Feedback on Tutor comments for Assignment 4

Overall Comments

Pleased narrative and meaning is coming through in my work as this is something I’ve been working on.

Work sometimes tame but okay because lots of learning gong on… my whole world view of painting has been destroyed (in the nicest possible way). I’m starting to build up a new world view from the ashes and would dearly like to be more adventurous, but my old voice keeps coming out. I guess habits and actions take longer to change than intellectual understanding.

But it is coming, I think that’s what Level 2 will be all about.

Assessment potential

I really want to pass, as an isolated Level 1 student I have no idea how I match up to academic and university level academic and craft expectations, which is another frustration of not being on a full time course and seeing other students work (and ideas), and those of Level 2 and Level 3 students. So it’s useful to know that I have the potential to pass.

Feedback on Assignment:

Ex 4.1

Be careful with representational work because technical aspects of shape and form  need work. When you hone in it’s more engaging especially as it becomes semi abstract. Thin down paint works well for this. 

I have no desire to do representational work but believe that all painting is underpinned by good drawing skills, like Picasso or Peter Doig, so am working on my drawing skills by banning copying photographs, collecting information from sketches. And by attending weekly life drawing sessions.

It’s a work in progress and I am getting better. I think 18 months to two years should see me somewhere near where I want to be.

Ex 4.2

This series more impact – back of the shoes is the best as it gives it a narrative – worked well with detail – good detail and cropping. Hone in has more impact. 

All good – what I’m beginning to learn in just how much process (to such an extent some painting is more like building a flat object through a series of procedures, and that the procedures can become as important as the human input) is involved in painting and that the choice of medium and surface is crucial to outcome.

For these sketches I used pencil crayon which is a very easy medium to control for fine detail. Also, from a purely physical point of view, it’s easier to get in awkward positions and sketch something than it is to do the same thing with watered down paint where you need your paints set up around you.

I agree about the cropping and detail.

Shoes instantly tell a story… I always think of the wonderful old boot painted by Van Gogh.

Ex 4.3

Interesting comments – vibrancy/sculptural aspects of varnish splashed and painted on help visually describe subject in meaningful way. Push sculptural use painting with more texture as gives more dynamic play with paint.

Be careful background is on a different plane.

I loved doing this and really surprised myself. It’s ones of those exercises I did because I had to, didn’t think I was going to learn anything, and ended up having a great time and learning loads.

It’s really a case of bravery… of playing… and limited financial resources… if I’ve put effort into a painting and then throw sand at it or spatter it with varnish it’s a risk. I might waste my time and money. Or, it might make a brilliant painting. It’s definitely something I’ve got to overcome as I loved the results and it made for a much stronger painting.

Maybe it’s a case of planning it into the ‘process’ of making a painting. And I still have to kill the idea that a painting is paint smeared on a canvas with a brush… it can be anything glued, stuck, spayed, smeared, painted or even burnt in or onto any flat surface – more what I would have thought of as a sculpture in the past.

But a seed has been planted.

This was a fantastic exercise and has really moved me on.

My only caveat was I saw a painting recently by minor (fully qualified) local artist who’d use a whole range of different processes on a canvas and it totally fractured the result, it looked like ten different paintings. A dog’s dinner of a painting.

I’m not quite sure what Diana means by the last comment or how to achieve it – I’ll just have to remember to ask on my final feedback.

Ex 4.4

Shoes most effective as have identified with narrative.  Would be good to push impasto to increase movement and grittiness… compositionally could have included old walking boots. Play with textured surfaces can be pushed more.

I absolutely agree and was cross with myself. I painted into the thinned down paint but only to opaque out colours and with minimal impasto or brushwork.

What I wanted, in retrospect I would go back and do again is have some places of heavy impasto and really slap the paint on so the brushwork could add movement to the painting.

In my defence, I was worried about cost as you can easily get through a £5 tube of paint on one small area. However, I’m just going to have to go for it and make it count… I want to paint big but for now (until I start selling some) I’ll have to go small or choose carefully where I impasto.

What I ended up doing was making a thicker version of the thinned down paint when what I’d wanted to do was was produce crusty shoes with personality and brush strokes which filled the canvas with energy and pushed the viewer round the canvas.

Assignment

 The work is clean and clinical which suits the nature of the scene and intended narrative. You have charged yourself with being realistic and representational. It does work in a tondo but where is the intrigue? Is it too obvious? If going for hyper-realism there are technical issues such as cleaner lines and more realistic tones. Overall a good challenge.

My intention was hidden at the bottom of the write up, so have moved it up to the start and added it below, underlined in bold.

“I’ve decided to go for oils, and as I’m not painting this fast and free I’m going to try making it into a slightly abstract by the geometrical structure (where the lines dissect and shapes echo (I did this when I was drawing up). And go for flat areas of colour… I’m not being bound by local colour but composing it as I go along…  I’m also going to try and use subtle tones.

