Tutor Feedback: Assignment 5

Tutor Feedback Assignment 5

Overall Comments

Thank you for submitting Assignment Five for Drawing 1. You are clearly moving forward to working more independently outside as well as within the restrictions of the course and you have produced yet again a full, enquiring and well developed Assignment. Your learning log is well written and I really enjoyed your essay where you pooled varying ideologies and theories together alongside contemporary art and the wider cultural platform. The work you have submitted around the human form is just beginning to expand in terms of its physicality. You appear to be moving away slightly from traditional drawing techniques using varying materials to get your ideas across.

You have submitted a wide range of work for this assignment and have clearly worked extremely hard throughout to produce interesting and varied outcomes. Well done

Feedback on assignment

Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Quality of Outcome, Demonstration of Creativity

 You have started off well reflecting on all of Drawing 1 to date with levels of enjoyment, which has given you a good overall idea about you and your studies, your preferred approaches and subjects as well as materials. You have been very analytical in your approach and have therefore decided to expand further with option 4, drawing Figures. You have reflected well on your study week looking at various approaches to making work in varying contexts and it is good to see you putting work that you feel is less successful on the blog.

Exercise: Quick Studies

You have produced a number of very fluid sketches of your model using ink. The drawings that have been reduced in line are confident, enquiring and personally challenging. The sketchbook work where you have produced quick line drawings from the performance Tableaux Vivantes are really very personal representations and it is good to see that you have represented images to reference the storytelling alongside. You have managed to capture movement and gesture well and the sense of character is different in every one.

Your critical review of the work is interesting in terms of recognising that total immersion in the subject and representing the figure in its most simplest and possibly its most creative and challenging way. It is good to read that this is happening, as it is certainly part of the creative process.

You have made some great notes from your research to a trip to Denmark which are contextually relevant, extensive and well critiqued. You page in your sketchbook where you have drawn Rodin’s kiss demonstrates your creativity and critical decision making from start to completion in terms of reduction of line. Well done.

Exercise: Line drawing of the whole figure

For this exercise you have selected to draw your son Luigi. The stance of the figure is well observed with his weight falling on his elbow and the awkwardness of a teenage pose is reflected well within this drawing. The torso and scale is good and you have really grasped the foreshortening of the leg well, which suggests that your measuring techniques have worked and you have pushed your learning forward. The hands could have been a little bigger but overall the gestural mark making is confident, energetic, reductive and creative, so well done. Aspects of tone could have been enhanced for added weight and volume. You then continued with a series of quick experimental drawings using oil transfer techniques, which suggests your level of enquiry continuing on from the demands of each exercise.

Research point: Ingres, David, Degas, Giacometti and Hockney

Your summative research from 'The Linear Economy' in 'The Primacy of Drawing- Histories and Theories of Practice' is very good. You have referenced a number of contemporary artists whilst considering line and what this may mean to artists extremely well in terms of summative content. The artists and their cross over influences have been researched very thoroughly and with a high degree of competency. Yet again, you demonstrate high levels of understanding and critical evaluation throughout your personal research, so very well done overall.

Exercise: Using colour

You have produced a number of colour studies for this exercise. The strongest is the watercolour drawing of your husband cleaning his teeth. You have managed to use colour well to suggest form, light and tone and the torso and stance of the figure works very well. Particularly strong areas that work well are the legs, feet, shoulders and cast shadow. The head is perhaps a little too pink when compared to the rest of the form but I would suggest that you take time to pursue this approach and medium more, again in a reductive sense perhaps to evoke emotion. Well done.

The studies of your eye, nose and mouth using coloured pencil are again quite competent. As stand alone drawings they are interesting and enquiring in terms of studies of the self. Do you know the work of Miranda Whall? http://www.mirandawhall.com/ Her work is similar in drawing terms (the subject much more shocking perhaps) and she often references animals and nature but her craftsmanship is really quite astounding. I think you may find her practice, if you don’t know it already, of personal interest.

Your final drawing references colour and tone well. It is good to see you considering what drawing can be as an artist. Would you then be interested perhaps in drawing more conventionally from this collage? That could be quite compelling to the viewer if close up the ‘collage’ was really a drawing in its traditional sense.

You have produced good personal critique throughout this submission on your blog.

Exercise: Tonal study

You have submitted a good range of drawings looking at tone, varying grounds and under good light. The proportions of the faces are not too bad overall and it is clear that you have understood the demands of the exercise. The most successful drawing in terms of depicting light, mid and dark tones overall is the drawing you struggled most with, the drawing of your son Luca. Despite the slight overuse of white, the varied mid tones of his cheek and jaw line really give the portrait depth. Despite the lack of likeness to your son, this drawing works very well in terms of proportion, measurement and its overall balance in terms of understanding facial composition. The drawing of your husband Luigi works well on the right hand side in regard to the position of the features but the eye on the left is much further out to the left hand side of the face. The gap between the bridge of his nose to the eye socket would need further observation and measurement to be more accurate however the rest of his features and very convincing. Make sure that when measuring you keep your arm out straight and is 90⁰  away from your trunk/torso. A good way to do this sometimes is to place a mirror tile centrally and vertically down the centre of the head to see how the two halves should look. It may also be easier to place a blank piece of paper over one half of the face and photocopy, flipping it to the left. Doing this on tracing paper can allow you to see the misalignment easier. Make sure that all the measurements are made carefully before filling in any other information as you go. The most likely cause is that you drew one side of the eye and then shifted position slightly to draw the other half which has allowed the left hand side eye to move both across and upwards slightly. This of course takes a great deal of practice but there are some good instructional videos about measuring the face (and figure) online if it helps.

Assignment 5

Preliminary Research and ideas

You have started off this assignment by mind mapping your ideas and thoughts on how to get the most of this final assignment for your own personal progression. Again, as your work is often driven by good contextual research, your thoughts about the artist Michael Landy and his drawings around his father’s state of health was enriching to see when placed against your own drawings on a black ground. Your thoughts around the feminine and all that that entails works well and it great to see a great deal of independent thought and process drive work being made. Despite your reservation about the last drawing relying heavily on what you know already, as you move through these courses you approach to making work may be less demanding in terms of process driven but more driven by causality, so don’t worry about this too much if this happens later on, it may be a preferred way of working. You are clearly thinking and questioning everything you are doing and that is the most important part of what you do.

You have written a compelling and deeply thoughtful essay on and around narcissism, including relevant contemporary practice and theory. You may be interested in the artist Erica Eyres http://www.ericaeyres.com/  and the artist Liv Pennington http://www.livpennington.com/

Initial Sketches

You have submitted a good and varied number of studies looking at depicting the human portrait by drawing 50 drawings in 4 hours. Drawing reductively in line on tracing paper then further develops these. The layering idea depicts expression well and allows the work to take on another dialogue. You then move on to develop a series of more emotive drawings looking at facial expression and distortion. The images you have submitted are easy to read in terms of development, so well done so far. Experimenting with monotypes moves the work in further in terms of working with oil based smears – a great idea with some very productive outcomes. It would be great to see this theme continuing much further and contextually fits very well into your critical personal research. These haunting images work well.

Your thoughts around he face as a marker of subject experience is an interesting read and your visual representations and creative and exploratory. For me the work feels a little lost (this may of course have been your initial intention). The visuals continuing under the title ‘Obfuscation’ however, feel much more coherent. You have produced a number of abstracted images that are extremely curious if not a little frightening, that work extremely well as a series. Your enquiries are investigative and wide-ranging throughout as you try out new things using varying techniques and processes.

Sketchbooks

Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Demonstration of Creativity

You are clearly working well in sketchbooks. You are clearly engaged with the course and are embedded in your own investigative enquiries throughout this assignment both in and out of a sketchbook. It could be interesting to see if you would feel comfortable working to a theme in a sketchbook now that you are starting to consider a more research based practice. I am in no doubt that your energetic and contextually engaging work will continue onto further study. You annotate well throughout and work in a personal, intuitive and independent way from an idea, through to development and conclusion in terms of the visual.

Learning Logs or Blogs/Critical essays

Context

Again an extremely enquiring, mature and dynamic learning log has been submitted. Despite the fact that you have had to work with a very tight deadline the written work is extremely well written, coherent and of a high standard. For me the work you have submitted for this final assignment is over and beyond the exercises set and it is clear that you have a great ability to push yourself hard in terms of your reading and researching across art theory, cultural references and personal outcomes. You have clearly research a significant number of contemporary artists as well as historical in support of your own ideas and you are very good at unpicking and reevaluating the work of others against other writings. You have submitted a coherent, highly developed and personally demanding account of your learning thus far with good critical and evaluative skills throughout.

Suggested reading/viewing

Context

I have suggested some further artists for you to look at in reference to your thoughts about the human gaze, the female, the feminine and the narcissistic. I am in no doubt that you will continue your own personal studies and enquiries, as you are a highly competent student who works well independently. Continue to read and review articles that are of interest to you. You my wish to read aspects of e-flux http://www.e-flux.com/ to which you can subscribe to enhance both yourself and your academic studies.

Pointers for the next assignment

You may wish to continue a series of sketchbooks on varying themes around the sense of the feminine. You can easily produce one a week and you may wish to include writing within that. I would like you to consider the written word within your own work and continue to work reductively as you do so. Always take a step back from the work and ask yourself if you are being too literal, whether your work is pushing you on a personal level and if it feels ‘successful’ on personal terms. Continue as you are and I am in no doubt that you will flourish in terms of written critique, push some of those working ideas further in terms of professional develop and of course, keep going to see shows or performances that take you out of your comfort zone.

Good luck with the assessment and if you need any help, then please feel free to email me.

Tutor name:	Hayley Lock
Date	24.08.14
Next assignment due	n/a