Critical Reflection of the practice of the final outcome

Time limit to produce piece - 1 hour 30 minutes

                In the space of the two hour lesson, I produced a piece of work that is similar to what my final piece is going to look like. I planned ahead, which included: a drawing of how I wanted the piece to look, labels of artist inspiration and mediums and then I also made a breakdown of the times in which I was going to do specific parts of the piece. I wanted to show that that I could take inspiration from artists’ work and make it my own, which is why I attempted to evidence skills that I have taken from ROA and Cy Twombly’s work. I thought that these artists helped me develop my project as I wanted to create a piece that gave impact to the viewer and sent a message to them of how passionate I am about the issue of animal cruelty. This a picture of my creation:

                I think that, regarding the drawing of the cat, I have managed to record shape relatively accurately. I think the details on the cat are the right shape as well (for instance: the eye, the nose and the ears). Furthermore, that claw marks that I cut out from the canvas are a good shape as they resemble real claw marks.

            For this piece I used a canvas that was approximately the size of an A4 piece of paper; I didn’t think that I would get the piece done in the time limit if I had increased the size. This practice told me that I may be able to produce a slightly bigger piece. Overall, I think that the components within the piece are a little too overcrowded as the words are too close together. Also, I think that the cat is smaller than I would like it to be (I want the cat to be the most dominant feature in the piece).

            I used the colour red in this piece as I wanted to convey particular feelings in this piece (for instance: anger, pain and torment). The red stands out from the dull, plain background and I wanted the black to give connotations of death, yet also gives a sense of power. Both the black and red together, increase the amount of contrast within the piece. At the end of making the piece, I had a couple of minutes left and I wanted to increase the power and intentions of the piece, which is why I attempted to add a slight hint of blue around the cat. (I thought that this would convey the message across to the viewer that the animal is miserable).

            Although I am working on a flat, 2-D background, I have tried to make the form of the cat more 3-D to increase the realism. I think I am going to increase the amount of layers in some of the painted aspects of the piece to make it stand out from the background.

            I think I have managed to capture tone in the cat really well as the patterns on the fur is clearly visible (in order to capture this tone, I placed down more marks onto the canvas and I also layered the marks to get darker tones). This created high contrast within the animal drawing.

            After having looked at ROA’s work in detail, I took some inspiration from his work. For example, I wanted to recreate his slightly expressive mark making and his tonal palette. I think I have evidenced these relatively well in my drawing. Although he uses walls as his backgrounds, I took this kind of inspiration from Cy Twombly. Due to the fact that Twombly uses canvases in his pieces, I have used a canvas. Additionally, I have used the types of colours and tones that he uses in his pieces as I think they give a powerful message in my piece. However, I think that I should attempt to layer some of the paints more as this is the kind of style that he uses in his body of work.

            Overall, to improve my work, I am going to make the blue tint around the cat more obvious and prominent to illustrate the idea that the cat is sad and unhappy. I also want to alter the scale of things in my final piece as this practice proves that things are a little too confined; I want to increase the scale of the cat so that it is the main focus of the piece. In order to improve the artist link with ROA, I am going to try and use thicker marks and be slightly more expressive as his work is expressive as well. Moreover, I am going to layer some of the paints so that I can achieve a similar style to Cy Twombly as well.

Analysis of Cy Twombly and his work

            Cy Twombly was an American painter, sculpture and photographer, however I am going to focus on his paintings. His large scale, expressive and calligraphic pieces are in collections in most of the modern museums/galleries around the world. As he focuses on these aspects, he always manages to include his mood into his pieces. Twombly was also a part of the post-abstract expressionist generation.

            Twombly attended Black Mountain College in North Carolina when he first met Charles Olson, who was the head of the college. Olson was also a poet and deeply inspired Twombly with his pieces; Twombly looked further into literature and that is how he got into his type of work. Moreover, in 1957, Twombly moved to Rome and settled down with his wife and soon to be son. These then resulted in him looking deeper into the Roman and Greek literature/mythology; I would get my inspiration from maybe looking at books about animal cruelty. He would also take some of his inspiration from his surroundings.

            Most of his work is made on a canvas with a layer of white or off white with a few exceptions (an example of an exception is the first image below). I am going to use a canvas when creating a final piece as they are easily accessible. Additionally, I am going to use a plain tonal palette in the piece with small amounts of colour (for example, I am going to use red to represent the pain and anger of the animals that are being abused).