My aim is to create a surreal interior which on the surface looks real but with subtle colour and compositional changes so it pulls the viewer in while pushing their eye to the window. By doing this it will take the viewer through the interior space to the outside, which we can look at and experience but never be part of as we live internally in our heads.”

Diana’s comments are useful if ever I want to go for hyper-realism but but in this case I specifically wasn’t going for hyper realism. And the enhanced tones were a deliberate choice.

My intention wasn’t to be realistic and representational, merely to appear realistic on first glance, but to be unreal. The dynamic, between seeming real and unreality, was meant to push the viewer to realising that their internal space is subjective, and yet it is this very subjectivity which determines what they see ‘objectively’ (and accept unquestioningly) such as a tree or cloud.

My aim was to question the nature of reality and seeing. The intrigue was not the on first glance, ‘reality’, but to mirror back to the viewer how they always see the world through their own mental filter.

Sketchbooks

Sketches/planning supportive for intentions and concepts. Some exciting drawings going on… could these be translated into painting? More expressive?

Firstly I’m really pleased than I’m understanding and using my sketchbook better.

Secondly, I would love to develop sketches into paintings, the two constraints are time and money. But things change and who knows?

Making an Assignment piece that is less free than the my sketchbook work was a huge problem when I started the course… a bit like Cambridge Utd the first time they got to the play offs at Wembley having been non league for ten years. Having fought like lions all season and beaten their opponents in the league they were like rabbits caught in headlights, froze and lost 4 nil. It was an unmitigated disaster.  It took them two more seasons to be able to go to Wembley and play football.

Compared to my first Assignment of my first course four years ago I’m much freer and looser and I thought I had this sorted.

But just because I’m not aware that I’m approaching the Assignment differently, doesn’t mean that I’m now relaxed and free, just that I’m not obviously in a total panic.

Diana’s comments are really useful as they allow me to go back and think about my sketchbook and Assignment with new eyes and see that although the gap is less, there is still a tightening up on the Assignment. It’s no longer fun and play, it matters…

I’m sure this will come and the ideal is to be as loose and expressive in the Assignment as the sketchbook work – I’m working on it.

Research

In depth and imaginative – you are learning and questioning to develop your personal voice – insightful while keeping your own practice in mind in relation to narrative of others.

Good to hear as I’ve been working hard on this… and trying to find where my artistic voice fits within painterly concerns and within the art market.

Learning logs or Blogs/Critical essays

Essay plan

Good plan look at two artists and relate through ‘meaning’. Good to see where your voice comes as an artist. Be careful not to include too much or will be breadth and no depth. Social, cultural and political context may be too much.

Great advice, which I’d also been given by an academic friend. It’s helped me focus down on one very specific aspect and examine it, almost, out of time. How historic conventions (social/cultural/political) determine artistic output is a whole essay in itself, and not what this essay is asking for – which is to compare two artists use of the same medium and relate it to my practice.

 

Suggested reading/viewing

1. Patrick Caulfield – relating to assignment.

(1936 – 2005) Wikipedia entry: English painter and printmaker known for his bold canvases, which often incorporated elements of photorealism within a pared-down scene. Examples of his work are Pottery and Still Life Ingredients.

After Lunch 1975 Patrick Caulfield 1936-2005 Purchased 1976 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/T02033

Interesting artist but conceptually very different to my assignment – and in painterly terms he always thought of himself as a formalist (to do with the flat painting surface and colours/composition etc).

I was trying to make a surreal reality (and wasn’t aiming for photorealism/if anything the opposite) with heightened colours and a semi-abstract geometric composition to express a concept about the nature of perception, while Cauldfield is playing with hyper reality/printmaking and design to set up a dynamic tension about modern living.

2. Michael Craig-Martin – playing with clean colours.

(b. 1941)

Knowing, 1996

I heightened and flattened colours (and moved slightly away from local colour) to disorientate my viewer and make them think about the nature of seeing.

In ‘Knowing’, which is positioned by the title Craig-Martic asks the question… How can we know? What do we know? How do we see everyday objects?

By focussing solely on solid colours he stops us using our normal process to construct the image and as we slow down and build up our seeing we become aware of the process and realise that seeing is a construct, and how little we normally ‘see’ of everyday objects.

So, it’s a bit like a film that takes one small element and blows it up to monumental proportions.

What I particularly like about this use of colour is the laser like focus and understanding of what the colour is doing.

For my practice it makes me think that I I maybe shouldn’t always try to be so subtle (the message gets lost) but think about how I use colour, what I want to achieve and then go for it.

Be radical.

3. An interesting article on Elizabeth Peyton – http.www.the guardian.com/artanddesign/2009/apr/08/artist-elizabeth-peyton

Fascinating article which will give me material for my essay… and can go in the bibliography, if I can figure out how to Harvard reference it.

She starts with glossy press photographs and turns them into 11 inch painted portraits – making something distant and unattainable into a personal friend, like a fan might imagine they know the star. On one level she’s making her own ‘fan painting’.

