Farewell OCA!

2 October 2017. It was a very difficult decision, but it had to be made. I will not be able to continue my studies with the OCA, therefore this blog is closed. Many thanks to everybody following me over the last two and a half years. I am however thinking of continuing blogging in connection with what I do as a caricaturist. Once the site is up and running I will anounce it via my website on https://boesekarikaturen.jimdo.com/.

All the best,
Andrea

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Part 3, exercise 3.1: Monotype portraits with paint – 20 preparatory ink studies and a few test prints

22 August 2017. Since I have never used monotype before except once for a very quick sketch, I knew that it would be essential to invest some time in preparing mind and workplace.

First of all I had some pieces of glass with smooth edges cut in sizes A5, A4 and – ambitious – A3 as well as some 40 x 50 cm mirror glass as our only mirror suitable for painting is build into our bathroom wall.
Next I had a good look at several online videos explaining monotype techniques and came away with some invaluable additional hints for working with acrylic paint instead of oils. They were:

• cover the glass in gloss medium before starting to paint, this aids the lifting of the paper
• try and use thin layers of paint
• moisten the printing paper before use, wait for a few seconds before using it (have several ready in a plastic bag)
• use roller to exert uniform pressure

A video introducing the use of four colours on acetate sheets (Blick Art Materials, 2009) was something I want to keep at the back of my mind, just in case the printing works well enough to allow me to experiment with something a little more complex.

25 August 2017. Found work by Kentridge again and discovered just now that in the 1970s he made a set of up to 30 monoprints called the “Pit” series (Kentridge, 1979).

28 August 2017. Yesterday I prepared my sketchbook for this part of the course (Fig. 1-5), then started the painting, reluctantly, because I am not keen on observing myself in mirrors and am generally less interested in my own face than the rest of the world.

The prescribed research as set out on p. 66 of the study guide did not focus on artists making monotypes, but rather on painting styles suitable for quick monoprints and the examination of tonal values.

Figure 1. Sketchbook – introductory research: Annie Kevans and Alli Sharma

Figure 2. Sketchbook – introductory research: Kim Baker, Geraldine Swayne and Eleanor Moreton plus own technique from POP (top right)

Figure 3. Sketchbook – introductory research: Edgar Degas

Figure 4. Sketchbook – introductory research, top: Paul Wright, unknown artists and Clara Lieu, bottom: techniques mind map

I decided to select those styles, which held the greatest promise for my own attempts and made a small mind map plan to structure my 20 sketches (Fig. 4, bottom). 5 each of my ink sketches would be devoted to testing the styles of Annie Kevans (dilute, fine brush), Paul Wright (dilute, coarse brush), Edgar Degas (wiping off dark background) and Clara Lieu (grey background, painting into and wiping off that background).

Sitting at my drawing table, writing into my sketchbook with my mirror in position on a table easel, I noticed that this view could be interesting for my quick sketches. I intended to place the self-portrait in the lower righthand corner and create an impression of someone sitting opposite absorbed in communication. I made a rough pencil sketch of the situation (Fig.5).

Figure 5. Sketchbook – top: testing arrangement for ink sketches, bottom: recording exeriences with first set of 5 sketches (Kenvans style)

I soon found out that I would not be able to do my idea justice with my 1 minute sketches. 60 seconds are an awfully short time to create a meaningful portrait. My paintbrush, a very nice watercolour brush combining a large size body with an additional central pointed tip, helped me in switching from fine to wide brushstrokes without having to reload more than a few times, but these movements alone used up over half the painting time. I noticed that I would have to make the sketches larger than intended, so in the end I just settled for letting things develop (Fig. 6-8). The first two sketches were awkward, no. 1 suffered from temporary rustiness of the artist’s hand and from forgetting that we only had one minute to complete the sketch. The second was somewhat better, but I was far too slow to be able to consider the tonal values across the whole face (Fig. 6).

Figure 6. Annie Kevans style sketches no. 1 and 2

Next I had a good look at the tonal values before starting to paint but still ran out of time. The fourth attempt was then made without my glasses on so as to force myself to reduce attention to detail. I decided to do the painting including the squint (Fig. 7).

 

Figure 7. Annie Kevans style sketches no. 3 and 4

The last, and in my opinion best so far, sketch I produced after reducing the light level in my workshop by pulling the blinds down (Fig. 8).