Source 1



Source 2


Source 1:
Cy Twombly

2009

Acrylic on canvas

Leaving Paphos Ringed With Waves

Source 2:

Cy Twombly

Acrylic and wax crayon

2007

Untitled

           Although the colour scheme in source 1 is not the same as the majority of his work, it still appears to be expressive and inspirational. I think that the colours blue and yellow complement each other well due to the fact that they are both primary colours, however I don’t think that the orange works well in this case. I think that both the writing and other features in the painting looks childlike, which is his style of work. Although it is childlike, it still evokes a specific mood to me; I think that he was feeling confused at the time because I am slightly confused by the colours that are used. In my opinion, it reminds me of a pop art piece because of the striking and vibrant colours. He hasn’t used a variety of textures or techniques because I think that he was fixed on trying to convey his feelings through the painting and he did not want anything to compromise that. Furthermore, there is not a strong contrast in line as throughout the piece, the same technique of painting has been used. I think he has used acrylic paint because it can layer easy and it is very accessible. The lines in this painting give me the impression that he was also distressed when composing this piece as the orange lines appear to be very chaotic. He uses specific words or sentences (like the ones in this piece), to further convey his emotion or feelings to the viewers.

            Meanwhile, in source 2, Twombly has used a common colour palette in his body of work (he has used an off white in the background with red layered over the top). The shape of the red spots on the piece resemble a kind of flower (almost like a rose), which reinforces the fact that he occasionally worked from his surroundings. Despite the fact that he uses canvases a lot, he changed his background medium so that he could do a specific technique when he produced this work; he wanted to be able to scratch into the piece and make clear indentations. The colour red gives me the impression of pain and torment which could suggest that something had happened when he produced this work to make him feel that way. Rather than sticking to the mediums he usually used, he chose to use oil pastels as when they have been layered, it is easy to subtract some of it from the piece (in this case, his scratching method). I think Twombly manages to achieve a suitable amount of contrast in tone, as the more he layered his oil pastel, the darker the sections would get; some areas of the piece, are extremely layered and therefore very dark and deep.

            To conclude, from observing and analysing Twombly’s work, I have decided that I am going to try and use some of his styles and techniques in my project. I really like the idea of using words to describe both the piece and the project in my work, which is why I am going to use words that describe the harshness and brutality of animal cruelty. I also like how he uses a plain tonal palette in his backgrounds (I don’t like his use of vibrant colours), which is why I am going to take this as inspiration and attempt to work with it. Additionally, I am going to use the red and black to symbolise pain and torment that some animals have to go through. After I experiment with this style of work, I think I am going to combine it with aspects from artists, ROA’s work.

Update of the project, "Who Am I?"

After having thought about my project and what I have done so far,  I have decided that I am going to focus on animal cruelty/abuse rather than looking at animals in zoos. I have chosen to do this because it is more easily accessible and I have had the idea of using Cy Twombly's work in the background to show the harshness of animal cruelty and the brutality of it; I will also be able to show my personal feelings about the issue this way. Due to the fact that I was confused as to which medium to use, I tried to make a multi-media piece with the mediums that I liked to work with the most (pen, Indian ink and acrylic paint).





Due to the fact that I really like this technique of using all three mediums, I am going to take some more photos of a cat at different angles and then draw them small scale as multi-media pieces. Therefore, I think in my final piece(s) I am going to use these mediums to draw an animal (most likely a cat).

Printing workshops

Mono-printing workshop.
On Thursday 11th of November, we were taught how to make mono prints. We were told all the different variables that would alter the success of the prints. For example: the type of paper, how moist a surface is and the quantity of printing ink that is used. When I made my prints, I used cartridge paper due to its roughness, I used both dry and damp paper to see which is best and I experimented with different amounts of ink to see what is best.
Equipment:

• Two rollers (one kept clean)
• A printing plate
• Cartridge paper
• Printing ink

There are two types of printing:
Additive - this is when you place the ink onto the printing plate by making marks and then placing the paper onto the plate. A clean roller would then be used to put pressure on the paper that is on the ink.
Subtractive - this is when you cover your printing plate with ink and then use something to take it away so that marks are evident. Then you would use a clean roller to press your paper down onto the printing plate.

Collage of experiments with dry paper:


Collage of experiments with damp paper:


Final print (dry paper)


Polystyrene printing workshop.
We then learnt about how to make prints with polystyrene.
Equipment:

• Printing ink
• 2 rollers (one kept clean)
• Printing plate
• Polystyrene sheet
• Pen/pencil/knife
• cartridge paper

Method:

• Scratch your design into your piece of polystyrene
• Roll out your ink onto the plate and then transfer it to the polystyrene
• Place the inked side of the polystyrene onto the paper and use the clean roller to press the polystyrene down
• finally, lift to reveal your print

Evaluation:

I am happy with the result of these prints as each mark is clear and stands out from the page. I have managed to capture shape and scale accurately. On the other hand, I think that I could try to improve the realism of each drawing by adding more marks to the polystyrene.

One reason why I like the feathers is because I think that I have managed to show texture with accuracy however an improvement could be adding more marks to show more contrast. One reason why I like the second bird is because I think that I have shown a high contrast in mark making however, I think that I could make the prints better by trying to add some more details to the feathers on the bird.

Even though these prints show a good use of mark making, I don't think it links enough to my chosen artist ROA. It does not allow me to get high contrast in tone, whereas in his work, there is a lot of this.

Analysis of my chosen artist, ROA

            ROA, a very famous street artist from Belgium, is most well-known for his fascination in animals and his representations of them. ROA’s work, which is a part of the street art movement, was generally paintings of animals and birds that were in the area that he was in at the time. He got inspiration from the environment and animals around him. In a similar way to how I feel, ROA was deeply affected by the fact that animals were starting to become more endangered than ever. He managed to paint accurate representations of the animals that were becoming endangered in his area, which is something that I am extremely passionate about; I hate the fact that animals are being forgotten and how they are treated unfairly. ROA thinks that animals tell you so much about the world, in comparison with any other living thing, which is why he likes to paint them so much.

            The majority of his work is made with a colour palette that only consists of blacks and whites, however in some pieces he uses a few vibrant colours to get his message across that animals are treat. Moreover, he mostly uses acrylic paint or spray paint on abandoned or desolate walls within the cities that he has visited, however I cannot do this due to the fact that it would be illegal for me to do so. The majority of his work is very expressive and slightly stylised.

ROA

Rabbit

Hackney, London

Acrylic paint and spray paint

2009

                This large scale representation of a rabbit has been painted on the side of a dilapidated building with acrylic paint and spray paint. The fact that he has painted it on a large scale (12 feet tall) allows him to get a lot of detail in the rabbit. Even though he painted the rabbit on a flat background, he was capable of making it look 3-D; there is a high contrast in tone in regards to the darker and lighter areas of the rabbit which makes it look like it is 3 dimensional. He has used line in a more expressive motion which gives an accurate representation of the fur on the rabbit which increases the realism in the painting. The fact that he has only used blacks and whites in this painting means that he managed to get strong contrast in tone as he used more black in the darker areas than he did in the light areas. The fact that he has used a greyscale colour scheme allows him to show the world that he sees things in a different light and that sometimes the most beautiful things are in black and white. ROA used expressive mark making in this piece to give the animal a furry texture; the highly expressive mark making allows the viewer to see a truthful illustration of what a rabbit looks like.

                The fact that ROA has decided to paint the rabbit in an urban environment, yet also paint it next to plants that are taking over the wall, shows that he wants the audience to know that animals can live in both urban and rural environments; this gives me an idea of the context of the piece and the environments that the rabbit would be seen in. He has used the whole of the wall so that the rabbit is all that the spectator sees which is why in my pieces, which I am going to do in the future, I am going to use up all of my chosen background. In my opinion, I think that he has attempted to get a specific message across to the audience that animals can live in both environments and that we shouldn’t try to isolate them. He is trying to tell the story of a rabbit and how they are a natural beauty that shouldn’t be harmed or took for granted. However, overall, I think that he just wanted to simply show his passion for animals and how he thinks that they tell people much more about the world than anything else.

                ROA’s work relates to what I am doing because I I have a passion for animals and I hate the idea of them being mistreated. I want to express how I feel about animals through my artwork and how much I am fascinated by them. I am going to take inspiration from his mark making and how expressive he is in each of his pieces. I also like the amount of contrast in tone that ROA manages to represent in the fur. Although I can’t paint my art onto walls and fences, I am going to still get the same amount of detail in my drawings. I am going to use a limited colour palette of black and white, however I might try and add some vibrant colours to show how I feel about the animals. In a similar way to ROA’s work I am going to try and experiment with acrylic paint to see if I can achieve the same kind of texture and marks as he does.

