My evaluation of micro-exam practice




My initial plan for my exam was to use PVA glue with ready mixed paint and acrylic paint, then left to dry on a plastic wallet in order to be able to peel it off when it's dry.
Once this was complete I planned to cut it out so that it fit perfectly on the photograph of the my model that I had taken myself. I think that for the short period of time that I had, I did very well and the work I completed was very successful although I need think more about preparing myself for the exam, for example, doing pieces of work that involve wet mediums before hand because when I used the paint and PVA glue it wasn't dry before the end of the exam so I wasn't able to complete my piece of work that involve wet mediums beforehand because when I used the paint and PVA glue it wasn't dry before the end of the exam so I wasn't able to complete my piece of work which if it happened in the real exam I would have be marked down massively.


Another thing I need to do much better I gather a lot more pictures of my model rather than just having one because during this practice I only had one and it went wrong due to me being too eager and trying to stick it on to a paint wash background that was still wet. As well as this I have also decided that when I print the pictures off of my model again that they are going to be black and white rather than colour because I think it will make the sheet of colour that I’m putting over the top stand out a lot more. To add this as well I’m also going to do a really light grey wash on the background. It’s really important that the colour sheet I am placing over the top of the image stands out because it is the part of my work that is most relevant to my artist as I have used his techniques to create it, like I have used a knife and sponge instead of just a paint brush. Another way that I used reference of my artists work was also by using a photograph similar to how he does in his photo-paintings which are some of his most famous pieces. The only way I could do my work anymore like my own artist is by using oil paint rather than ready-mixed and acrylic with water, although I don’t feel the need to because I think these materials work well enough for what I am trying to create.


Although I liked the grey wash on the back ground, I think I should try and use a different tool to apply it rather than a sponge because the texture wasn’t right and I need a smoother background so that it doesn’t look too crowded.

I found that my practice piece worked extremely well and I was very impressed with the way it turned out because it was very similar to one of my artist pieces that I was attempting to replicate, like shown in the research in my sketch book.

The colours in the piece were perfect and the contrast was exactly what I had in mind, although a large amount of it was only PVA glue, therefore it dried transparent when it should've either been colour or white. To improve this I'm going to ensure all areas of PVA and covered in a later of white paint. Also I realised my cutting skills weren't very delicate so I am going to ensure I use a cutting knife in my real micro exam so that I can cut out each individual hair in attempt to make it look realistic as well as using a lighter coloured back ground towards the top of the black hair to make it stand out more.

Artist Analysis – Molly Zuckerman Hartung

Molly Zuckerman Hartung was born in 1975 in Los Gatos but now lives and creates her art work in Chicago.

For many of Molly Zuckerman Hartung’s work, she used a variety of mediums such as latex, house paint (emulsion), enamel and stray paint and most of the time she used a drop-cloth to apply these materials. On other pieces she also used more three dimensional materials in order to create a more textured look whilst still using her normal mediums in the background. As her work breaks away from 2D it is almost classed as sculptural.

Techniques-

Zuckerman Hartung doesn’t just apply her mediums she first does mark making with her materials such as cutting, pulling, twisting and dying them. Her paintings are sewn together from pieces of drop cloth which is a material that is commonly used to protect floors in houses from dripping paint when decorating.

Reflection to my work-

From Zuckerman Hartung’s work I gathered her use of mark making was very interesting and included it in my own work by using lots of different materials such as newspaper, coffee and graphite to simply create an imagine of how I feel or interpret an object.

Gerhard Richter

Exhibitions, personal life, influences & inspirations-

Gerhard Richter started his exhibitions right back from 1960 up until 2016. He started painting a lot more in 1961 and varied his work massively using several different artists as inspiration like Dubuffet, Giacometti and Tàpies who themselves are very different from each other. This implies he was trying to add variation in to his own work, whilst doing this he told interviewers “I tried out everything I could”. Richter hated the majority of the paintings he created during this process but it all worked towards some of his most famous pieces of today. This point proves that experimenting is important which is why I have done it a lot in my own work like I have tested in my early sketches for example I studied an object and drew it in different ways like without looking, using different mediums such as graphite, biro and emulsion as well as drawing them at different angles and scales sizes.

Materials and techniques-

Lots of his art work is photo-paintings which are completed by a series of steps, each one being very important. He begins with a simple photograph, which he has either found or taken himself, he then projects the photograph on to his canvas, where he then traces it. Taking his colour palette from the photograph, he paints to replicate the look of the original picture. His hallmark "blur" is created sometimes by using a light touch of a soft brush but sometimes with a hard smear by using a squeegee. He would also usually use oil paints, especially on his photograph paintings.

My personal references to his work-

I mainly focused on his photo-painting because I feel like it was the best way for me to add in my own personal touch which I did by first studying two main pieces of his and trying to recreate it using a fashion collage as the background which is not only added personal input but also experimented on colours. After this I did excessive amounts of research and found that I best liked the work that he created between 2003 and 2007 due to the colour schemes he used as well as the fact that he used more photograph based backgrounds.

After finding these images I drew one similar as a tester and once I was happy with it I went out and took my own photographs just like Gerhard took his own, I then did the same sort of thing as on my tester piece but this time I used lots of different materials and started experimenting on my mediums just like Gerhard in the 1960’s. from this I realised that the colours where much too busy so I focused on creating a limited pallet and started only using one simple material to cover the entire dress and now I’m going to start adding highlights in to the important areas with a bright contrasting yellow.