SPRING TERM / 2026
VISUAL LANGUAGE
VISUAL LANGUAGE
There are 4 weeks left in this Spring term
I have broken down the focus around the idea and process of developing a visual language across the 4 week.
I have included info for the 4 weeks here
in order for you to more easily progress the project through the term and beyond.
Developing a visual language is a personal and reflexive process
Keep notes and sketchbook
Keep a sketch book for both developing work visually and for writing notes about your projects
Use Pinterest to develop your own resource of artworks that are of interest to you
Here is a link to my Pinterest boards. If you need help setting Pinterest up please ask me.
Focus for each of the 4 weeks are:
Week 1:
Looking at Other Artists
Week 2:
Mark Making & Composition
Week 3:
Subject Matter
Week 4:
Fast and Loose
( For Symbolic Content see Autumn Term 2025 in menu)
These are the focus for each of the 4 weeks and I hope will be a template for reflexive engagement. They are not, in practice though, discrete areas but I am using each category to drive each week.
PLAN A SERIES OF ARTWORKS
This is a great structure for developing a visual language.
By definition it generates a structure around what you are doing and a connection between the artworks.
My own experience
I am in the process of developing a series of 50 artworks and I am aiming to have a few threads that carry though. This does not mean they have look the same but it does help in understanding what your connections are.
I have a few broad themes that I am working to, these are around style of both mark-making and their the intrinsic ideas that drive the work.
Mark making
My goals are to get a balance between the articulation of the representation (elements represented in the artworks) in combination with a looseness and seemingly spontaneous application of paint. My process is often to start tighter with the marks as I construct and add looseness as a second stage.
Ideas development (intertextuality, Politics of Power)
As you know I use my own life experiences defined by an intertextual structure that means I don't illustrate specific events but roam around a historical and contemporary physical and metaphysical landscape to playfully (and seriously) make connections that make my work interesting to me - as content.
Conversion to visual form
All this then needs converting into visual form - ref Elements and Principles of art page: Link
Week 1:
Looking at other artists
I will include three artists here that might be used to influence your own visual language.
There are plent of other references on the walls of the studio and in the reference boxes.
Looking at other artists help us understand the way we would like our own work to look
To do:
Find an artist that you like in terms of mark-making and use this today to build a painting
Develop the idea of a series across the 4 weeks.
I have included three artists here with different approaches
Week 1: What to think about:
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Use of paint (flat, impasto)
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Composition (balance, asymmetry etc - see: Elements and Principles page
-
Strong structure, loose structure
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Colour, inc value range, use of neutrals. Playful use of colour, traditional use of colour
-
Bucolic, urban, suburban settings
Hester Berry
Jane Roose
Wayne Thiebaud
Louise Balaam
Artists important to my own work
R.B Kitaj
I am interested in his montaged style and the symbolic content of his work. My own work carries a more defined structure. Some of his artworks carry very personal themes. Art important for its aesthetic impact as well as its meaning.
Peter Doig
For the combinations of his style and enigmatic representations.
R.B Kitaj
Peter Doig
Other useful references
L. S. Lowery: The Unheard Tapes
Week 2: Mark making + composition
Week 3: Subject Matter
REPOSE (Mike developing artwork)
Flora Yuknovich
lipstick-lip gloss-hickeys too
Jean-Honoré Fragonard
Week 4: Fast and Loose
