Overall Comments

Hello Patricia, I’ve spent time reading through your blog in detail for this assignment feedback. I can see you have explored ideas and approaches suggested by the course and that you are constantly questioning and reflecting on your progress. I think you have made considerable progress in this section but also appreciate, from your log, that it is not necessarily the sort of progress you had hoped for. I will comment on your assignment piece and some of the individual pieces below, and will attempt to address some of the points you have raised.

Assignment potential (after Assignments 2 and 4)

Feedback on assignment 4. Landscape painting from mixed sources.

This assignment requires you to work on paper that is A3 or larger. Compose a landscape that includes 3 of the following 8 aspects of landscape.

• Linear or aerial perspective
• Sky and or water
• Trees or rocks
• Animals or human figures

Prep work.

You have explored several of the elements above in your prep work for this assignment. I was a little disappointed at first to think that you were going to do an assignment piece based on a photo and a mobile phone photo at that and in fact your final piece is based on the mobile phone photo. If working from photos, I would recommend you take several photos from different angles, using the benefit of the camera to quickly frame and explore different compositions. Also do close up photographs of different elements, textures, changing light and changing positions of people. You would take 30 or 40 photos of different aspects of this setting and then print several off, enlarged to work with, pin them up on your wall and use them and onsite sketches to work from. You may have done this and if you have I would recommend that you print off and put the photos and sketches in to your sketch book along with any notes , ready to submit for your final assessment at the end of the course.

I was relieved to read in your blog that you had already visited this garden and done sketch work there at an earlier date and that you also, after making a start on the prep work, revisited the location. This gave you an opportunity to explore several aspects in more detail such as the linear perspective, and to some degree, aerial perspective with your study of the daffodils in the foreground, and also the qualities and techniques involved in painting moving water. Whilst your onsite work afforded you the opportunity to consider executing the final scene from different angle you chose to stick  with the initial composition for your final piece and this is a strong composition.

Interesting prep work pieces are P1080029, which shows an understanding of the structure of the piece and P1080051. This is the most fluid and painterly version of the piece. The way you have had the confidence to suggest rather than painstakingly render detail gives a lovely freshness to the sketch. The actual qualities of the water colour medium come through in the larger blocks of colour and the way the two people are just about recognizable is more intriguing than seeing two detailed and described figures. The use of pencil lines in the mid ground and in some of the foreground (this could have worked well on the individual leaves of the daffodils to create aerial perspective, ) and yet none in the background emphasizes to some extent the aerial perspective. In this piece ideas and lots of different elements are starting to come together. I am aware that you have had to overcome some of the difficulties associated with painting outside and appreciate that feeling uncomfortable is not entirely conducive to creativity! However, it looks like the pencil sketches must have taken a considerable amount of time and I think you would have benefited from doing quick watercolour sketches, on even a small scale, with a travel watercolour set. You do note that you feel work done onsite is more spontaneous and has a different quality to it. You are doing well at gradually building your confidence in this area.

Final painting

This is an accomplished piece in many ways Patricia. It’s a complex scene with several different factors to bring together to give a coherent whole and I feel you have done this successfully. Technically you have covered all of the requirements set out for this assignment to a good standard. What I feel it does lack is energy, emotion or atmosphere.

I looked back to the work of yours that I thought had a real atmosphere about it , the interior apartments, the basket chairs and the colour and tone work you did in part 2, in order to draw your attention to the difference between that work and your assignment 4 piece, and that is how I came across the gallery Terraces work .

Terrace view I, II, III, III sketch 2 – . This work is excellent. I am sorry to say I didn’t see this last time. I didn’t realise I needed to look at the gallery as well as the blog. So I apologise for that and also the fact that I made a comment in your sketch book section saying it’s hard to get an idea of your sketch book work, that is still true to some extent but this work fills in some of the gaps for me. (I am just wondering how we can be certain that the assessors see all of this work as they will have less time than I do to get an overview. I think it will be important to send all of this work in, in sketch books for assessment.) These are wonderful pieces. Most of the gallery work I have seen, but there are some real gems here that I have not. I have to be up front and say that obviously at this stage , there is also the matter of taste to consider. I love work that looks quite frail and at times vulnerable. That is a personal preference, but I think some of the Terrace (and trees in central park) work really has a special quality to it.

Terrace view ii sketch 2 and terrace view II both have depth of field, aerial and linear perspective, beautiful fluidity of the medium, and lots of expression in them, they are similar to the watercolour sketch for ass4 that I commented on above. They are in my opinion accomplished watercolours and your job now is to recognize that and when editing through your work to make sure you recognize the qualities. What are your thoughts about these paintings in particular?

When you look at them in comparison to your final Ass. 4 piece which qualities do you prefer or not?

Feedback on other work in this section .

1^st Ave sketch in felt pen, despite lack of varying pen thickness this is a great drawing. Life energy and a vibrancy to it.

View on 1^st ave, watercolour also a great painting with lots of energy.

Out of the two Brooklyn Bridges I prefer the less defined.

