This is the complete tutor report on Assignment 1, by tutor Diana Ali.
Overall Comments
Well done on your first assignment and I’m glad that you have worked through it continuously and flowingly but be careful not to rush as the first part is about you understanding the technicalities of drawing and being able to know the basics before developing your own style.
Your blog is in depth and gives a strong summary of your developments and your creative thinking for the process. It is detailed and self-reflective.
You have approached assignment 1 with a rigorous method to learn how to do draw but do take your time. The writing is thorough but don’t forget to play and experiment practically. It’s also beneficial that you have done some work that is not in the guide and you have practiced when you have had the urge. Overall, a confident body of work for the first assignment so now you can really push yourself and develop your skills.
Feedback on assignment
You analyse your choice of subjects well and you are observing and trying to predict what will work. Be careful of this because you can spend too much time thinking rather than just doing or playing with various materials. It’s a good idea to take photographs of various possibilities of compositions; crop them down, select interesting areas or hone into the details.
You have initially approached the first exercises without much inhibition and just had a go which is useful way to start. The mark making exercise shows your ability to use materials in a variety of ways. The ‘reflected light’ exercise has been successful and as a first attempt a very good effort. They are convincing and depict tone and shade well.
There are some personal styles developing so now try and evaluate and review what has worked well for you and develop these. I would say that depicting tone and detail is a strong point. Also the materials where you have explored colour works well as it makes your work more convincing. Some of your smaller detailed work is quite strong, especially when you are trying to draw texture. Keep working on this.
- Charcoal- there is something quite sensitive with how you use charcoal. You have depicted texture well and the tone is a good attempt. Try and figure out which media is the best to describe the effect. For example charcoal is not the most appropriate media to do detailed drawings as it is heavy and bulky. If an object is detailed and intricate in its pattern perhaps a fine liner would be more suitable. So try and see what media best describes the object.
- Enlarging an image- try and persevere with the exercises so you can be confident in your technical abilities. Some of them are difficult but you must try not to ignore them or find an alternative. It is practice that will help you become stronger in observing the subjects in front of you. Some may be time consuming but the methods are worthwhile to digest so you can develop your own style in more complex and interesting pieces of work. You may not use them in the future but at least you will know how they work.
- Final piece-‘ natural’- looks a little rushed. Look back at your more successful elements in the previous exercises and transfer them into final. The textures are quite weak and this makes the piece look flat. Also a more interesting composition would have been better; more varied natural objects so there are a variety of shapes, forms and textures. Tone is also lacking and this can be rectified by taking advantage of where the light source comes from.
- The man-made final piece is more successful. The fact that you did studies and reworked over the piece has been beneficial. It depicts tone better and you are beginning to show form better, although some more line drawing studies of just the form would have helped. The colours are more interesting and you have made a good effort with the reflective objects. The shadows have been captured well, they are not too heavy so they become solid.
Sketchbooks/ Learning Logs/Critical essays
I enjoyed reading your blog as it was honest and open and it shows a journey of you starting your course, anticipations and frustrations. Your creative thinking is useful when viewing your work especially as you are absorbing the world around you and you are constantly thinking of interesting subjects that inspire you.
Your visual language is going beyond description and you are using technical vocabulary such as stating how you have used the formal elements- line, tone, colour, form and texture rather than describing what one can see you are analyzing the elements.
Well done for trying to interpret what you are seeing in front of you, this can be very useful when you are developing your own style. But be sure you know the basic technicalities. Once the accuracies are there you can be more confident and purposeful in your interpretations.
However, you have realized your areas of improvements by evaluating and being self-reflective
Suggested reading/viewing
Try not to deter away from contemporary art. It is a requirement for assessment and it is very important to explore the Art World and how art has evolved from centuries into our modern world. You may not enjoy looking at art work that doesn’t evoke your feelings but try and look at artists for their technical applications, the way they have depicted a subject because of the way they are feeling about the world around them or the ways they have manipulated materials to develop their own style. Contemporary Art is so vast and incorporates so many concepts, methods, techniques and processes that it is not always about the viewers feelings. By reading more art magazines, going to exhibitions, being aware of the different styles and media is vital in developing your own style. Start to contextualize your work. This is looking at Art History and researching how the world around us influences what we create. It will give you more understanding and appreciation of why artists do what they do. Be open minded and look at the intentions behind artists work and how critics have analysed their work then you can make your own judgment. Being new to the Art World is difficult as it has its own identity and history but effectively the real world is fed into the art world.
Art movements- research this more in depth (rather than Wikipedia!) and it will give you a sense of how artists have interpreted and reacted to the world around them in a the form of communication through art.
A very seminal exhibition titles ‘Sensation’ in London will open your eyes of artists evoke and comment the feelings we have. It is quite controversial but it will provide an explanation of how Contemporary Art is perceived. Read the statements as well as viewing the work in front of you.
Buy magazines that show you what is going on in Contemporary Art, such as Art monthly and A-N magazine. Also Vitamin D: New Perspectives in Drawing is a great book for reference.
It’s great that you looked at Gerhart Richter and have an opinion on him, he has done a vast variety of work so look at his more experimental work where he manipulates media. He is a good example of the various ways artists can depict their subject from Photo-Realism to very abstract and expressive methods.
Pointers for the next assignment
You can loosen up more with how you draw but the basic skills need to be tackled first. This is evident in most of your practice but experimentation could be developed. Well done for trying everything even if some you didn’t get on with but by experimenting you can choose your own style.
Start to contextualize your work now by researching and being influenced by other artists. You have started to do this by being informed of the suggested artists and analyzing their work.
For the first assignment you have been thorough in your documentation and journey. This self reflective evaluation is very useful to develop your drawing skills. However, do try and be open minded in how you approach your work. Areas for improvement would be to start looking at a variety of artists and how they work, think and draw. Also practice techniques more so you become confident in your skills, e.g. proportions, scale and composition.
Use more visual language and incorporate how you use formal elements in your work. I would suggest you research what formal elements are and how you can use them to interpret what you see.
Well done on your first assignment!
Tutor name: Diana Ali
Date 24-03-2012
Next assignment due 26th May 2012