Overall Comments
Digital submission, student lives in USA
Summary of video feedback 8 May 2015
- An abundant submission demonstrating hard work
- Visual outcomes improving
- You have achieved a good understanding of a range of printmaking techniques and are able to apply them
- Sketchbook supports your work but needs greater breadth of exploration before engaging with a subject in depth
- Your log is a valuable and well-written resource. Reflection your personal journey will assist your artistic development
Feedback on assignment
Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Quality of Outcome, Demonstration of Creativity
Project 13. Combination mono and linoprint:
Appropriate research and interesting Klee/Haring visual connection. Some lovely mark-making and strong drawing in sketchbook. Greater exploration of preliminary ideas needed.
Prints themselves appear competently printed, but have not really picked up on possibilities inherent in artist research in terms of attractive colour usage or organisational systems e.g. multi-colour dab printing (Klee) or a formal, coloured, grid structure (Mondrian). Also would have been interesting to see prints using a varied line thickness, like your brush drawing of the staircase.
But you have worked hard and your engagement with follow-up work demonstrates this.
Project 14. Combination prints and chine collé:
Good research – Warhol’s Jagger prints.
A productive body of work.
I enjoy the bold, German expressionist-like cutting, although because the centre-line does not pass correctly through the face, the image appears distorted.
As you note, Set 2 are an improvement over Set 1 due to the stronger use of colour. I really like the expressive white lines in the face where you have wiped your monoprint – adds visual interest, and yes, ‘broken hero’ indeed.
Preparation of Set 3: The abstract image in your sketchbook is a super thing, a lovely balanced interplay of shapes, lines and colours.
Your monoprint under-layers call to mind the Turin Shroud. In future, if you notice such connections, make brief references to them in sketchbook or blog.
Set 3 make a good conclusion to your chine collé print-run. You are effectively combining the layers and the collage element. Technically, the blacks could have been more solid (although personally I like the comic-book print quality caused by the white spotting).
For me, image 3 works best. Elvis looks like he is illuminated by a stage light.
Further experimentation in sketchbook is interesting, and yes, could be a way to engage with the developmental pyramid idea we discussed last time. But tie it to some visual research, currently it has no context.
Project 15. Series of four combination and experimental prints :
Sketchbook exploration of themes, subjects and ideas not carried out in the broad intention of the brief.
However, you have researched your chosen theme of tulips and found appropriate artworks demonstrating a range of approaches.
Your developmental print surfaces, tests, explorations etc. have yielded a broad variety of images. Naturally, your productivity has produced varied results, but broadly speaking, the tonal work has caught my attention:
Such images allow us to enjoy the strength of your composition: the rhythmic deployment of the flower heads and use of negative space, the linear elements contrasting with the tonal masses.
The less successful pieces lack clarity of intention. Not a criticism, but to help your understanding:
The colour work has yielded some pleasing images demonstrating interesting combinations of approach with subtle interplays of tone and technique:
Four prints: Your final selection continues the rich subtlety. There is a good rendering of forms through tone and contour; the activation of the background helps bond the image into a coherent whole; and the subdued colour adds a slightly mysterious and unsettling air to things.
Technically, a broad and successful engagement with a range of materials and techniques.
Overall, an impressive and abundant body of work.
Supporting statement: Good. You acknowledge ups and downs, shortcomings and successes. Overall, a clearly growth-full and positive experience.
Your review of the course itself seems to me to be a very fair summary and you are aware of things to take forward.
Sketchbooks
Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Demonstration of Creativity
Sketchbook and a multitude of exploratory prints support your studies. You continue to demonstrate strength in drawing, too.
But to better exploit the book as a working tool, I reiterate the need for linkage to artist research (including explorations from this) and also the pyramid of ideas/development we discussed last time.
Learning Logs or Blogs/Critical essays
Context
As always, you take your blog seriously. You have made it into a very useful resource for yourself. Artist references, lots of information about materials and techniques, and very well illustrated.
Going forward, do explore and reflect on your own motivations as discussed previously.
Suggested reading/viewing
Context
You are now at the end of the Level 1 print course. Carry learning and understanding from this course into all your other studies.
Pointers for the next assignment
Use editorial judgement and discernment when submitting work for assessment, but seek to maintain the narrative flow of the work.
Make sure loose work is neatly trimmed. When mounting work, have deeper margin at bottom. Mount onto thin card. Stick to black or white mount colours.
As a general rule, when mounting multiple images on a single sheet, keep the internal margins smaller than the external margins.
Link to OCA assessment guidance: