Summative Drawing Assessment

Self-directed Drawing Statement:

I went on a train journey from Leicester to London and quickly drew whatever shapes caught my eye, some within the train, most from outside the window. When I got back to the studio I started experimenting with what I could do with these shapes, how I could compose them. I immediately thought of last terms work and began to build on that using these new shapes, to explore that style of composition, which I found from Kandinsky’s work. I used watercolours at first, focusing on basic black lines with fill in colours. When I showed this to a fellow student she said it reminded her of Joan Miro’s work, I have looked at Miro’s work in the past and saw the link straight away.

I experimented a lot with mediums such as, acrylic paint, string and soft pastels, even wire. The way I was working seemed to revolve a lot around colour and line, I wanted to try working on either line or colour separately, and see if it was possible, for me, to keep it separate.

I played around with many ideas, after my last drawing critique about where I could take my project next. How I could finish it, what I could do to finalise this project and make the shapes more interesting to a viewer. I thought about doing an installation, and I thought about the use of reflection and mirroring the shapes, the positive and negative of the shapes on the paper and focused on the lines of each shape, instead of the colour, which was for me a distraction.

That massive 4m long piece I did for my critique at the start of March was my way of rebelling against the shapes, I did it to try and refresh my view of them. But after I still felt lost with where I was taking my work, so I went in the opposite direction, I went back to A4 black and white tape on paper. I was enjoying the lack of colour and just focusing on line, I like drawing with the tape. However I was still experimenting with different compositions and decided that I needed to roughly sketch some ideas for compositions down - working from pieces I had already done, what didn't work and what did.

I did some experiments with tape on canvas but it wasn't sticking, even with the help of glue. I chose to abandon the tape because I still wanted to use the canvas and so I then decided that I would paint the canvas in white gloss paint, to get the shine and smoothness I was getting from the tape. I decided this would be my final piece. I felt that however this canvas turned out, I couldn't take it any further. I still liked the idea of the uncontrolled paint in the background of the shapes, but I'm very much focusing on line now so I decided to drip paint down the canvas instead of splatting it randomly.


I've then chose to add bits of fabric (lace, ribbon, string) - anything with an interesting texture, that was able to make a line. It didn't matter what colour or thickness each best fabric was, actually the higher the range in thickness and colour the better. I placed it slightly off the centre of the canvas I thought it would be more intriguing to the viewer. I'm focusing very much on line and texture in this piece, and perspective – I wanted the viewer to feel like the all the lines where coming from under the white circle in the middle.

Peter Halley:

I looked at Peter Halley's work in reference of my self-directed work because he uses really bright, almost neon colours in his paintings. Some parts also look as though they have rougher texture to them, I think the contrast of me working with card and tissue paper is something that would interesting when placed together. 

I want to use much brighter colours in the work, and focus mainly on triangles and squares. 

Henriette van 't Hoog

Installation view Flat Color: Ditty Ketting, Marije Vermeulen (3x), Guido Nieuwendijk (2x), Henriette van 't Hoog (2x) – FOR HVH 3

Colours – I really like the almost neon colours she uses. Their so bright that it’s impossible to miss. The ‘cubes’ works that I’m talking about are what inspired me to take my work off the wall and just focus on the shapes. Her work is painted straight onto the wall so she very much works with the space she’s given. Although my work is mounted on the wall, not glued straight onto it, I am working with the space a lot more than I have previously.

I also enjoy the amount of white space she leaves, she doesn't over crowd the audience and understands that, because of how bright the colours are, you don’t need as much of it – it would be too much for your eyes to take in.

I plan to use more vibrant colours, attaching them to straight to the wall, using them to join some canvases that I will space out randomly across the wall. I think this fits well with how this theme came about, I saw the original shapes though a window, so I think this is a good move forward. I enjoy the shapes being free, but I chose to experiment on a canvas – the parameters remind me of a window. Dotting the canvases around a space links with how I got the shapes, I took them from the landscape and they evolved into what I’m doing now, and to me the presentation of the shapes links the start with the finish very well.

canvas experiments with composition

Untitled, A6, tissue paper and PVA on canvas, March 2014.

Jim Lambie

Recently I have been thinking about using the floor as well as the wall. Most of my work is created on the floor and I work on it from all angles, so I never know what way up its going to be until it’s finished. I think it will be interesting to view it on the ground, I’m also thinking about it becoming interactive with the audience – I was inspired by a journey, and all though my work has slowly evolved away from what it started out being, I would still like it to reflect in the final piece. The viewers will be able to step into my world and travel past and though the space as I did so many months ago, seeing them how I saw them.

Jim Lambie’s floor installations have motivated me to work with the floor, I have already forgotten about the background and am working with just the shapes and placing them straight on the wall. I found cutting the shapes and the sticking them onto the paper to constricted, I only wanted to focus on the shapes and thought the paper was a waste.

Lambie uses multi-coloured vinyl tape to create these illusional works of art and each piece will change to the site that it’s in, the tape has to move around the shape of the room and the object within it (posts, stairs and pillars etc..)

This process, again, relates to my work at the moment as I am focusing on the positive and negative shapes I create. I’m aware when arranging the shapes of the shape of the scape I leave behind.  

Small Drawing Experiments

Untitled, A1, acrylic paint on paper, March 2014

Untitled, A1, bleach and drawing ink on paper, March 2014

Untitled, A1, acrylic paint on paper, March 2014

Untitled, A4, pencil on paper, March 2014

Untitled, A4, watercolours and drawing ink on paper, March 2014

Untitled, A3, Drawing ink on paper, March 2014

Still experimenting with controlled and uncontrolled forms of drawing - looking for a composition of the shapes for a final piece.

CPS Statements

My Statement of Erica's Self-Directed work:

Erica’s current self-directed work explores complementary colours in a similar way that Josef Albers’ coloured squares did, while also considering how you can manipulate paint and the movement of paint on the surface of a canvas. She started out looking at the structure of buildings and using a thicker application of paint than she is today. Her work evolved into paintings with a seemingly flat texture, yet still retain depth in them. She has experimented with applying acrylic paints using pallet knifes and varying sizes of paintbrushes. The brush strokes are similar to Gerhard Richter and Howard Hodgkin’s abstract works, who she has researched in relation to her work.

To me, they focus a lot on line, the size of the brush strokes, the length and fluidness of them. On some pieces, you can tell how wet the paint was and how much of it was on the brush because the stroke thins out when the paint runs out. Whereas on others it stops quickly and suddenly, leaving behind a solid shape.

She has recently started working with oil paints and intends to create a series of paintings, maybe 4 or 5 canvases all similar and  sticking to a similar size but aiming to link all the pieces together by either a brush stroke or colour.

Erica's statement of my Self-Directed work: