Friday, February 20, 2009


Bridge
Mixed Media on Wood Panel
Drawing 2
2009
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2 comments:

brian h. jones said...

Alright, I'll start some comments. I'm glad to see that you're looking for additional feed back on your work, and that you've got this growing blog of your images.

You're right that people hold back during class discussions and there's always hesitation to say something that's constructive for fear of offending or hurting someone's feelings. There are also those who hold back in their solicitation of extra feed back for another kind of fear, although I'm not quite sure where that fear originates.

As an initial response, none of the images have any comments from you, the artist. What are some of your ideas, motivations, inspirations for some of this work. The portraits are pretty obvious, as well as the in-class drawings, but those that are about you, who you are as an artist, could use some personal reflections. What were you thinking or feeling that prompted some of these images.

The bridge is one of my favorites of all the work I've seen you do. It doesn't have a photographic stiffness that some of the portraits have. It's fresh, spontaneous, and the pose is an easy one to feel some empathy for. Moreover, the process is as dynamic as the pose. The portrait of your dad is also very strong, both of these pieces help to establish your seriousness of intent and that you push yourself to get better with each piece.

I understand the need for photographic reference with such images as many of the portraits you've done, but in those you fall into a kind of hard-edged abstraction that says more about the actual photograph that about how you feel about the people in the photographs. Interestingly enough, the water color and colored pencil self-portrait that you did in Drawing I transcends the others. Maybe it wasn't done from a photo. but even if it was, it says more about you, your personality, and your process that it does about a photograph.

I hope you next drawing (A Show of Hands) goes even further than the bridge to avoid the lapse of the last sequence when the hands followed that self-portrait.

Challenge folks more during class discussions, ask for more feed back. There'll be a model starting in a week or so and that should be good experience in getting to a sharper observation of the world around you and maybe a needed break for photo sources.

Enjoyed seeing this body of work and I look forward to stopping by more often.

February 22, 2009 at 9:34 AM
brian h. jones said...

Congratulations on your recent award!

February 28, 2009 at 12:47 PM

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