Below is an extract with Action Points from my Tutor’s report for the Part Two, Drawing Two: Personal approach to drawing. I give my report and comments in the text, marking them in green.

0. “Summary of Discussion As discussed:
   • I notice you tend to respond to exercises and still need to start the Parallel Projectand your painting momentum. You must show your own work where you show your own practice. The PP is where you can really explore your own ideas and methods. At the end of this unit, you’ll be ready to start your final units. You should have a reasonably good idea of the kind of artist you’re likely to be at that point. As my Tutor requested I started to download my PP’s body of work, presenting the ideas and experiments. The link for that page in ma learning log is here: https://zhan-art.com/2023/02/08/drawing-2-part-three/
   • In terms of the research on other artists, you can start limiting the factual information about art history. In the Part Three I followed my Tutor’s requirement and focused more on my reflection on artist’s works and why I resonate with them, what I find interesting and engaging in their artistic approach – technical skills, colours, compositions and etc. Please, write more about how these artists are helpful for your practice. You have started to do that, but you need to write more about that. For example, if you wrote that you deeply resonate with Keith Tyson, you have to explain why; what exactly is resonating – colour, motives? Show more of your relationship with those works and artists. It’s not that ‘art historical’ information is completely irrelevant (and for some artists it really helps to know about their life to better understand the work) but you need to think about how you and your work might benefit from contact with other artists’ work. What can you take from them? That might be stylistic, or use of colour, or scale or texture, even if your subject matter is completely different.
   • For the individual visual vocabulary, I ask you to add some comments to the photos uploaded about why they represent your individual visual language. I added my comments on that page of my learning log. The link is here:https://zhan-art.com/2022/11/28/drawing-two-personal-approach-part-two-project-one-creating-your-own-visual-vocabulary/ What meaning do these images convey for you? It is important to reflect on that in terms of your Parallel Project. Doing this will help me get in side your head a bit…
   • I like your work for the individual vocabulary – The blue piece with Lakshmi’s feet and the flowers in golden colour, a Japanese influence. I liked the way you described what you were doing. The Pumpkin salad is also nice work. I see that you have a good ability to observe the details.
   • I want to see more preparatory works and more preliminary sketches to see how you develop your drawings. In my Part Three I tried to put more emphasis on preparatory work, uploading photos and giving more comments how my ideas were growing and the building up of the final result. So you will be able to bring more creativity and individuality into your work. If you have been working on pieces for some time, going through the stages of development- document it so your works don’t look fixed, which might be a wrong impression. By developing work in sketches and preparatory investigations you will – I think – end up in surprising places. Think of it like crossing a river on stepping stones. You can’t get to the other side in one go. It’s better to focus on each step and see where you end up.
   • Inscriptions and Traces. I liked the images of traces you have worked on.
   • Do more work outside; paint from life, not from photos. This approach will produce a different kind of work. I did some of my exercises for the Part Three outside.
   • I am interested in your “Diagram for Atheists”. It looks quite interesting; it is strangeand curious. The colour and the composition here are important. It’ here’ that the
     OCA Formative Feedback: Page: 2 symbolic element of your vocabulary comes into play. This is a strange little piece that has potential. One thing you could expand on (here and elsewhere) is to write about the way things are rendered. I’m not sure I mane myself clear in the tutorial, but how’s this? Below are six faces. The motif is the same – a woman’s face – but each version is very different from the others. That difference is down to the way the artists have chosen to paint or draw the face. We understand the faces differently and ‘read’ different emotional content because of the stylistic differences. You could, of course, do the same comparison with different kind of flower paintings… I implemented my Tutor’s recommendation in the PP, still developing it.

(Kathe Kollwitz / Picasso / Marlene Dumas) (Gwen John / Paula Rego / L S Lowry)

• Something interesting is going on, and you have to explore the potential of this approach. Some pieces are seeds for future work, but these seeds have to be watered.
• The text piece “Your Death is no Mercy For Me; ” is also interesting. I liked the way you developed the text by smearing the letters. The contrast of black text with flowers. The elements don’t look like they belong together, but you made them together, making them interesting, and this is an engaging piece. This, too, could be a ‘seed’for work. Harnessing seemingly contradictory things and forcingthem to interact is a great way of developing new ideas.
• I see that your visual language comes from nature, floral and plant motives. Think about how you develop your relationship with these elements. Then, do more work with these elements towards your Parallel Project. Start building your momentum of work. I uploaded the photos of all stages for my PP development I have so far, trying to give as much reflection on the process. As discussed, this is important. Also, when you start putting the Critical Review together, think about how it can feed the PP.