Written Self Assessment.
The project was a final piece incorporating the main development of skills and ideas, techniques and knowledge that has been acquired throughout the course. This would be a great time to go back over my previous work and through my thoughts and processes in my log book and blog, and pick out the routes I chose, the mediums and techniques I successfully developed, as well as the theories and artists that inspired me along the way.
The best way to do this would first be to pull out all my work and comment on it along with my log book for reference. This will help jog my memory as to my influences and thought processes over the past year.
My options from the past assignments are:
- Line, space and form
- Your immediate environment
- Outdoors
- The figure and the face
Looking back at my previous work I weighed up the pros and cons of each category, what I enjoyed, what I was good at, what I found difficult and what I learned from all the above, and most importantly, what I ideas and themes I would like to develop.
My instinct instantly drew me towards the face and the figure for reasons that came apparent later, the more in depth I thought about it, so I’d like to run through my thoughts on my earlier work leading up to this decision.
The earliest project was Pt 1, Pr 1, Ex 1 – expressive lines. This exercise, when taken seriously was a concept I carried throughout the course as a corner stone of a successful composition. Even though we were asked to just emphasise emotion through line, it allowed me to channel that emotion without distraction. Learning this underlining concept influenced me to use the same ideology within the drawings I was making, whether it be a building in perspective, a face, or even the composition of a still life or a landscape, all these elements can be arranged to create an underlining structure of emotion. I believe this is the glue that brings a composition or picture together, and it is the subconscious of the viewer that picks this up, and not necessarily their eye. I think this notion is where a good idea starts from and everything else moulds around it, flowing outwards, so I decided to do just that.
The initial point for my final piece was instinctively the face and figure, my starting point would be expression and emotion, and I gathered the two could feed of each, other so I felt this would be a good pathway to start with and follow.
In Pt 2, Pr 2, Ex 1 – Detail and tone, I spent and extensive time building up a technique of drawing textures and surfaces of fruit and veg in a still life composition to create a realistic representation of the surfaces. Looking closely at the dimples, grooves and the way the light reflected of the different exteriors gave me confidence in how to express the detail I was observing. This was done in monochrome, but I wanted to try and carry these techniques over to other mediums such as chalk pastels and oil pastels and see if I could generate similar effects with the addition of colour.
Pt 3, Pr 4, Ex 1 – Townscape drawings. Funnily enough, townscapes were my original option as I naturally find them both intriguing and fun to draw. I like the intensity and accuracy of perspective, and the idea of ‘human made, human destroyed’ would have been a good theme to explore, but I wanted to delve deeper into the organic, emotional, and subconscious as a theme, whereas buildings, although aesthetic and beautiful in their own right, fundamentally lack feeling in a way that only the human form can convey.
So naturally I leaned towards the head and figure so I could explore the themes of emotion, flow, dynamics, foreshortening and proportion. With this in mind I could also incorporate composition learned from the section on still life, but maybe use it in a more abstract way, composing my final piece not so much as a plane with objects set out in a composition like a still life, but a panel of figures and faces, arranged in a composition that creates a harmony with itself in it’s space and boundaries.
Review of Mediums and techniques.
During my studies there were a few techniques and mediums I struggled with initially. Therefore I wanted to explore these in more depth than what I was naturally good at. I tried to sink away from a detailed use of pen and biro what I enjoyed using, and went for a more free use of materials such as charcoal, chalk pastels and inks. This i found gave a fluid feeling to the drawings, even more expressive which I found rather enjoyable to do as opposed to a more ridged copy what I see approach.
The technique of using an eraser with charcoal especially, and building up layers of tone and definition, adding and erasing as necessary was defiantly a technique I was able to transfer to graphite and chalk pastels with much greater efficiency and results.
My efforts of the mixed media still life I felt was a success, building up raised detail of paint over newspapers and old hymn sheets, coloured with inks and detailed with coloured biro and chalk seemed to work really well, which I think could be transferred to street scenes and even portrait work.
Reflection.
After a discussion with my tutor earlier on in the course, and taken as something I also felt and agreed with was to pick up on the essence of the drawing, the feel of it, and not to spend too much time on the detail. I felt this also, and was able to create some drawings with more expression which I felt was more personal to me, and allowed the viewer to more of who I as the artist was behind the drawing as opposed to a realistic drawing of what I was seeing.
This point has been great influence, as I intend in the future to meld the realistic detail and the expression together through focus points and see what results I can get.
The growing use of colour in my drawings has also been a big learning curve. I respect monochrome for the fact that it can intensify the emotion of a drawing without the distraction of colour, but learning how to use colour to your advantage I can see is a huge learning curve, so playing around with colour theory and ideas of lighting etc have been very interesting.
I think the above point is an opening to starting to work with paint after exploring the technicalities of drawing and their basic principals, light, shade, proportion, atmosphere, foreshortening, and many other frameworks that make up a successful…..no, pleasing artwork.
Eeyanski Arts 