Figure 8. Annie Kevans style sketch no. 5

Overall I noticed that with every sketch my confidence increased in what I did. There is absolutely no likeness in any of the above (at least I hope so ;o)), but I can recognize the immense value of working quickly. The paintings are relatively lively, especially the last one. Also, I can see that I managed to transport the facial expression correctly, i.e. the intensity in straining to observe.

Thoughts and adaptations for the next round testing a Paul Wright style:

• have the blinds down from the start
• change from straight-on view to slightly from one side, if possible (second mirror??)
• try and look less stern
• prepare all the sheets of paper before starting to paint and use them all in one go without a break
• make a preliminary pencil sketch to get acquainted with the idea of where to place light and dark areas
• sit still for a short while to allow the information to sink in
• use a wide, coarse paintbrush with less dilute ink

The above I tried today and got results not really worth mentioning. Despite having prepared by carefully studying tonal contrasts I was unable to achieve anything in 1 minute, the time was simply too short for my kind of experience. Using the coarse brush would be extremely interesting once I have acquired more experience in distributing a paint load from the initial dark and liquid to the final light and dry brushmarks. As things are there is simply not enough time to think at all. So, here are the results, first my sketchbook pencil sketch (Fig. 9), which I was happier with than my first one, it is less strained, then the awful series of rough ink sketches (Fig. 10). In contrast to my first series here the more I tried the worse they got …

Figure 9. Sketchbook – examinig tonal values adead of starting the second ink sketch series

 

Figure 10. Paul Wright style ink sketches

When doing the scans for this blog I noticed that the scans revealed some quality areas, however small,  in some of the sketches, which I would have missed by looking at the originals only, for whatever reason. The same effect I had seen when scanning and printing the fields in my Assignment 2 umbrella project, where the prints allowed me to identify patterns where I saw something different and less interesting or nothing at all in the originals. Strange, but definitely worth remembering.

So, again there is no likeness, but as in the first series I noticed that I did succeed in transporting the overall facial expression and mood, more relaxed this time, but still serious-looking. If I had to make a choice, I would discard no. 1 and 5 immediately. The remaining three share a common “hurting” look. At first I wanted to throw away no. 3 (top right), but seeing it in conection with the rest, I believe that it may be the strongest of them. The person appears both mentally and physically hurt.
Regarding technique: It was next to impossible to imitate Paul Wright’s style with the available materials, tools and time. Despite not being able to reproduce them correctly with my coarse paintbrush, I became increasingly familiar with the distribution of tonal values.

29 August 2017. We have been growing alum crystals with out little son over the summer holidays. So I thought that I might start my alchemy lab again and use some of the leftovers for painting. I found out that alum is commonly used as a mordant (fixing agent) in marbling. What else can be done with it I tried find out for myself in the course of the next series of experiments with ink. The first set (Fig. 11-13) was done on gloss medium vs. alum as backgrounds, and water-soluble vs. waterproof black ink, using a coarse flat paintbrush to achieve a mark-making resembling Paul Wright’s style.

Figure 11. Sketchbook – top: gloss medium background, bottom: alum background; left side: water-soluble ink, right side: waterproof ink

The largest differences here were the slight browning effect of both types of ink on the gloss medium, which did not occur at all on alum, and, oddly, the greater ease of wiping off the waterproof ink on both backgrounds. I suspect that the properties of the water-soluble ink allows the liquid and pigment to soak through the transparent coat into the paper, were it is then out of reach. Half-dry waterproof ink, when wiped off with care, will leave interesting ragged darker edges (Fig. 11, top right).
Next I tested both types of background again, but this time using black linoprint colour and a paper kitchen towel with (ample) spirit to spread and wipe off the paint (Fig. 12).

Figure 12. Sketchbook – top: gloss medium background, bottom: alum background; all test fields: linoprint paint spread with kitchen towel and spirit to help wiping off the paint

As the above looked a lot more promising regarding a possible wiping off of paint within the given time-frame of 1 minute, I produced an imaginary portrait on gloss medium background covered in a more or less uniform layer of linoprint paint. On the first day I managed something looking static and sombre with a kitchen towel, cotton buds, spirit and a lot more time than one minute (Fig. 13), the day after I tried to continue experimenting, but found that the paint was much harder to remove, so achieved only slight changes before I had to give up (Fig. 14).

