarily such a thing which filled me with fear! Maturity helps with this fear to a certain extent as we start to care less about other peoples' opinions of us. I am however, a product of my education and still want to get things 'right'. I already think I've made some progress in this respect by overcoming my tendency to want to keep my sketchbooks pristine and allowing myself to experiment and play and doodle in them. I'm enjoying tapping in to my own creative urges. I'm hoping that as a spin-off , this enhanced creativity might help my parenting. Rather than being disappointed and pressurising my square peg of a son into a round hole it would be better to look at the talents he has (of which there are several) and help to inspire him to develop these. 

Oh dear I seem to have got side-tracked. Let's get back to the course....






❊This also turned out not to be true!

New Year's Resolutions

The festive season is over and the Giamei family is back from the mountains. Luca is back at school and there are no more excuses.

I'm horrified by how long it's been since I last put an entry in my blog. My blogging is lagging woefully behind my practical work. I've been writing everything down on paper but I really need to catch up.

During my holiday I fell while skiing and got a hard blow to the head. Which luckily only resulted in a mild concussion. However, my life did flash before my eyes! I realised that LIFE IS SHORT - time is wasting and I need to get more done.

I've been procrastinating because I'm suffering from lack of confidence. Looking back over the last couple of months, when approaching any of the projects I've been spending far too much time in front of a computer screen trawling through other students' work and tutor comments to see what's expected. I've also been looking at examples of other artists works in books, on the internet and in documentaries on sky Arte. However much of this activity has been rather unfocused and really is more like displacement activity because I'm afraid to commit myself and post my own work on the web.

Of course this fear is ridiculous because I'm on the course to learn so I need feedback to help me. 

Another obstacle is the fact that when I go to the UK to work I do a week of very long night shifts (14-16 hours for 7 nights) and all artistic activity ceases during that week. The habit of drawing each day is lost and it is difficult to get the momentum back again each time. I justify ceasing all drawing when working by saying I'm too tired to concentrate to the level required. I think this has been a mistake. 

My resolutions are:

1. Get my blog up to date within the next three days

2. Fill at least one page of my sketchbook every day regardless of work status (even doodles and reflections if I'm too tired to focus my eyes!)

3. Record in my blog all time spent looking at other artists along with what I hoped to learn from this activity and what I actually did gain (an attempt to limit exhaustive trawling and focus my research)

4. Remember this is a leisure activity which I have chosen to do. Stop agonising, start experimenting and enjoy it.

Getting Started

This blog will act as my learning log to fulfil the requirements for the course I'm enrolled on with the Open College of the Arts. I'm currently tackling 'Drawing One: Drawing Skills'. 

I previously have only studied art and design as far as A-level but that was over 25 years ago. For that course I kept sketchbooks sometimes with written reflections and notes on the work produced but I've never written a detailed learning log. I'm also new to blogging so will hopefully get to grips with creating links as well as photographing and uploading my work over the coming weeks.

My Hopes, Plans, Expectations

Over the last few years I've almost completely stopped producing any creative work as the demands of career and family have relegated this activity to 'something I'll sit down and do when I have time'. Of course, that time will never miraculously appear as there are always other mundane activities such as housework which expand to fill the time available. 

When I was much younger, expressing myself using marks on paper and canvas was an important part of my identity. Some of my oldest friends would still identify me as being 'arty' but I feel that I've stifled and buried that part of me. The longer I've been inactive the more difficult it has become to start again. Fear of the blank page results in a deluge of excuses and procrastination. My main hope, therefore is that the course will act as a stimulus to make me do do something that I've always claimed I want to do! It will give me a reason to do the activity which has a stronger pull than the reasons not to. I hope that after that difficult first step, the work will gain its own momentum so that I regain that old sensation of being completely absorbed in what I'm doing. Currently that feeling of 'flow' is not possible because I'm very self conscious.

I plan to complete this first course within 12 months. I think that is a realistic target given the number of other commitments I have. I am also planning to have my work assessed with a view to building towards a degree - however, I'll make a decision on  whether to go for the degree as I work through the course and see how realistic this might be.

I expect to encounter frustration especially in the early stages of the course as I'm out of practice with pens and pencils. However, I also expect that if I keep in the habit of daily drawing that the skills I've lost will return and I'll begin to enjoy the process more and feel more confident to experiment. I'm also looking forward to looking at other artists for inspiration and techniques.