Assignments – Drawing Skills 1 | 73 Kisiel OCA My Blog

Reflection after tutor assessment feedback:

My first impression after receiving the feedback was very positive and I was very happy because it was positive. After a few days thinking about it I decided that the comment about my final piece was very short but fair. I completely agree that while doing the work I changed the viewpoint slightly and my observational skills weren’t very good. My intention was creating a good atmosphere in the work while still keeping some observational skills which was less important to me at that moment. I should have been more consistent and should have either kept everything in proportion not focusing so much on the atmosphere or I should have done the drawing in a more eclectic way. I agree with the comment about the different mark making and using more tones. I should be more experimental in my sketchbook and not being afraid to change my ideas such as adding more contrasting colours and lines. The truth is mentally when I am doing each exercise I try to do it correctly and this correctness in some way affects the result as I am not so spontaneous and can’t do things more freely. I feel like this is a problem that I should be able to someday leave in the past. I always have a feeling that someone is looking at my hands and at what I’m drawing over my shoulder and this stresses me sometimes. This assessment was very short and I did not get a chance to see the mistakes as the reflection takes a while and this is why I wasn’t always critical of my work. This does not mean that I am not critical of myself, I am very critical but it comes with time. I take all comments on board. I am looking forward to seeing more critical comments about my work, I think they really help to clear my head and quicken the process of improvement. I really liked the recommended artists to consider.

For this still life, I chose my old accordion, my cowboy hat and my favourite coffee cup. I placed everything on top of my wooden drawers and I covered half of the drawer with a tablecloth.

Why these objects?

These objects are very personal to me, especially the accordion because I started playing it when I was ten therefore I had it for 30 years. The coffee cup is my favourite coffee cup; I drink out of it every day and it is also very old. I wear my cowboy whenever it rains, so I am very attached because rainy weather is very easy to come by in England.

Unfortunately, the placement of the still life objects is not very good. Natural light is not very good because it is not close to the windows, and it is close to the kitchen door where there is plenty of artificial light and the light changes every half an hour. But it is the best place in my sitting room to setup a still life, so I needed to compromise with my family.

I started this work with sketches using charcoal on A2 paper. I tried to observe how the light works in that area and tried to set the composition up right. I carried on; on A3 paper using conte crayons and brown, white and black pastel and I started my first attempt.

MY FIRST ATTEMPT

My First Attempt was after doing some observation in drawing using a dark brown colour. I look for work that used sanguine brown conte crayons etc..

Unfortunately, I noticed that I cannot work on A1 format; I do not know why. I possibly didn’t check properly, I was too excited to start my first big project. Anyway, I wanted to show you this work because I was happy with a couple of things in that drawing. In my opinion, I managed to convey the character of my old accordion. I managed to do the effect of highlight in the front of my composition with accent on the cup. Overall, in my opinion, the effect was very atmospheric. It is not the perfect drawing; I cannot push myself; it is my first big project and I do not know my boundaries.

MY FINAL WORK

My Final Attempt was after doing some observation of graphics over internet, I was always a big fan of graphics and I went to the art shop and brought various types of ink nibs, and I used reed pens before so I wanted to go further with my techniques or try and mix them together. So I set up the right size of A2 cartridge paper and I started working with that.

There was a problem with the ink- I could not use it on the easel. With the angle that you work with on the easel, the nib didn’t hold much ink and work was very difficult so I moved to the flat table and the angle of the work changed. I reckon I drew the cup too big but I left it like this because I thought it will bring a good effect- the cup in the centre and light concentrate on the cup and keyboard. Obviously, when working with ink any mistakes you cannot fix so I tried to play with bad marks and lines trying to cover it up, and I also used white ink to make some more highlight lines in my drawing. The white ink wasn’t so good and it made some yellow marks. I decided to leave it like this because it looked like I was working on old paper in some places. This gave an aged effect on the drawing.

Reflection on the assessment criteria

Demonstration of technical and visual skills – materials, techniques, observational skills, visual awareness, design and compositional skills.

I think I have demonstrated some technical and visual skills. During the process I used various different materials and I worked on different techniques on different types of paper. In my opinion the composition and overall design was not bad. I achieved what I wanted.

Quality of outcome – content, application of knowledge, presentation of work in a coherent manner, discernment, conceptualization of thoughts, communication of ideas.

I think communication of ideas is pretty straight forward and I am confident to present that work for assessment. Unfortunately I also feel inappropriate to comment on the other items in this category.

Demonstration of creativity – imagination, experimentation, invention, development of a personal voice.

I think my work shows experimentation and invention. I tried to not do a pretty picture but I tried to use my own technique, my own creativity, and create something interesting and different and create an atmosphere. I think you can see my personality in my work.

Context reflection – research, critical thinking, learning logs.

I undertook the research required in the course materials. No research was directly applied to this final piece but I did some observations like I said earlier. This is my first assignment and my first part of the course. I find sometimes extremely difficult to do some coursework and during my final piece because I am not confident. I think I approached some of the coursework too seriously and because of this I think my work lost its freshness. I think that I overthink I should let my hand free!