Overall Comments

Hello Patricia, thank you for submitting your work for Assignment 5 online. The work is clearly presented, as has been the case throughout the course, well done.  All work has been presented in your online blog due to you currently living in New York and the postage being prohibitive. You have worked through all of the exercises on this section and have grappled with areas you have found difficult. You have worked hard and conscientiously throughout the course. There have been times when you have struggled with some of the exercises but you have kept working and tried different approaches. You have tried to push yourself out of your comfort zone on several occasions and have shown some willingness to experiment and explore the medium.

Remember the assessors will want to see evidence of experimentation, exploration and progress over the life of the course. I think you can confidently show that you have made progress and that your work has developed.

Feedback on assignment

Develop a series of paintings using methods and a subject of your own choice.
Establish what links the pieces. Before you begin think about

• Size
• Medium

As you start concentrate on observation and research of the subject

Prep work

Great that you had arranged to attend a life drawing class. And a good idea to use it as a basis for your set of themed paintings. You have done a substantial amount of preparation work and have thought about several different approaches to the final piece.

The series of five minute poses are a really exciting set of drawings. The energy is there, the subtlety of the tone in describing form has come through, really accurately rendered proportions , excellent Patricia. Much much more of this approach and experimentation would greatly benefit your style development. The male figure set of sketches, particularly no 8, are also interesting.

Final Assignment pieces.

Good that you identified a connection with de Lempicka and followed this up. Your notes on how you developed your work and ideas are very informative. There is attention to composition, medium, tone and abstraction. The pose you have chosen is a strong composition and you have also experimented with this to some extent. Each painting has its own qualities. The styles are very different and this was intentional. The connecting factor was the figure. I think it may also have been interesting to select one of these styles and try using it to depict a series of five different poses. I can see from your writing why you have chosen the different styles you have. As a series, 3 and 4 seem to work well together. And also 1 and 4. Think about this and how  you  might develop it. There are myriad combinations of painting that could be developed from this set.

I note you have gone on to do additional life drawing and have entered that on your blog too, good. Your work has come together well on this section Patricia, well done. Be sure to include all of the prep work and final pieces in your final submission for assessment.

Comments on some of the other project work.

It’s good to try new techniques and then incorporate them in to your existing style, to widen your own vocabulary of mark making and in order to develop what will become your signature in painting. Your own unique style will develop by exploring what marks you are capable of making and that feel natural to you.  I can see you are exploring this throughout your work.

Drawing on coloured ground.

Despite you not being happy with how these two pieces have turned out, and I can understand why, I do still think you have clearly shown the effect of the ground on the final piece and this is the point of the exercise.

Tonal studies on a coloured ground.

Blue shoes on coloured ground. Final piece. Very accomplished. Lovely application of paint. Good use of the coloured ground coming through, excellent tonal qualities. Good rendition of the shoe texture.

The onions. Img 0851, despite looking a little like pomegranates I actually think this painting is really good Patricia. The application of the watercolour is beautiful. It is more fluid and confident than in the final image which has more detail. This is a lovely style. I would recommend you have a nother go at the two onions several attempts until you feel completely happy that they look like onions but still have this beautiful expressive paint quality. I think it is some of the detail which is a little too random, the amount of definition is perfect but where it is, is a little misleading. The brown squiggle on the right hand bulb perhaps needs to be done with a much smaller brush for example.

Collage exercises

Good to read that you felt you had learnt from this experience Patricia. You say that you thought it might be better to do the exercise first and then the research. The thing I noted here was that the research you did seemed to have little impact on your own collage, or at least in your blog you didn’t relate the research with the exercise. Was your approach influenced by what you had seen in any way? Please do make that connection in writing in the blog as this is exactly what the assessors will be looking for. Sometimes try things out that other artists have tried out in your own way and make a note when you do that.

Using resists experimentally.

Some beautiful and subtle work here Patricia in the flowers and the pineapple in particular. The portraits conceptually too are very interesting, ghostly pieces. Lots and lots of potential for further experimentation here!