The way she chooses her subjects reinforces this as she only picks stars whom she respects, for being true to themselves with their rebellious behaviour, and not becoming marketing puppets. Given this personalisation of fame it’s not surprising her paintings drip romance and mysticism, like her weeping paint, and transform a slick publicity image into personal treasure.

The irony is that these treasures can now sell up for up to half a million pounds and are as unattainable as the stars themselves.

Interestingly she has always drawn people and her first exhibition was not of pop stars but royalty.

For my practice this has five take aways:

1. She has a personal investment/connection with her subject which fills the canvas. This is honest and the public react to it.

So, always paint something I’m connected to.

2. Size isn’t everything, it depends what you’re painting.

I don’t have to go big to be successful… size like my choice of medium and surface depends on what and why I’m painting it.

3. If you have a unique brand based on sincerity and skill that cuts through to an audience you can be very successful.

This is totally different from trying to guess the market and paint images that you don’t care about just to sell them.

Or equally, to hit on a gimmick or process like Gary Hume – he takes a photograph, traces it onto acetate, projects it onto aluminium, and then paints it. Yes he has a market and his objects look really cool and are desirable – but I don’t see the difference (apart from scale and skill) between what he does and making little glass animals for Blackpool pleasure beach.

So paint something I’m really connected to.

4. I have told myself this many times… but painting isn’t about copying or making a realistic representation of something in the real world.

My take is be brave and experiment – that’s what doing a degree is all about.

5. Finally, although I am interested in ideas this makes me realise that what I really want to paint is visual language and things that matter to me, I don’t want to paint visual versions of ideas. I’m not a concept artist.

My painting is much more akin to my acting than my hermeneutics degree.

This is, after all a painting course… and I want to paint.

(PS: I do feel that there is an undue weight on the course towards concept art and Fine Art, rather than painting. But maybe that’s just because the UCA doesn’t teach a pure painting degree.)

Pointers for next assignment:

Strengths:

1. Play with semi-abstraction plus honing in – this could be pushed.

Noted… I’d like to push the semi abstraction and but have mixed feelings about the honing in.

As a technique honing in is brilliant but does cover for a lack of skill – Hopper didn’t hone in (he honed out) which was part of his style and integral to his meaning.

So, so long as I’m using it as a deliberate artistic choice, or with an awareness that it’s covering for a drawing or compositional weakness, then I’m fine with it.

2) Variety of painting styles and good to see you understand what different finishes and media can do.

I agree, though to say I’m barely scratching the surface is an understatement. But every journey begins with the first step – and in my case that might be the hardest. As I loosen up and feel easier and braver I should be able to play with painting styles and pick the most appropriate for whatever I’m painting.

3) Learning log and self reflections apt and insightful.

Yes, this is a huge part of my learning. I spend as much time looking and reflecting as painting. Which is probably out of balance. But I’m filling in for not having a painting background or done foundation art.

For me, although the craft is essential, it’s only another tool like your paint brush. What really matters is what’s inside your head… your understanding of visual language… connection to other artists… how I see the world.

And that’s what the learning log is slowly building up.

Areas for development:

1. If want to go for hyper-realistic work technical aspects need working.

Luckily, I don’t. (But I still want to improve my drawing/technical aspects as they are basic skills that underpin all painting)

There would have been a time when I would have been upset by this, when I saw painting as fundamentally a skill based profession where success was judged by how well you could mirror nature/a photograph; but hyper realism is a very, very, minute, tiny sliver of painting today.

It can be a choice, and then you need to put the craft elements in place.

Also, many craft/applied arts – hand chair making and marquetry for example have a higher technical level than artists/painters – for example Angelo de la Cruz, Broken into Pieces, 1999 (a broken painting thrown in the corner) or Monique Prieto, Walked, 2006 (crudely painted text on a multi coloured blotchy canvas).  So skill, of itself, like hyper-realism in painting, is no longer one of the main definitions of being an artist.

The skill range of artists ranges from virtually nil (many concept artists) too highly skilled (Picasso).

Traditional oil painting degrees as still taught in Poland and enable graduates to produce traditional 18th and 19th century paintings, but nowadays that is more seen as producing craftspeople to serve a market than producing artists.

2) Think about compositions – not too much empty space but rather a honing in.

I agree.

Hopper’s empty space was full of meaning… so was not empty.

Dead space is a killer. And until I develop my skills sufficiently to be able to fill ’empty’ space by filling it with meaning (like a carry over line at the end of a line of poetry), I need to find ways round it. And close/photographic cropping is one way that works very well.

3) Keep working on your essay but don’t include too much. It would be good to have a hook and question, which you are referring to throughout. E.g. narrative.

Is a hook and question the same thing – I need to ask my academic friend as I’m not clear about that.

I understand about not including too much and have already discarded about half of what I was going to write about.