Figure 13. Imaginary self-portrait using linoprint paint on gloss medium background, wiping with spirit, stage 1

Figure 14. Sketchbook – imaginary self-portrait using linoprint paint on gloss medium background, wiping with spirit, stage 2

What I had not anticipated was the interaction between linoprint paint and spirit. When applied with a cotton bud, the spirit would travel some distance to cover a larger area than intended. If left for a while, the paint in the wider area would come off, too, and also this area would be bounded by a brilliantly white edge, presumably because the action of the spirit at the edge would affect a smaller surface area. This surprising effect can add a new quality to a painting, if in the right place. Since I do not expect the same effect to work when applying linoprint paint to a glass plate, I ignored it and proceeded to repeat the experiment, this time with gloss medium and black gouache (a background I had already tested in Assignment 1 (Lacher-Bryk, 2017a) (Fig. 15).

Figure 15. Sketchbook – testing the wiping with spirit on a background of gloss medium and black gouache

The combination of gloss medium, gouache and spirit allowed the greatest flexibility so far.

Next I proceeded to make a few very quick test prints with my A5 glass plate on good quality A4 sketch paper, first using antique inks (Fig. 16), then my planned paint, acrylic diluted with gloss medium (Fig.17-18).

Figure 16. Sketchbook – testing monotype with two layers of splodges of antique ink

Figure 17. Sketchbook – testing monotype with Paynes grey acrylic diluted with gloss medium

Figure 18. Sketchbook – testing monotype with Paynes grey acrylic diluted with gloss medium, inverting Fig. 17 by painting in the spaces not covered by the painting in Fig. 17

I noticed very quickly that I would need a lot more practice with both the above media. The inks, if used thinly, will dry so quickly that printing is hardly possible, and if in larger quantities, they will spread on the glass with enormous ease, so that the outcome of a painting would be pure coincidence. With gloss medium-diluted acrylic paint spreading was no problem, but no matter how great the care taken to lift the paper, there would remain ungainly ridges (easy to see in Fig. 17), the more so the greater the quantity of gloss medium. I decided to stop using gloss medium for this purpose.

2 September 2017. As the results of my first attempts at trying out monotype were a bit pathetic, I felt it necessary to do more research on the available techniques and their prerequisites, before preparing my third and fourth sets of ink sketches. I sat down to plan Part 3 with another mind map (Fig. 19).

Figure 19. Sketchbook – mind map planning Part 3 of the course, first version

I also did some lengthy research on the do’s and dont’s of monotype and found that I should use thinner paper to print, on which I can paint, carefully, while it is still on the glass plate:

Or how to use soot mixed with linseed oil to make “paint”:

Or else to use linen rags or other kinds of cloth as printing surfaces. It would also be interesting to make my own gelatine printing plate, but it can only be used for a short while before it dries out:

Another link introduced the use of stencils, nets, ripped strips of paper, cut paper etc.:

7 September 2017. Assignment 2 results and feedback reflection (Lacher-Bryk, 2017b) overtook last week’s rough ideas, so that today I find myself with a detailed plan for Part 3 (Lacher-Bryk, 2017c). Also, since I sorted through my painting materials today to make room for the monotype exercises I stumbled over the oil paint I had left on the table to make myself use it again after 15 years. Spontaneously I decided to try making a few rough monoprints on normal A4 copy paper, using just one colour (Fig. 20-23). I was very happy to see that the paint is still OK and the printing was much easier than with all the paint I had tried out before. It was easy to push the paint around on the glass and create accumulations, but I will need to find a set of paintbrushes or other tools allowing me to manipulate the paint with greater detail. I also must not let too much paint accumulate in one place, because it will produce an ugly, oily splodge. The brushstrokes left by my coarse paintbrush produced lively patterns, which might be used as part of the painting, but will need practice to work well.

