The following notes were taken during my video tutorial.
On holiday we talked about having my sketchbook with me and improving my sketchbook practice which I feel can be a flaw. I need to get into the habit of carrying a small sketchbook with me. We talked about how my perfectionist tendencies means that I am not inclined to sketch. I spoke about how I use this more as a way of making compositional choices.
We talked about the next course, Personal Approach to Drawing and how I will be opting for November Assessment to give myself three months to complete the Essay and do some more practical work for my Parallel Project. I will then have a short break and start the next Unit mid-December.
A Finer Focus - My Tutor liked the intensity of the drawing and depth of tone with the 8B graphite pencil. She liked the way I managed to capture the shine of the metallics and the indentations on the metal. I confirmed it took around 18 hours as it is approximately A3 size. She thought I was right to complete the drawing rather than leaving it half finished as suggested in a student crit. Sometimes this approach can look a little contrived. I explained that I felt finishing the drawing met the brief for this part.
Time and The Viewer - My Tutor described this as exquisite with depth, textures and tone. I am extremely proud of this comment as It is very much my favourite drawing that I have completed and I would like to do more of these. She said what was really important was the decision to leave the white of the river as it allows breathing space and is important to the composition as it helps everything else stand out more and gives more tonal contrast. I confirmed this was a conscious decision, whilst I wanted to demonstrate it was water I did this by just adding the odd ripple.
Artists Book - My Tutor thought this was a bit of a departure and quite playful for me. I explained because I knew I was using a lot of time up for the projects and assignment, I needed to do something quite quickly and, whilst at some time I would like to make a book, I knew I wouldn't be able to do so for this project. I therefore chose the paper folding as I could use the different layers to create a narrative. I also felt I needed to get away from the intensity of the previous longer drawings. She liked the intimacy and the connections between the family members. I confirmed I enjoyed it but if I had more time I would have liked to create a better likeness and perhaps use the watercolours better; it is a little too sketchy for my personal taste but I did enjoy making it.
Assignment - Orchid Book - My Tutor found this interesting, with a mixture of the delicate drawings and experiments. I explained that I felt that this helped to 'free' me up as everything I created was in there including the drawings that I felt went wrong or were bad, because they are positioned amongst others that I like, I feel less hung up about them and have been able to embrace the bad with the good. We then talked about a few of the more successful drawings including the ink drawings and the watercolour sketches. The collage also worked with the powdery charcoal background and the textured linocut.
Parallel Project - Magnolia is progressing and I will continue until June and then finish this work. It will be videoed for assessment. I also want to do a large oil painting where I have already made a few compositional sketches and am thinking of doing a scaled up version of a detail of the flower in the style of Georgia O'Keefe.
I confirmed I will make a consolidation blog post to put all my pieces together for Assessment.
For Assignment 6, I will need to send to my Tutor all the pieces of work that I am considering for Assessment so we can discuss if they will work and also my Parallel project complete and my essay.
Critical Review - I explained I am still a little cloudy on what I am going to write about; I feel I am shoe-horning an essay to suit my parallel project which is why I am struggling a little. My thoughts are to write about how artists draw time through nature. I have a few very rough notes and ideas which my tutor will take a look at before she writes her report. I explained I am struggling to know how 'academic' the review needs to be or how much personal references I can put in. I understand it needs to reference my parallel project in some way. My tutor said to connect things within the essay.
Next deadline will be 15th August 2022.
Additional notes from my Tutor:-
Essay - Your ideas about place and/or passing time are very interesting and obviously relevant to your parallel project. I think you need to settle on one or two artists and really focus on their ideas without getting too distracted by other possibilities at this stage. Of the ones you are considering I think David Hockney, Tacita Dean or William Kentridge might be the most relevant.
I wouldn't worry about Hockney being 'too obvious' as the connections are there and it could be interesting. His recent book 'Spring cannot be cancelled' is full of conversations and discussions that could inspire some ideas to form the essay. It includes the time he spent working in France during lockdown, drawing and painting the trees and landscape that surrounded him.
Your approach is obviously more detailed and descriptive, but you might connect with some of his ideas about place/nature and ways of responding to it.
Another artist that you might find interesting, though her work is about the urban rather than the rural is Alexandra Blum. She is concerned with trying to capture the passing of time while she is drawing. http://www.alexblum.co.uk/home_series.html
Further thoughts:-
I have now ordered Hockney's book on my Tutors advice. I was lucky enough to see this exhibition of his iPad drawings done during Covid at the Royal Academy and I studied these at length up close. Whilst his style of drawing and painting does not really resonate with my practice, his methods and ideas do and so I will use Hockney as one of my artists.
I have had a quick look at the beautiful drawings of Alexandra Blum and feel there may be mileage here to explore her work and ideas further. In a way, I don't think it matters that she is using an urban setting to document the passing of time; seasons change the look and feel of the urban landscape just as much as the natural world and so I think it could be a really interesting journey exploring these two juxtaposing ideas. Lots to think about over the coming months.
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