Half Term Work

Over the half term, I was planning on visiting a local zoo to get a lot of photos and leaflets as well as draw some animals. This would have allowed me to get some more research for my project that would have enabled me to delve deeper into my project. Unfortunately, due to money restrictions, I haven't been able to visit yet, so I am going to go when I can. Because of this I have had to draw some experimentations of animals that are near me: A dog and a bird. 

1st drawing - Black pen (35 minutes)

2nd drawing - Black pen and coffee staining in the darker areas (20 minutes)

3rd drawing - white pen on black paper (20 minutes)

4th drawing - black acrylic paint (15 minutes)

Out of these four drawings, I particularly like the 1st drawing as I think it shows a high contrast in tone when compared with all the other drawings. However I do like the 4th drawing as it does also show contrast; in the future, I would only use this technique on a bigger scale as you can't get a lot of detail with brushstrokes of acrylic paint.

Over the past two weeks, I have been trying to decide on what route I am going to go down regarding my art project, "who am I?". With deep consideration, I have decided to focus on the destruction of animals when they are taken out of their natural environment and put into zoos. After having created a mindmap that consists of everything about me, I realised that I am really interested in the work of ROA. I like how expressive his work is and how detailed it is. He focuses on animals and paints large black and white images of them on walls in the area he is in at the time. These are a few examples of his work:

His work is very large scale, high contrasting, slightly stylised and also slightly expressive. All of these concepts allow ROA to create unique, realistic drawings of animals. He manages to combine the idea of life and death in his illistrations and I can use this to show how animals in zoos are distressed and in danger. In my work, i am going to draw a couple of animals in his style with different materials such as: pencil, pen, ink and acrylic paint; this will allow me to see what material is best when working in his style. The following photos are of the drawings that I have completed in class:

drawing of a whale skull

Reflective diary of my art lessons so far

Over the past couple of weeks, we have been attempting to draw an object that is personal to us; I chose a teddy bear that my Dad passed on to me as my family has always been a traditional family where things get passed down through generations. We have been making a variety of small drawings of small sections of our object and trying to get accurate mark making and tone. I focused on the texture of the fur around the eyes and nose. Here is the transition of my work from the start of the observational drawing process to the end of the observational process:

 

I am really happy with the transition of my work and how it has improved. I can see at the start of this, I was not really understanding how to record observations properly, however I can see that as I have progressed, the quality of work has improved. My work has become more expressive and I have begun to understand the importance of making my work look interesting (for instance, using newspaper as the paper that I draw on. After having used both pencil and pen, I now realise that working with pen can be a lot more interesting and is also better for making expressive work.

After visiting Pitt Rivers, the Ashmolean and the Oxford University Museum, I have begun to think about how I can take the theme of "Who Am I?", and make it my own. I am going to try and use some of the ancient elements of the animal kingdom (for example, I could focus on the reasons to why animals become extinct). However, I still like the idea of focusing on how I hate the fact that animals are kept in zoos - a place that they should never be. I realised that the ancient, traditional side of life is one of the most interesting aspects of history, which is why I could involve some aspect of history within my art project. From now on, I think that I am going to try and visit a lot more museums and galleries to get inspiration so that I can develop my art work further.

Todays lesson - 3rd October 16

In todays lesson, I carried on drawing sections of my bear that I had brought into college in different ways. The bear that I had brought in is special to me as it was passed on down from my Dad to me and when I have children, it will most likely be passed on down to them. The following pictures are of what I have done today:

This first step is when I had to stick pieces of newspaper down into my sketchbook. I had to leave one of them untouched and the other, I had to brush some emulsion on to the top of it. After this, I had to draw the same thing on to each of them so that I would understand the difference between them.

The first drawing in this image was a biro drawing onto the blank piece of newspaper. I focused on the nose of the bear and the fur around it. I found out that the pen is a lot darker on the newspaper than it is on the normal paper. On the other hand, when I drew the nose and fur onto the emulsion newspaper, I immediately found out that it stood out a lot more as it was essentially black on white. I think that the fur was quite precise compared to drawings that I have done in the past. The drawing on the bottom is of the same area on the bear as the others, however in this drawing, I have focused on tone and mark making on the fur. As I was using biro, I could not shade as well as I could with a pencil, so I then added graphite to the drawing in order to improve the tone of the fur.

Next, I drew on top of a strip of newspaper and also on to the blank sketchbook paper. I used biro again and then painted some white emulsion on top of it and then worked into that a little bit. I did not like this method as it hides some of the detail that was previously put into it. After this, I then went on to combining all of the previous techniques to make a final drawing. I first stuck a piece of newspaper down and then started drawing in biro onto it. After this I stuck down a smaller piece of newspaper on top of this layer and then used graphite on top of it. Next I painted on some white emulsion around the edges of the drawing to make it stand out; to add to the drawing, I stuck down individual letters from the newspaper to spell out, 'USED'. I used this word to get the message across that sometimes used toys/objects can often be the best, most special things in life.

Oxford Visit - Including; The Pitt Rivers Museum, The Oxford University of Natural History and The Ashmolean Museum

On Thursday 29th September, I visited Oxford with the rest of my art class to observe all of the different pieces of art in a variety of different museums. Whilst looking at the art/artefacts, we were given the task of thinking about the different types of textures, colours and/or patterns on the objects. From that, we had to think about how it or the trip as a whole could help us with the future development of the task, 'Who am I?'.

The first Museum that I visited was the Oxford University of Natural History. The majority of objects that were presented in this museum were stuffed animals, skeletons of extinct animals and the kind of rocks that have been unearthed from the ground. Here are a few examples of the types of art that were exhibited:

 This is a stuffed bird that has been preserved for years. When I saw it, at first I thought that it wasn't nice at all as it used to be a living thing, however I looked past that and focused on the textures of the feathers. Each feather was fairly rough and each had its own size and shape. Also, I noticed that the colours on this bird were all earthy tones (for example, different shades of brown). I noticed that the feet on the bird were very thin however, it was clear that by the stance of the bird, they were very strong.

 This is a life size black bear that was about 4 1/2 foot tall. After touching the fur of this bear, I got the idea that the fur was very soft despite the fact that in some places, the fur looks a little rough. The problem with the colour of this bear is that it is all black, so if I was going to draw it, I would not be able to demonstrate my ability to show tone.

Additionally, this skeleton remains was of a t-rex and was the biggest artefact on show at this museum. The bones appeared quite rough as I imagine they have been worn away by rock movement when it was in the ground. Due to the fact that the scale of this skeleton is so big, if I was going to draw it, I would choose a specific feature on it and focus on that. The tone was only good on this because of the light that was above it. There was a variety of greys on the skeleton which is why it would be useful to either use charcoal or graphite when drawing it.




After having around an hour in this museum, we then went across to the Pitt Rivers Museum and took a look at all of the ancestral artefacts. My favourite aspects in this area was the aboriginal artworks. Here are a few images of some of the artefacts that were displayed:

This is the clothing that some of the warriors wore centuries ago in the aboriginal culture. The texture of this clothing/armour is very rough and close together whilst the pattern on it is very specific. The colours are earthy colours once again, for example: browns, yellows and other pale colours. This is because in these times, they were the only kinds of colours that could be used when making clothing and armour. This is similar to the aboriginal art that was produced back then.

This picture contains the kind of art that women used to produce in this specific era. Although it is very basic, it captivated me and made me want to know more about why these colours, patterns and shapes were used. Very earthy colours were used because the only things that they could use for paints were different types of mud. I like how they only used dots to create their paintings, yet they could still result in captivating and interesting pieces of art.

This is an axe that the huntsmen used to use when trying to catch their own food. The textures on the metal were very smooth, however the textures on the wood handle were actually quite rough. If this was going to be drawn, I would maybe use pencil or even oil pastel. I could use oil pastel for the wood as I can use the edge of something to scratch in the rough textures.




Finally, we then went to the Ashmolean Museum which contained a lot more paintings in comparison to the other two museums. The following picture contains the painting that I like the best:

This painting is one of my favourites in the whole museum. I really like how the artist managed to capture the realism of the horses and people, without having to provide it with a lot of detail. I really like how it is similar to a cartoon piece of work, as despite the fact that it is very simplistic, I understand the painting as a whole.





Overall, the trip has allowed me to get a better idea of how to describe a piece of artwork and how to better appreciate a certain piece. After having viewed all of the ancient pieces and artefacts, I believe that when it comes to developing my work, I may go into the whole idea of how I think it is wrong to hunt and kill animals or I may go down the route of how barbaric taxidermy is and how it affects the ecosystem and the existence of specific species.

Evaluation of Thursday's texture practical

On Thursday, as well as having to take photos of textures, we had to attempt to draw some different textures, in graphite, from the pictures.

This was the outcome:

In some of these experiments, the contrast of tone is executed well, however I do believe that there is not a great contrast of shape and line. I believe that the types of techniques used to achieve a good texture were: using the sides of the graphite stick to get the similar texture to a brick, the sharpest edge of the graphite stick to get the sharp textures of the tree and I then used a rubber to get the highlights in the wall texture. However, I am not particularly confident in using graphite which is why the textures didn't turn out as I had hoped. If I was going to improve this composition, I would spend more time focusing on trying to get the representations more realistic. Additionally, we had to put some white emulsion on top of the graphite work, and from this I know that I need to become more confident when using this. In some places, the emulsion goes well with the graphite work, for example, in the bottom right corner, the emulsion is layered on top by using the edge of cardboard to give sharp lines in it.


These are some of the textures that I attempted to represent:

Naomi Lister (ex student) comparisons

On Thursday, we had to go out into Nuneaton Town and take some photos of objects that have really intricate or interesting textures and details. Afterwards, we then had to look at a previous student's work and compare their piece with our pictures.

The following picture is of Naomi Lister's work:

Naomi Lister

Untitled
2012
Mixed Media on Paper

The following pictures are the images I took of interesting textures:

The reason why I believe that this texture is similar to Naomi's work is because in both, the material looks like it is peeling off of the abject underneath it. Also, the grey colour in the photo is similar to the layer of grey in her piece.

I think that this image is similar to Naomi's piece as in some parts of both, it looks like there are a lot of scratches which leads to me getting the impression that she was maybe stressed with something.

A reason to why I believe that this texture is like her piece is because it looks like the material is cracking on the pole, similar to the way that the ink in her work looks like something is cracking or cleaving.

In a similar way to the first image, I think that this photo looks like it is tearing away from the object and ripping apart. Like this photo, Naomi's work also looks like it is separating and that things are starting to rip away from the paper.

This image depicts the spilled paint and mediums in the art studio and the different textures look very similar to Naomi' textures. In both the photo and artwork, it looks like ink/paint has been splatted onto the floor/paper. Despite the fact that the colours are different to each other, they still look alike.

Looking at Cy Twombly.

On Tuesday 20th September, as a class we looked at an artist called, Cy Twombly. We had to look at the kinds of techniques that he uses in order to achieve his pieces. We then had to take inspiration from his work and attempt to produce our own.
Examples of Cy Twombly's work:

Twombly uses inspiration from classic Greek and Roman literature, and the poetic features that come with them. He uses layers of paint to illustrate the fact that he is interested in the different time periods and context that is included in the history of Rome and Greece.

My attempt at using his style:

 Over the past week, we have been collecting words that describe our surroundings, which contributed towards both my observational skills and this task. After collecting these words, we were tasked with picking a couple of words that stood out most to us, which led to me drawing the word, 'Urban'. I wanted to illustrate my idea of an urban setting, which is why I used the colour black a lot and used a large scale.

 When I came back into college the next day, I had decided that I wanted to put an emphasis on the word urban and the fact that I see urban environments as unclean and a key factor of the causation of pollution. This is why I wrote the word, 'urban', out over and over again in black mediums.

After the previous step, I went into the studio and used white emulsion to layer over my work. I did this so that it would look similar to Cy Twombly's work. Due to the fact that he uses oil paints as a way of layering his work and that it isn't practical for us, we used white emulsion as it dries dramatically quicker and it is translucent (we can still see the dry materials through the layers of emulsion). Additionally, I applied more dry materials over the wet emulsion to bring back parts of the word that was covered up by too much paint.

Overall, I believe that I was successful in making my work look similar to Cy Twombly's work as the layering works well on top of the dry mediums and in some places, the white looks balanced when compared with the black. If I was going to make my work link more to Twombly's, I would add more colour and add more textures to it to show skill and also imply meaning.

Although I don't particularly like Cy Twombly's, I believe that he manages to use a variety of textures in his work in a meaningful and creative way. In some of his pieces, he uses scratches as a technique which I think is one of his best textures due to the fact that it tells a lot about his thought process.