Figure 20. Test print – oil on photocopy paper, coarse brush, no dilution

Figure 21. Test print – oil on photocopy paper, soft brush, diluted

Figure 22. Test print – oil on photocopy paper, soft brush, diluted, inverting Fig. 21

Figure 23. Test prints – left: oil on photocopy paper, using leftover oil paint to produce an imaginary 1 minute sketch with coarse brush, using roller to make the print, right: ghost print, applying pressure by hand

8 September 2017. After some time finding excuses I went back to produce the last two of my series of 1 minute ink self-portrait sketches. This time I decided to see whether I could find my own style, in the first set I using ink with little water added and a thin brush (Fig. 24), in the second a large soft brush and highly diluted ink (Fig. 25). With all of them I tried emphasizing the tonal emphasis by adding darker ink. I noticed that I became increasingly familiar with my face, so that I was able to add somewhat more detail. I also tried to look less strained. In the first set I can now see parts of myself in parts of the paintings (except in no. 3 and 5). The painting with the large brush in the second set was too difficult for my present skills, so hardly and likeness there.

Figure 24. Ink sketches, own style, little water added to ink, thin round paintbrush

Figure 25. Ink sketches, own style, high degree of dilution, large round paintbrush

Overall, looking back at this exercise, I could probably go on and on with my 1 minute sketches, without any of them looking like me :o). Every time I start again I see new aspects to pay attention to, which precludes paying attention to the other parts of the composition. For example, over the time it took me to complete the final set the sun started going down and I noticed a deepening of the shadows. Unfortunately I was not able to reproduce this effect, but I was happy to notice the slight differences in tonal values. In one or two of the sketches I was interrupted by phone calls. While speaking on the phone I continued with my sketches, which turned out looser than the rest.
I cannot say whether I will be able to use any of my sketches as templates for the following exercises, but I very much enjoyed using them for my test prints. Also I am glad to have finally brought myself to open my oil paints again and I will be using them for monoprinting in this part of the course. The print quality is so much better than anything I tried to do with acrylics, linoprint colour and gloss medium and the paint was a lot of fun to use. So oil it is going to be!

References

Blick Art Materials (2009) An Intro to Akua Kolor and Monotype Printing [online]. Blick Art Materials, Galesburg. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIYny3uwXxM [Accessed 22 August 2017]

Kentridge, W. (1979) Pit [monoprint series] [online]. [n.k.], [n.k.]. Available from: http://doublevision-berlin.de/werke/william-kentridge-pit-1979/ [Accessed 25 August 2017]

Lacher-Bryk, A. (2017a) Assignment 1: Twenty 15×15 cm Shadows [blog] [online]. Andrea’s OCA blog: Understanding Painting Media, 9 May. Available from: https://andreabrykocapainting1upm.wordpress.com/2017/05/09/assignment-1-twenty-15×15-cm-shadows/ [Accessed 7 September 2017]

Lacher-Bryk, A. (2017b) Assignment 2: Tutor Feedback Reflection [blog] [online]. Andrea’s OCA blog: Understanding Painting Media, 5 September. Available from: https://andreabrykocapainting1upm.wordpress.com/2017/09/05/assignment-2-tutor-feedback-reflection/ [Accessed 7 September 2017]

Lacher-Bryk, A. (2017c) Part 3: Preliminary planning of the practical work [blog] [online]. Andrea’s OCA blog: Understanding Painting Media, 7 September. Available from: https://andreabrykocapainting1upm.wordpress.com/2017/09/07/part-3-preliminary-planning-of-the-practical-work/%5BAccessed 7 September 2017]

Part 3: Preliminary planning of the practical work

7 September 2017. I am supposed to carry over especially the insights gained in working with different materials in the first two parts of the course and continue using those materials that worked best for me. This may be a bit tricky with monotype portraits, as the study guide advises us to use oil paint for easier manipulation. My focus, however, is on inks and acrylics plus some mixed media, as well as shadows and legacies as self-chosen course subject. I will thus need to approach the part to come with special care.

After a few days of confusion over Part 2 feedback I just had an idea for tackling the subject of monotype portraits in Part 3 of UPM. We will be spending a year in New Zealand starting July 2018. I have always been interested in languages, and just reminded myself again that I want to try and get acquainted with the basics of the Maori language. I have no spare time to sit down and learn, but for me casual listening and skim-reading work really well. As soon as this idea had crossed my mind, there was an immediate connection to an exhibition on the traditions of body piercing, tattooing and body painting I had curated several years back. The intricate patterns typical of traditional tattoos are not just body decorations, but serve as a sacred symbolic language transporting information on “rank, social status, power and prestige” (Zealand Tattoo, 2017). This language was, and sometimes still is, passed down from generation to generation and is an important part of a cultural legacy. To me the bearer of a facial tattoo shows not only their face, but on their face, in shadow-like fashion, the sum of their people’s common heritage. In a similar way I could, in what looks like a convincing idea, investigate the properties of a special form of art and adapt it to my own idea of expressing the present actions of shadows from the past. To me this thought is intriguing enough to serve as the basis of my investigations and experiments in Part 3.

Although I will let much of the development happen as I go along, I will want to include the following aspects into my planning:

• be highly selective with materials and methods, incorporate those working best from Parts 1 and 2 and carefully expand on them, only include new ones if the former cannot be adapted in the expected way
• work extensively with 1 minute ink portrait sketches first, as my preliminary tests for exercise 3.1 showed a lack of proficiency, 20 sketches will very likely not be enough to get thoroughly acquainted with the characteristics of my own face
• take the image/part of the image working best for me from my umbrella and transform it into patterns suitable for tattooing, then make several good monoprints of my “tattooed” face following exercise instructions in the study guide
• extend to 3D by e.g. making a rough mask of my own face with paper mâché/plaster/thin clay to project my tattoo monotypes on and, to continue working with multiples, tell a very short animated story by projecting a number of slightly changed images (inside out zeotrope effect) in Assignment 3

The above will hopefully allow me to fulfill the requirements of continuous development.

Separate mind map to follow!

References

Zealand Tattoo (2017) Maori Tattoo: The Definitive Guide to Ta Moko
[online]. Zealand Tattoo, Christchurch. Available from: http://www.zealandtattoo.co.nz/tattoo-styles/maori-tattoos/ [Accessed 7 September 2017]

Artist research: Allen McCollum

6 September 2017. My tutor suggested I have a look at a set within Allen McCollum’s (*1944, USA) famous surrogate paintings, basically empty frames painted in vivid colours and lined up in rows along a wall (McCollum, n.d.). Despite the connection my tutor tied (“where absence and shadow can speak volumes”), I was not attracted. The frames look rough, their colours haphazard. Looking at them again during a quiet minute they reminded me distantly of the multitude of doors leading to the childrens’ bedrooms in the great film “Monster Inc.”. In contrast to McCollum’s frames I find a real purpose to the doors besides serving as symbols for individual lives. Of course I can fill the absences in McCollum’s frames with whatever (shadows) I like, but this I can do with everything that is empty around me, so I do not really need the frames.
McCollum not only works with sets of blank frames, but also with multiples (similar but not the same) of drawings, sculptures or even collections of natural objects such as fulgurite tubes (glass lined hollow tubes formed where lightning strikes sand), which I was not happy to see either. I am having difficulties again with the lining up of multiples of objects into grids and rows, no matter how sophisticated the connection with some important human issue such as a discussion of the mass-produced versus individualized, the issue of a painting being an object representing itself and such like, in the late 20th century (ARTCenterMFA, 2015). At the risk of outing myself, again, as a philistine, the addressed issues feel vastly insubstantial to me in the face of the enormousness of the universe and the mystery of life. The produced objects are sometimes attractive, more often nice to look at, but this is where my interest ends somehow. I believe that most repetitive patterns look attractive to the human mind because they are aesthetically pleasing, but this does not automatically make them qualify as works of art. Is this the same sort of decoration my tutor saw in the first stages of my Assignment 2 umbrella project (Lacher-Bryk, 2017)? I am probably not the best person to judge here, because to me the umbrella is a multidimensional analysis of a highly personal legacy. However, I will be taking my own experience with McCollum’s work as a warning to myself, so that I do not wander, starry-eyed, into the same trap.

References

ARTCenterMFA (2015) Allan McCollum, Graduate Seminar 2/3/2015 [online]. Department of Graduate Art at Art Center College of Design, Los Angeles. Available from: https://vimeo.com/118767506 [Accessed 6 September 2017]

Lacher-Bryk, A. (2017) Assignment 2: “An Umbrella Project” [blog] [online]. Andrea’s OCA blog: Understanding Painting Media, 17 August. Available from: https://andreabrykocapainting1upm.wordpress.com/2017/08/17/assignment-2-an-umbrella-project/ [Accessed 6 September 2017]

McCollum, A. (n.d.) Allan McCollum [online]. Allan McCollum, New York. Available from: http://allanmccollum.net/allanmcnyc/ [Accessed 6 September 2017]

 

 

Assignment 2: Tutor feedback reflection

1/3/4 September 2017.