Think about why you are drawing these views. Is there anything in particular that draws you to them? Is it because they are more private and you are less likely to be disturbed and this in itself is an interesting parameter for where you find yourself. In terms of a context for your work, think about this aspect. You are on roofs, under bridges, there are no people visible. What does this say about you too, as a person and an artist.

The skies are beautifully simple and effective.

The clouds paintings are very good. They are all beautifully rendered and it’s hard to pick one above the others but 10 is particularly simple and effective. You don’t seem to have translated this same style or approach in to your sky dominated landscapes. I wonder what the reason for this was?

Painting water. 2 and 11 jump out at me. 2 because of its simplicity and the evidence of the brush strokes adds to the energy of the painting. 11 has a life to it and the moving water is captured again with energy, and this is a strong composition.

Overall your pencil sketch work needs to have a much wider range of tones in it. It is all the same tone and this then translates in to the final pieces if you work from sketches. I think you would still benefit from doing much quicker and more spontaneous sketches just to develop your vocabulary of mark making.

The final human figure in the landscape, the picnic painting is very strong. It’s a more detailed style than your most accomplished pieces before but in this one you have captured a quality of light that brings vibrancy to the painting and the content of the painting suggests a narrative of some sort. The earlier human figure sketches have an energy about them too, good work.

Strawberries 1, lovely composition, depth of colour, beautiful manipulation of the media, a frailty to the painting which all add to its overall impact.

Cuba sketches, less evocative when they get tighter.

Sketchbooks

See comments above. Regarding pencil drawings and sketch work evidence required for final submission.

Learning Logs or Blogs/Critical essays

You have reflected well on your approach to watercolour painting in this entry. You are also starting to think about how you might develop your work after the course as well as considering how what you’d hoped to get from the course has matched up with reality and you are contemplating how the course might be falling short for you in this respect.

There is less research and reflection on individual artists in this section but you have approached this thorougly in previous sections. In part 4 you are more concerned with the idea of what is abstract and that is a very good line of research to develop. In terms of studying the painintg degree it may well be something that you contemplate time and again.

I notice you mention style and how to develop your style in your log and that you also feel restrained creatively at times by the project briefs. I can understand and empathise with this. The water colour course is conventional in its approach. Hopefully part five will allow you a little more creative freedom and I think you will find that if you continue with the degree level 2 painting courses also allow more freedom in this respect. I think you can also do a more experimental level one theory course which encompasses several of the arts ‘The Creative Arts Today’  as part of your painting degree. It is largely theory based but does allow for some development of contemporary knowledge which can feed in to your practical approach on later courses. Taking for example your approach to landscape painting, or painting outdoors. You could choose to paint specific sorts of landscapes because the appeal to you in a conceptual way, a political way, an emotional way or a way that comments on the society around you. Think about these isuues when you are feeling restrained and see if they can add more to the purpose of the work for you so that it’s not just going through the motions of techniques.

Suggested reading/viewing

I’m going to take onboard your learning log comments not to overload you with input. What I want to try and do here is give you references to two or three artists who’s work may broaden your experience of what an accomplished watercolour painting is allowed to look like. And I hope that by seeing their work you might feel more confident to develop your own work in a direction that I can see you already have ability.  The artists’ whose work you admire doesn’t always match with what your own style might be so this is something to be aware of.

Here’s an interesting blog to sign up to and this post on watercolour is a good place to start. http://makingamark.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/exhibition-review-rws-contemporary-watercolour-2013.html

I notice the Christine Berrington piece may be of interest to you style wise. Her website is down at the moment but it may worth looking out for it. The work of hers that is available to see on line is illlusrartion based, which is very different from the onus of the Painting Degree, however from a watercolour point of view it is worth looking at her illustration work of trees and parks in order to get an idea of how she uses greens and intensity in the greens to capture depth of field. Other wise much of this work is a little too graphic for the purposes of fine art.

Another interesting take on watercolour from last century.

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/moynihan-dead-tree-at-nigadoo-lake-t06840

Also have a look at the work of Naiza Khan. For the style as much as the political content as I know you have touched briefly on this in your last log (politics ) and it doesn’t play a part as such in your own work.

http://www.naizakhan.com/gallery/shifting-ground/#!prettyPhoto[shifting-ground]/5/

You are signed up for the painting degree and whilst much of this level one course is about introducing you to some of the basic techniques in watercolour, you are also at a stage now where it would be good to start thinking about the content and context of your work as well as the style. Your uniqueness will come from a combination of content context and style. It can take a very long time to develop your own style but being aware of the changes in your work is a good starting point on the journey.

Pointers for the next assignment.

• Reflect on the different approaches you have taken to watercolour over the course so far and consider which you feel most comfortable with.
• In your log and sketch book start to consider context in your work and how you approach the set projects in a way that is personal to you.
• Develop pencil sketch work tonally (think back to the drawing exercises in drawing 1, and the left hand work etc too)  and consider how using that as prep work translates in to your painting style.
• On this final section be brave, make mistakes, push yourself and have fun.