Mixed media on coloured and white paper.

In img 0977 I can see you really beginning to pull together several of the techniques and approaches you have been introduced to over the course.

Img 1003 – the shadow on the right hand side is excellent Patricia, so soft and evocative of the edges of feathery flowers. Excellent.

Img 1008 – very unusual and effective technique. The pale blue wash provides a solid clam background and the use of the blue pen for detail gives a very illustrative quality to the painting. Interesting.

Img 1016 also very effective, the combination of wet paint application and the fine detail, works well.

Free expression.

You express your thoughts and concerns over the concept behind the Ebola piece very well. This is a worthy topic for research and exploration of people’s thoughts and fears and an interesting topic for a visual art project. I personally wouldn’t have guessed what this was about without a title. I think the spidery line work is definitely unsettling but the choice of colour makes me think more of a fairy’s. The use of wet blurred technique is good and effective but again, the colour needed to reflect more the feelings of anxiety, fear, despair. And the blue/pink /yellow combination doesn’t get this across. Dental surgery is much more effective from a colour point of view. Even though it uses some of the same colour scheme it is more intense, perhaps because they are alongside the black too. The sharp black lines also get across pain, and the blocks of yellow work well. As a stand alone abstract piece, it is quite child like in its delivery, but as an expression of emotions, which this exercise asks for it works well.

Magnification

Interesting series of work Patricia. I can see you are working hard here to develop the series. You experiment to some extent with different styles of watercolor paint application and mixed media. I think you are starting to get somewhere with it but haven’t quite arrived. Further development could have taken an even more magnified approach, very close up. However you are starting to develop a confidence with trying out different approaches here and the final image comes across as assured. The idea of making the rocks look watery by using a wash technique works well too. Good work.

Sketchbooks

I haven’t seen an actual set of sketch books face to face, I don’t think. Perhaps the first assessment? What I can see from the blog is that you do a fair amount of sketch and prep work. Much of it is commented on above. You will be expected to have several sketch books of varying sizes to send in to support your work for the final assessment.

Learning Logs or Blogs/Critical essays Context

Your online logbook continues to be very comprehensive. You include gallery visits, and brief biographies/info on artists whose work you have come across. I don’t always look at the whole logbook in detail but have skimmed through most of it this time. I can see that you have reflected on other artists work. When you get onto the section about ‘Lightbulb’ moments you start to talk about how you might apply techniques and ideas in other artists work to your own. Excellent Patricia, this is exactly the way the assessors want you to be thinking as you continue your studies (and beyond). This needs to happen regularly. It is not always, by any means, essential to be thinking of other artists work when you make your own work, but at this stage as a student it is essential to be constantly learning from other artists and recognizing what it is you that you do learn from them. Sometimes their work subconsciously affects your own and it is not until after, some times a long time after, that you realise this. Remain open to it.

I think your comments on Kiefer’s work are insightful. He’s a very topical artist in the UK at the moment due to his retrospective at the Royal Academy. He’s an excellent example of mixed work too, and his watercolour sketch books are my favourite, they a pronounced fragility and vulnerabitliy. Look them up if you haven’t already seen them, particualry as several of them are books of watercolour figure work. Also look at Tracey Emins watercolour figure work. Though often not pleasant subject matter Emin is very good at capturing emotion in her application of line and paint in her figure work

As an artist, is some times hard to know what your own work is about (I mean all artists in general) , and at these times, it is just important to keep going. Sometimes it only becomes apparent afterwards what the purpose or point of the work is. At other times you have a definite plan in mind, but not all the time by any means.

Your reflective comments are well considered, your research provides you with lots of good starting points for future exploration. The blog is very good Patricia.

Pointers for assessment.

Read the notes online regarding submission of work and quantity of work to submit. The original handbook suggests 10-15 paintings or final work along with carefully selected preparatory work, including sketchbooks and learning logs. If you have further questions about this do get in touch.