Note 1.
For my tutor: I am very happy to be your student. What follows is nothing personal, but what I guess may be a general communication issue between the OCA and its student(s). I noticed and mentioned some of that in earlier courses also.

Note 2.
When I wrote my feedback reflection for Part 1 of UPM, I did so immediately after the video tutorial to then supplement it by the summary provided by my tutor in written form. I noticed weird discrepancies between study guide instructions, the oral and the written content of my tutor feedback. As this repeated itself for Part 2, I decided to pay particular attention and compare the things said and written. I found it very difficult to make this blog post a “compare and contrast” exercise, because my observations are virtually impossible to separate into isolated entities. Still I hope to have described my issues clearly enough to allow them to be discussed in depth and hopefully solved, because far too much of my limited study time is still going into making sense of what is expected of me.  

Video tutorials with my UPM tutor I perceive as very lively and encouraging conversations. After about 4 or 5 video talks so far over the course of my OCA studies I believe, however, that despite the great advantages of immediate feedback and getting to know my tutor personally there are severe limitations to video communication for a number of reasons. A lot of information needs to be passed in what I feel is far too little time via a sometimes poor skype connection. I find myself unable to ask relevant questions during the tutorial, because I can only pinpoint inconsistencies I feel during the talk after having digested the more complex subjects covered. The above issue is made more difficult by receiving follow-up written summaries which I think sometimes are not completely in line with the oral information. This effect does not concern all of the advice given, but mostly affects my tutors’ remarks regarding the intentions behind my work.
I have to admit that trying to make sense of both confuses me. Therefore I will probably not go for a video tutorial next time but for a written-only statement. The latter I experienced, in Drawing 1 and Practice of Painting, as clear analyses of all the submitted pieces as compared to the more general overview provided by combined video/written feedback. For many of the reasons stated above I also decided that I will need to contact my tutor at shorter intervals while working on the exercises.

The main discrepancies I stumbled upon in this case were the following:

• study guide instructions and tutor comments on respective work:

  I cannot help the impression that often tutor and study guide may be at odds.

  • Written tutor comment on photographic collections: “tension between your work from working with unpredictable diluted paints and the ordering of your objects” and “you have thought about the arrangement of them in grids and boxes”
    This combination was owed both to my tutor’s previous suggestion to keep working with inks and to the prescribed preliminary research on artists working with and presenting collections – they all came in grids and boxes. I even wrote a note in my sketchbook stating that I do not like to work in grids for several reasons.
  • Written tutor comment on exercise 2.1: “continuing with the ordering of objects, your work is showing your interests of regularity and design- does this emulate your life style?” and “However avoid twee subjects like the teddy bear and necklace, as it does not match the inventiveness of the affects.”
    I do not embrace regularity, neither in my life nor in my work (although we as a family are going through a very long-term challenging period and sometimes I would wish for a little more peace and quiet). I experience myself as excessively inquisitive with spontaneous interest in everything and I will order my work only because it is expected from me. If I do so, however, my scientist’s training will probably create an impression of wanting to bring “a field of ideas into fenced areas”. I believe that fences hinder development, both at the personal level and in society as a whole.
    Both teddy bear and necklace were parts of collections of household items the study guide instructed us to produce. I mentioned in both sketchbook and blog that I did not like any of the two choices and would never think of working with them on my own. However, I was happy with the quick palette knife caramel study of my teddy bear, which made him look fierce and aggressive (I like playing with contradictory elements, also in my work as political caricaturist). As I recorded in my sketchbook, after further experimenting the caramel painting exists only as a photo now.
  • Written tutor comment on exercise 2.2: “Your sources are wide ranging to start this project. Sometimes less is more.”
    We were required to select several from a long list of sources and use these to experiment. I did exactly what was required in the study guide. On the other hand, in the video tutorial, my tutor asked me to continue doing what I like best and experiment to the full.
  • Written tutor comment on exercise 2.3: “Do you like to collect? You work with multiples and more than one object.”
    No, I don’t like to collect, but this is what we were supposed to do, it is the basis for all of the work required in Part 2.
  • Written comment on assignment: “your panels started off by being too decorative and literal”.
    I don’t understand this, because at the outset I had no plan that I would create fields and many of my finished scenes travel into the next panel on the umbrella. The scenes themselves, evolving from a very quickly produced background of roughly mixed acrylic paint, were purely intuitive (e.g. “I want to address anxiety, can my inner eye see something in the swirls of colour that might transport this emotion?”). I never even thought of a literal translation, let alone decoration. The way I chose for creating the persons acting on the panels I felt to be extremely rough, both in testing them on my printouts (without which I would have been unable to see the patterns in the original) and the nylon support of the umbrella.
    I was surprised that my tutor called the use of an umbrella “clichéd” and then added “However, if the umbrella is intentional …”. I explained the background to my – of course intentional – choice of an umbrella as my support widely in my blog. Besides that, at level one I firmly believe that I should not be overly concerned about clichés really, in the same line as my tutor’s suggested not to worry about a personal voice at this level.
  • My tutor emphasizes the necessity to show continuity, e.g. by returning to the same materials (“Be careful you are not starting again in each assignment”, “It is easy to forget what you have already done without celebrating the successes. I think this is why you can be a little frightened each time- because you feel you are starting again.”).
    While I will very happily celebrate what I think was successful, I think that either it is me misinterpreting or the study guide failing to explain clearly. I still do not understand how we are supposed to show continuous development throughout the course, because parts/exercises read very differently regarding the required outcome: e.g. “curating” and painting collections of household items in Part 2 and learning how to make monoprint portraits in Part 3. For me these two have very little in common and I am not sure yet how I am to combine study guide requirements and tutor suggestions.
• technical aspects:

  In her pointers for the next assignment my tutor suggests that I need to make my results more sophisticated by thinking about a coating for my results. This I thought odd, since I had added protection wherever I thought a piece finished. Some of them, as e.g. the aluminium cans, I have left unsealed so far, but only because I want to keep the option of working on them again at a later point (this I mentioned in my blog). The suggestion by my tutor also confuses me, because in her feedback on Part 1 she mentioned that I must not worry about leaving things unfinished.

• analysis of development:

  In the video tutorial I received the impression of a considerable step forward. The written feedback, which arrived a day later, was far less enthusiastic in that respect. It contains the remarks “There has been a change in direction” and “Previously- you worked with shadows, monochromatic applications, atmospheric work and looking at shadows as traces, footstep and legacies to extend your context.” I certainly did not intend any change in direction and continued to work with shadows as planned. I expanded on my work from Part 1 in e.g. my sketchbook, set of cans, large scale drawing and Assignment 2 and continued to develop my work with shadows, traces and legacies, all of these combined in my umbrella project. My tutor however identified a change insofar as a new subject of mine appears to be “ordering the chaos”. This is not so. My interest in multiples is owed to study guide instructions, at least at the moment. The addition of mind mapping as an invaluable tool has purely organisational reasons and I am positive that I do not want to make it part of my work at this point in time.
  My tutor advised me also to shift my attention from focusing on shadows as a main course theme to what has started to show in my recent work, which is the use of a large variety of unusual surfaces and painting materials, working with found objects and working with multiples, but again I only followed instructions here. A comparable experience I had in Part 1, where I believe that my tutor received the wrong impression that I had set myself the goal of painting 20 squares for assignment, as she mentioned a certain lack of inventiveness in repeating same-sized paintings.

• analysis of written work:

On p. 2 of her written feedback my tutor mentions that “I say my work is unprofessional because I am repeating”. I cannot remember saying such a thing, I rather wrote that by a lack of organisation “I still find myself working intuitively, which results in “discovering” the same things over and over, which is not just annoying but highly unprofessional.”. Which is something altogether different (Lacher-Bryk, 2017a). What I mean is that by having no structure in my approach to experimenting (at the time before mind mapping!), I do things again and again without realising that I am repeating myself and without making a working connection between the repeated parts. I know that the conscious and comparative repeating of techniques and subjects is absolutely essential in developing a better understanding of the respective outcomes. Mind mapping will however help me organising this part of my studies better.
I am not sure whether sometimes the way I express myself may lead to misunderstandings.

Apart from the above contradictory observations I received a number of invaluable pointers for development:

• The working with multiples/grids/fields ties in with some of my earlier work, including the charcoal animations I did as part of Drawing 1 (Lacher-Bryk, 2015). My tutor suggested that I try animations again, including simple ones like spinning my umbrella and making a film of that (zoetrope effect).
• make anxiety part of my work (which I already do to a large extent)
• select working textures from my sketchbooks and use them at a larger scale
• continue working with unusual materials such as Coca-Cola and charcoal, caramel, beetroot juice etc. as well as unusual supports
• try and work on a number of different pieces simultaneously to allow switching between pieces intuitively according to the communication channels working best at the time
• regarding the issue of “putting order in my chaos”:
  e.g. use beetroot juice, make a mind map to set the scene, paint with a paintbrush (orderly) and then “let go” by e.g. painting with my hand only, always keep working quickly
• do whatever I like best and continue experimenting to the full, putting imagination first, but now with my mind on “ordering the chaos”
• Regarding the use of mind maps as means of artistic expression my tutor suggested that I have a look at the work of Mark Lombardi (1951-2000, USA) and the conspiracy theory surrounding his work and premature death. I did a quick search on the internet and instantly felt something familiar. Actually Lombardi’s cleverly devised mind maps, named “Narrative Structures”, remind me of some analysing tools used in evolutionary biology and ecology. Though static in appearance, his mind maps are in motion, both by the way the lines are arranged and by the way they indicate growth, and probably evolution. When doing some research on his intentions, it was not a biological background, but rather analyses of financial and political development (see e.g. Lucarelli, 2012). Although these subjects could not sound more different, they of course share similarities via emerging properties (which leads me back to an observation I made for myself when working on my Assignment 2 umbrella project (Lacher-Bryk, 2017b). It would both take me too far and be at the same time be short-sighted to consider making “evolution” a new focus of my course. The whole course itself is evolution and I must not use something I cannot know, because it lies in the future, to plan continuity with.

Besides, I am extremely happy to read that my sketchbook at last starts to take shape and research as well as blog meet the requirements. These points I was really worried about, because it took me felt ages to learn the basic requirements.

Overall, in order to gain the most from my work so far, I have started to sit down with my results for Parts 1 and 2 to do a synthesis and then decide, using mind maps, in which direction I want to proceed. This aspect is one of the aha-experiences I had during our video talk. So far I saw the parts of all courses as more or less separate entities with the main goal of introducing many different options of artistic expression. Tutor and assessors will however, despite the felt enormous difference between the subjects of each part, look for a continuity in artistic development. So, in Part 3, for example, where I had thought I would need to follow instructions on how to make monotype prints, I will also be expected to include insights gained in other parts, irrespective of their superficial dissimilarity. For example, although many of my subjects are figurative, I am semi-abstract in my use of materials. In keeping doing so I will be showing the required continuity over the parts of the course. This is completely new thinking for me and I will need to approach Part 3 with care to make this aspect a working tool.

Research on artists suggested by my tutor will be posted separately.

References

Lacher-Bryk, A. (2015) Assignment 2: “Ghost from the Past” – a stop motion experiment and the finished drawing [blog] [online]. Andrea’s OCA study blog, 17 June. Available from: https://andreabrykoca.wordpress.com/2015/06/17/assignment-2-ghost-from-the-past-a-stop-motion-experiment-and-the-finished-drawing/ [Accessed 1 September 2017]

Lacher-Bryk, A. (2017a) Part 2, exercise 2.1: Unusual materials: collections – unusual painting media [blog] [online]. Andrea’s OCA blog: Understanding Painting Media, 14 July. Available from: https://andreabrykocapainting1upm.wordpress.com/2017/07/14/part-2-exercise-2-1-unusual-painting-media/ [Accessed 3 September 2017]

Lacher-Bryk, A. (2017b) Assignment 2: “An Umbrella Project” [blog] [online]. Andrea’s OCA blog: Understanding Painting Media, 17 August. Available from: https://andreabrykocapainting1upm.wordpress.com/2017/08/17/assignment-2-an-umbrella-project/ [Accessed 1 September 2017]

Lucarelli, F. (2012) Mark Lombardi’s Narrative Structures and Other Mappings of Power Relations [blog] [online]. Socks, Paris, 22 August. Available from: http://socks-studio.com/2012/08/22/mark-lombardi/