Category: Research & Reflection

The parent category for research and reflection posts.

Research & ReflectionLeave a comment

Objective Evaluation

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

After quite a difficult start due to having no relevant background, I felt my drawing began to emerge towards the end of this module. Now, some way into Practice of Painting, I am seeing things I could not see before. One of these is that I find my D1 assignments less satisfactory than many of the sketches; they seem constrained and tight while the sketches were beginning to loosen up and become more relaxed and fluid. This is why the pieces I have submitted comprise mostly the latter. A second realisation is that I had no idea how to process … Continue reading Objective Evaluation

Coursework, Part 5, Research & Reflection3 Comments

Drawing or painting; painting or drawing?

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

For my final assignment I found I really wanted to execute this in acrylics; but was this drawing, and if it wasn’t, what made it different? Intuitively, I could see no real difference, especially as somewhere in Drawing1 I was being asked to ‘paint with pastels’, while in Practice of Painting at least one exercise is about ‘drawing with paint’. If I draw in the traditional sense, it is with an implement that on the whole is short and resilient, while if I paint I am using a tool that is often longer and has a flexible component at the … Continue reading Drawing or painting; painting or drawing?

Coursework, Research & Reflection, Sketchbook1 Comment

Heads, hands, and feet – from Aristides atelier

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

When I copied this on Page 71/72 or Juliette Aristides’ book Figure Drawing Atelier (Monacelli Studio, 2019), I thought I was drawing an abstracted, blocky, illustrative figure of bare bones simplicity and I was totally taken aback by what came next: This: The shaping is provided in the book as an under-drawing; the task is to render the shade which is not. This plays to my strengths which rely more on reductive than additive drawing. I find I prefer to shade and finger-blend several layers of graphite (pencil) then dab away with a putty rubber to remove some, add some … Continue reading Heads, hands, and feet – from Aristides atelier

Coursework, Part 5, Research & Reflection, Videos6 Comments

Part 5 – personal project preparatory work, digital seas

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Flamepainter for iPad is a free app and it’s wonderful for quick, if somewhat erratic, sketches. The process is easy to work out – choose a brush, set the size and other parameters, change the colour if you want to, draw. The last part is the trickiest as the ‘light’ zooms around the canvas as if possessed. Best plan is to try one combination of brush and speeds and get used to it before altering anything else! The image above is made on a black canvas using a number of brushes to pick out the light that might be from … Continue reading Part 5 – personal project preparatory work, digital seas

Coursework, Exhibitions & Books, Research & Reflection2 Comments

Book review: Beginning Drawing Atelier – an instructional sketchbook by Juliette Aristides

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

  This is a work book – guidelines, exercises, drawings to copy and a page next to each to do that. I have never copied other people’s work or tried for the photorealism some artists specialise in making so this was quite a challenge. Add to that the realisation not long ago that lefthanders make their marks in entirely the opposite direction to righthanders and I could see this was not going to be easy. Fortunately, the quality of the images to be copied – there are two da Vinci’s! – makes it clear that perfection is really not the … Continue reading Book review: Beginning Drawing Atelier – an instructional sketchbook by Juliette Aristides

Coursework, Exhibitions & Books, Research & Reflection5 Comments

Book review: What are you looking at? Will Gompertz

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

For someone like me, doing a degree in art but having neither background nor interest in art history (actually, history of any sort if I’m being honest), this book is perfect. I have it on Audible and within a very short time, also bought it in paperback (to flick through) and for Kindle (for the links and notes facility). Gompertz, who I knew only as a film and theatre critic (who was not inclined to be pompous or obfuscating about it), writes with a refreshing lack of reverence for the art history schtick that so turns me off; and while … Continue reading Book review: What are you looking at? Will Gompertz

Coursework, Exhibitions & Books, Research & ReflectionLeave a comment

The Story of Painting – Sister Wendy Beckett

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

This is not a book for reading, it’s a reference book to keep to hand. Years ago, I saw Sister Wendy’s documentary series on TV and this book is an elaborated version of that. At the time I saw her as unexpectedly (for a nun, and that’s a judgment I probably wouldn’t make now) robust in her approach to the subject matter of many paintings and also the lifestyles of some of the artists. But watching them again as a refresher and I can see that she wasn’t entirely innocent of passing judgement herself. Some women in the pictures have … Continue reading The Story of Painting – Sister Wendy Beckett

Coursework, Exhibitions & Books, Research & Reflection7 Comments

Brighton galleries

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Where can you see Banksy, Damien Hurst, Grayson Perry, Sir Peter Blake, Bob Dylan, Ronnie Wood, and Billy Connolly originals within a few yards of each other in right-on-the-street galleries? Yesterday*, a friend and I went to Brighton. *Yesterday is now several weeks ago, life having got between me and this write-up. Castle Fine Art Gallery Castle Fine Art is right slap bang in the middle of Brighton near The Lanes, and my goodness I had not expected to see so many originals by ‘names’ from both art and show business. First though were these metal sculptures, each of them … Continue reading Brighton galleries