Brian began by saying; you can draw, that’s a solid foundation you can build on but there’s always work to do.

If the exercises don’t excite you, don’t be afraid to ‘push it around’.  For the exercise on drawing machines it can be a toy, human body etc, at level 2 you need to be trusted to find your on way of looking at the world.

Project 1 Exercise for space, Depth and Volume; you’ve handled the medium pretty well, good drawing and use of tone.  Drawing in this way forces you to edit.  You set up still lives a lot, there is nothing wrong with this but also try to find subjects to draw that are all ready there, things that you come across and are less in control of.  Go out into the world, you cannot control the environment in the same way.  Look at shoes left at the door etc.

Project 2 Mark Making Materials; I’m captivated by the second one, it has a dark, gloomy atmosphere.  It has an interesting composition and there is a subtlety to it.  I like that you reversed what you had done in the first one, ie black tree instead of black background.  Does it look better in reproduction than in real life?  Me – yes, a bit.  That is quite common.  It has really quite a haunting silhouette.

I also like the one where you used acrylic paint.  It is less showy and more brooding and seductive.  Start breaking the rules and making mistakes, you’re quite experimental, keep that up.  You’ve got permission to try different things; try it, if it doesn’t work it doesn’t matter, there is no obligation for everything to be good.

Project 3 Narrative

The results from this exercise were quite moving.  I liked the drawing of the Irn Bru, in some respects this is what I meant by not setting up a still life, but using things already there instead.  It is a nice drawing, I like the paint effects and the use of the white paper.  The drawing of the humbugs is a sweet little study.  Recording different stages of a drawing is useful, Matisse did this and sometimes the final painting looked nothing like the photographs of the different stages.  I found the sensitive subject quite moving.  You’ve really achieved something with the humbug drawing, it’s really neat, unpretentious – it’s a good example of the advice – don’t think about art, don’t try to make art, you don’t need to make a grand statement.  Drawing 1 is all about enquiry, finding out about different medium, Drawing 2 is finding all about drawing.  I like the white paper that you’ve left, there is an interesting tension between the drawing and the space.

Research

Something obviously chimed with you when viewing Duncan Shanks work.  Steal his ideas, borrow ideas, the level you are at in education, the idea is to learn.  I do drawings of other people’s works.  Look at composition, materials, mark making, use the format.  Looking at the photograph of Duncan Shanks’ sketch book with the Cow Parsley flower drawing on the left page and a painting including the flower on the right, you might decide to use this to do a diptych.  If something excites you, use it.  When you write about other artists, you write a little about what they do, then you can sometimes be a bit dismissive.  You don’t need to like the artist’s work that you are looking at, you only need to write about it.  If you don’t like it, go into more detail about why, e.g. “I was unconvinced by his use of….., although colourful, this didn’t work for me because…..”, do more digging and be more analytical.  The easiest way to do this is to compare two artists, e.g. John Pyper draws landscapes…., which is different from David Hockney, who uses colour….  Or compare with and relate to your own work.  You may want to review your research again and edit it.  You given your opinion on the use of digital work, we are all digital artists; we paint, we photograph the painting and post it on-line where others view it digitally.  Try to find something positive to say about something you are reviewing, don’t be dismissive, or too gushy.  I’ve written about artists I don’t like, but by the time I’ve researched them and written about them – I like them.  Grayson Perry said he wanted to put up signs in galleries saying ‘You don’t need to like it’.  If you like flowers, look at botanical studies, such as those of John Ruskin.  Georgia O’Keefe is having an exhibition next year in London.  It’s difficult to see her work in the UK.  She does massive paintings and uses a zoomed in quality.

Assignment 2

Your studies are really interesting.  There is some really interesting mark making and a few quite nice gestures, there is a rhythm and energy.  In the first drawing there is something really quite bold, quite free, you’re not over thinking, just making art.  I really like the pattern on the cloth, it adds interesting detail and texture.  In some of the exercises you try a few things then settle quite quickly on what you’re going to do.  For the assignment you have been much more experimental and your work is better for that.  The black and white drawing of the five roses has a graphic, almost Japanese quality.  It is a nice piece of work on its own.  Was it a conscious decision to use calligraphic marks, almost a written painting.  There is real clout in there.  Likewise, in the drawing with the grey wash, the subject matter is not arranged, it’s just lying there.  There is an interesting use of negative space and the composition goes off the edge of the paper.  There is lots of intuition going on in your sketches, you’ve not tied yourself to any medium, there are lots of black ink, you’ve not tied yourself to any style.  There is some really rich stuff going on.  Brian asked me how happy I was with the final piece.  I answered that I wasn’t sure;  I wasn’t convinced I had the best outcome, when I looked back over the sketches I had done.  I liked the black and white drawings I had done, but had not developed them further.  Brian answered that it was ok to feel that way and that it was a sign that I was trying to propel myself forward.  He suggested that I play about with it; photo shop it, cut it up and collage with it, and draw over it.  When I pointed out I had changed the image on photo shop he commented that I was a digital artist!

Brian commented that he liked the photograph with the newspaper, pencil and rubber and other paraphernalia in the back ground and found it interesting.  I replied that this wasn’t intentional, I was just in a hurry when posting on my blog.  Brian said that accidents can be exciting, art happens, take notice of the world.  Start to contextualize your own work, which will come from looking at artists that are relevant.

Parallel Project

Brian advised me to look at a blog post he had done on D2 student Sarah Euston, who had scored 78%.  She had grabbed hold of her subject and milked it for all it was worth.  She focussed on a place, where she later found out Cornelia Parker had worked.  Her assignment piece was a film of her painting onto glass then smashing it at the end.  It was quite high concept, but it’s up to you how far you want to travel.  She also integrated a lot of the exercises into it, once she had decided on her subject she based the exercises on it.  The critical review should relate to the contextual study and should be relevant to the parallel project.  Compare and contrast, for example if starting with the work of Alistair Gray, look at his approach as opposed to mine, what is different, as opposed to a recording or CCTV surveillance?  What does a drawing give you?

Also what about the restrictions and obligations I have to clients, not just in not naming them, but also without showing them?  How do you make work when you’re not allowed to make work?  There is an interesting set of constraints.  Think about what it is to observe, not just appearance, but you are privy to their personal lives, but honour bound not to discuss, you carry that around with you.  Also the bureaucracy, a client becomes a clerk of their own life, and needs to record their own efforts.  For the critical review, record how I first encountered it, who did I compare the work to?  E.g. someone more abstract in approach.  Think about institutions that structure people’s lives and impact on their routine.  Think about daily project, e.g. 4 month diary, narrative or drawing.  You could focus on 3, or 4 people only and record, or do a drawing of what you have for lunch that day, or a drawing of the weather that day.  Set up a process or a routine and at the end I will guarantee that the outcome won’t be what you expect.  What are still lives around the office, what is just lying there, or think about how a court reporter records what happens when only allowed to draw from memory.   The procedure could reflect the bureaucracy of the place.  Don’t waste time thinking about it, just set up a structure and work on it.  What about Stations of the Cross?  In a diary of a client, when he gets a job, his pages are left blank.

I also really like the dots on the screens.  I’ve written that I would normally concentrate on people, but I had to wait until the office was closed, so what else is interesting to look at.  I also like the reflections; these can reflect what I’m doing.  What do dots make you think of, e.g. Damian Hirst.  The critical review should be an informed commentary.  Don’t be afraid to try different things, you can always pull back.  The Job Centre, I would imagine, can be a real gritty place.  Look at other ‘non places’ in geography, I. e. no one lives there, other examples would be petrol stations, air ports etc.  The client doesn’t have a choice he has to go there.  Working over a space of 4 or 5 months could build up a lot of work, what shifts over that time?