Summary of feedback received
The following information are the key points of feedback received is response to both my PART 3 Developing relief prints and PART 4 Introducing collatypes.
PART 3 Developing relief prints
The responses columns were completed iteratively I as produce work for PART 5.
PART 3 Tutor feedback
| Tutor feedback | My response |
| I would include even more information and background research around your themes making this underpinning overt to your assessor. | I’ve made a conscious effort to include more information and background research particularly in PART 5. This is probably best evidenced in 5.3 Developing a series of four combination and experimental prints. |
| For development have you considered exploring scale within composition? could the digital appliances be incongruous in scale? I think the image could be disrupted somehow. This could be manipulated and explored through thumbnail sketches within a small drawing sketchbook. | I tested many different compositions playing with scale and other aspects of the image using thumbnails for all projects in PART 5. 5.2 Investigating combination printmaking and incorporating chine colle collages is a good example.
This feedback/comment/advice reminds me of the brilliantly challenging book by Paul Arden, ‘Whatever you think think the opposite’. I’ve just re-read it after many years. |
| Have a look at the way the German expressionists use lino/wood and the type of marks they made to describe emotion visually. | I referenced Max Beckmann during the 5.1.Combination lino and monoprint exercise. |
| For development I would ask you to consider is this image awkward enough? Is it powerful enough? | This was a really good challenge and woke me up. It set me down a route of exploration that really didn’t come to fruition until the final exercise; 5.3 Developing a series of combination and experimental prints |
| I would recommend especially as you are working towards an illustration degree including more observational drawing before the ‘design’ stage in digital media. This might mean you have a pocket-sized book to sketch things you see in. | All of the exercises in PART 5 included quite a lot of observational drawing and thumbnail development before I jumped into digital (in some cases), to composite images together.
I started using an A5 sketchbook extensively and carry that with me everywhere. I find it a really good format to capture notes and jot down ideas. |
| I also recommend you include more text within your sketchbook to interweave back forwards to your log. | In hindsight I probably haven’t done enough of this interweaving in the large A3 sketchbooks although I use a combination of words and pictures continuously througgout the A5 sketchbooks. |
| I would include even more reflection and underpinning research around your themes. By this I mean questioning what you are bringing to an audience. | I think I addressed this for all exercises in PART 5 where I was consciously thinking more about what I was trying to say to the viewer. |
| I would recommend adding a section within with log that is a response to feedback. | This was completed by creating this section of my Learning Log.
It would be helpful to get tutor feedback:
|
PART 3 Suggested reading/viewing
| Suggested reading/viewing | Comments |
| Marcelle Hanselaar | I really like Marcelle Hanselaar’s work, particularly her etchings. Her gritty ‘Crying Game’ etchings were an influence in the final exercise. |
| Paula Rego | Paula Rego is one of my favourites. I thought carefully about what makes her prints so powerful. |
| Ana Marie Pacheko’s use of symbolism in prints | Like the work of Marcelle Hanselaar, I’m instantly attracted to Ana Marie Pacheko’s drawings/paintings. They resonate with what I was exploring with my masks and puppets theme.
I like the way she makes her images; moulding a subject out of loose, fluid and dense mark making. |
PART 3 Pointers
| Pointers | What I did |
| Take some risks with your image development | This was another key challenge for me and something I didn’t address successfully until the final exercise; until that point my ideas were too polished/complete, even though I had this challenge in mind. |
| Continue your development of themes and personal voice in your artwork to give meaning to your making. | I continued to develop themes and personal voice, and struggled with this in the final exercise, exploring two different routes before rejecting these and going with a third.
This is still work in progress but I feel like I’ve got a grasp of the key elements of what make up a personal voice and am able to reference these. |
| Expand your research to make this even more overt and academic | This is an area that needs to be more academic. I did reference some academic data related to the use of mobile smart devices in shaping my thinking for 5.3 Developing a series of combination and experimental prints |
| Continue to reflect upon your personal voice/themes and what you are challenging or bringing to an audience | As per comments above, I am doing this, particularly in the final exercise where I was constantly questioning myself over the validity/ appropriateness of the imagery. |
PART 4 Introducing collatypes
PART 4 Tutor feedback
| Tutor feedback | My response |
| It may help you to spent some more time making rapid drawings and compositions before committing to print. This will hone the composition considerably and result in much greater experimentation.
I do recommend drawing remains a key source of inspiration and development. I also recommend producing more rapid thumbnail sketches. |
I took this comment to heart and sketched and thumbnailed extensively during all exercises in PART 5. |
| Have you come across these books – if you have a library near you see if they stock these books on contemporary drawing.
‘The Drawing Book’ by Tonia Kovats? Vitamin D also might provide new inspiration in approach to contemporary drawing for you. |
I bought both these books for my reference library. They are great to dip into for inspiration. |
| I recommend for assessment purposes you add more around the context of your work. | I hope this is addressed in my Learning Log. Feedback on this would be welcomed, particularly if there are areas missing or that could be improved in some way. |
| I recommend you have a look at contemporary reviews of exhibitions and how artists and critics write about themes and context. Begin with the Guardian, I attach a few reviews of current listings | I’ve read the attached reviews and analysed the structure and approach. |
| You may enjoy the current exhibition at Tate Britain “ALL TOO HUMAN BACON, FREUD AND A CENTURY OF PAINTING LIFE” | I visited this exhibition and enjoyed the work of Lucian Freud and Paula Rego. |
PART 4 Suggested reading/viewing
| Suggested reading/viewing | Comments |
| Marcelle Hanselaar | Done. See comment above. |
| Gillian Lee Smith | Like the work of Ana Marie Pacheko, I really enjoy the visual style and approach of Gillian Lee Smith.
The main question it raises for me is how much is enough? When is an image finished? My instinct up to this point has been to bring images to a neat conclusion, not leaving enough work for the viewer to do. |
| Maxwell Doig for his figurative work and his placement of the figure. | The composition in Maxwell Doig’s figurative work is very strong. The power of the images are driven by an underlying geometric structure.
This got me thinking about image composition and compliments the feedback above about disrupting ideas/sketches in order to rebuild something more interesting/challenging/engaging. |
| The themes around Maria Lassnig work may interest you too.
http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-liverpool/exhibition/maria-lassnig/who-is-maria-lassnig |
I briefly looked at the work of Maria Lassnig but it didn’t gel with me. They are certainly uncomfortable, awkward and disturbing images. I find many of the self portrait themes quite personal/revealing and immediate.
Re-looking at them again I think I should give them more time; I’m interested to unpick why they make me feel so queasy. |
PART 4 Pointers
| Pointers | What I did |
| Use your sketchbook to work out compositional dilemmas in greater depth. | I sketched and thumbnailed extensively during all exercises in PART 5. |
| Generate more work at the experimental stage. [Out of quantity comes quality especially within printmaking] | I was conscious of this feedback when I was developing ideas for PART 5. I generated a lot more material during the ideas development stage of the work before committing to a final approach.
Probably the most experimentation happened when I was struggling to find a subject and themes for the final exercise. I presented my thinking and work-in-progress to other OCA students on a Google hangout session for their support and feedback. This is documented here. |
| Make your research more explicit in your log and writing. | Now that I’m grasping the idea of working with subjects and themes, research is taking on more importance. I can see this is an area that I need to develop and make more explicit. |
| Take your time to explore a task in greater depth. | PART 4 was a bit of a anomaly – I did feel like I rushed to get it finished. |
| The next assignment is combination printing with chine colle, this is a collage type process involving glue. You may find Japanese rice glue the easiest and most effective. Some of my other students have found pritt stick glue effective as well, each print workshop has it’s favoured glue! | I chose to use spraymount because I’m familiar with it and it seemed the most practical approach given that some of the tissue I was using was quite large in size.
All-in-all I like the technique alot but it is very fiddly. |
Illustration 