Demonstration of technical and visual skills – materials, techniques, observational skills, visual awareness, design and compositional skills.
These images are part of the road trip through Part 4 and the beginnings of understanding how to use materials and media to make shapes and volumes. I think I’ve come a long way in this, and in setting the object of my art in a place that makes sense of its representation. I have experimented with both black and white cartridge and with each layered with black gesso and/or white gesso for resistance and texture. I have also used non-natural colours for impact, and soft tones to blend forms, none of which I would have thought of doing without the preceding exercises.
Quality of outcome – content, application of knowledge, presentation of work in a coherent manner, discernment, conceptualisation of thoughts, communication of ideas.
For where I am, the outcomes are better than I could have hoped. I have been unable to use live models and so relied on myself, mirrors, people in public internet videos such as the NASA Mars lander lab and the Abbey Road crossing and logged my responses to all of these as I have progressed. It has not been easy but it has been, for me, an inventive episode. It’s hard to know how to evaluate some of the criteria under this heading but i believe, by showing progress contemporaneously with direct commentary, I have also shown my thinking around each piece presented.
Demonstration of creativity – imagination, experimentation, invention, development of a personal voice
This part has been nothing if not inventive; from finding ways to complete the exercises without access to suitable live in-the-room models, to representing these in ways that I find novel and that do not attempt to map directly onto realism, rather reflecting the nature of the model or pose than the nooks and crannies of their conformation. I favour a sense of gestural movement over static realism, and colours that enhance that, although drawing with conte or charcoal on a combed gesso surface is also very satisfying. My voice is, I think, beginning to emerge but I wouldn’t know how to describe it. There are lines that may have their roots in Henry Moore’s sheep and there is also blending with no lines at all that I could at a stretch ascribe to Morandi. If there are influences, they are implicit and probably multiple. I do wonder, and I realise there’s an element of self-interest in this, if it’s possible to have an imbalance between artistry and skill. Sometimes I feel more ‘artistic’ than I’m able to demonstrate and if that’s a possibility then maybe I can hope to build the skills to match.
Context reflection – research critical thinking (as evidenced in learning log).
This is the point where I believe I have begun to figure out how artists talk about art and how to construct my own vocabulary for that purpose. I’ve done this by looking at a small number of artists and learning something of them and their motivations because the social/psychological drivers of behaviour interest me. This has made watching documentaries more interesting because I find increasingly that I have a position and this gives me more mental hooks upon which to hang new information. I have also found a book that entertains me and, while it may not be the most recommended of reads, it is giving me insights in a way I can digest. On Audible, I can listen whenever I wish and I am on my third run-through. I have logged everything as I have gone along, including a review of an MA show, and although I am now two exhibitions behind in my discussions with another coming up shortly, I know that I am much better able to talk thoughtfully about art and its place in the social, political, and aesthetic world.
Although a little late in this process, I would like to draw attention to the work I have begun on close drawing using Juliette Aristides’ book, Beginning Drawing Atelier (Monacelli Press, 2019).
Beginning Drawing Atelier some decent cats
More Drawings from Aristides’ Atelier
Aristides atelier drawings continued quite fond of the apple
Aristides atelier drawing – people
Atelier drawings – portrait 1, ‘Jamaal’ best, if more female than it should be
Strayfish Arts 