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Lovely environment for your work!

Tom uses stick figures now instead of 3D models.

Love the painting: the palette and how responsively you have painted it! I am just catching up with your videos now.

Big thank you for these Simon Educational entertaining and every single one was an encouragement to get up and do something. 👍

Loving every video!!

Very beautiful outcome. The discussion of the process and your calm voice makes this enjoyable to watch. Thank you. I think the 100 day challenge is a great plan for myself also, creating in the moment instead of wasting time thinking and planning, but just get something going every day and enjoy the process.

beautiful ❤

How I solved my problem with oil paint.. Simple... egg tempura and acrylic.

Love this! I don't think there is anything wrong with using linseed if that suits you. I just have never found it useful. The smell of turps or whie spirit is awful though and I can't really use it an apartment.

Thanx for posting but please do skip the irritating repetitive 80's video game music. It is distracting from what you're explaining and turning the volume down means one cannot hear what you're explaining.

Very good!! 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏🇧🇷🇧🇷👍

Love this piece!

Nice plein air painting, but please get rid of that awful music. Hard to listen to the commentary with it droning on too.

i really like this one

good idea friends🎉

Thank you for the video! You reminded me to make more drawing exercises :)

Great to see you out in the field! Cracking spot. I think you did a fine job capturing that scene 👏🏻

So sorry to hear you have been ill but glad you were seen so promptly. This is when you know you are really in the flow, when whatever the circumstances, you find a way to make some art. I hope you are feeling better.

Love the outcome. It is very baroque! Also makes me think of Alphonse Mucha!

Totally agree with your commentary. It reminds me of what Francis Bacon said about the difference between painting and illustration. There's another level of engagement when drawing from life; it's an expérience of 'what is' and does not attempt to describe.

Totally agree with your commentary. It reminds me of what Francis Bacon said about the difference between painting and illustration. There's another level of engagement when drawing from life; it's an expérience of 'what is' and does not attempt to describe.

Just catching up with your vidéos now, not long got back from travelling. Well done for tackling fast poses!

Really nice

Congratulations!

OMG! Stop the music!!!

Trust me... The talk is interesting enough. So, the music is redundant and, frankly, annoying!

I have a friend who flits from one endeavor to another. She has tried learning the cello, drawing and Italian. After making just the minimum effort, she dropped them all. She wanted results that bring her praise. When she realized that such results come only after, dare I say the word, effort she became disenchanted. I speak from experience. Before I decided to begin painting, the only brush I'd ever used had Oral-B stamped on it. My efforts were uninspired, but like a child, I was delighted by my pathetic productions. When I drew a cup lit from the side showing shading that gave the cup 3 dimensional volume,, I ran to everyone I knew and declared ''see what I have done'' like a three year old. I suppose that's understandable, but I was a 63 year old man and I was blessed with friends,who were encouraging and supportive. I pressed on. That was 15 years ago. I paint and draw now for my own pleasure. Some admired pieces I give away. And I've had a couple of well received exhibitions. The big surprise is that the final product isn't what gives me the most pleasure. It's the doing. Being so focused and absorbed so that everything but the work before me disappears. Knowing how to draw or even just loving to draw is a pastime that is always available and it doesn't require other people to be present. It kept me sane all through the Covid lockdown. Funny, I still show my work to friends and say ''see what I have done’'.

Brilliant Interview!

looks okay, just put some glazes over it

Hi Simon. Absolutely well done for having a go 10 out of 10 mate. I thought about 10 mins into your painting it was going well. Atmospheric background were the mountains hit the sky was very good imo. Wet on wet I always find difficult. I thought your end painting was more than acceptable as a start. Bloody well done 👍

Hi! I had a set like like this from the Works, I hadn't seen them anywhere else. It's a really good idea to start with something on the paper or canvas. A white ground can be oppressive. There's such dirty chaotic weather in Wales right now, your picture really captures the atmosphere. I agree about the brainstorming-rationalising process. I have had an intense couple of months and gave up trying to get any artwork done, but I arrived in Wales yesterday. I'm here for a little while and will then go on to Vienna.

Why not show us the model so that we can see more clearly where you're going? It's lovely but not that enlightening. But thank you.

"The stand user could be anybody!" The stand user in question:

pretty nice

Lovely to see scenes of your local area and have it collaged with music, painting, and music. I liked the colours in your painting. I'm afraid, I just haven't had much time to myself to make art this summer. I have done stuff here and there, but nothing I would post, as it wouldn't seem meaningful on its own. Seen a couple of exhibitions though and will do a blog post soon, once I get a load of work out of the way. Your abstract landscape made me think of one of them, by Monique Frydman. She did a whole series of monotypes during lockdown, and these were collected in a book in the exhibition. It would have been easy not to do it and miss the opportunity, but she did it and it stands a s a unique testimony. I think Frydman works from external references in some way, but her work is abstract. It's that impressionist/expressionist dichotomy with abstraction I think; the artist needs to identify where they are on that spectrum. I love the discovery in your painting, and the colour in the end result. Thank you for sharing!

Enjoyed your video. Thanks

Great artwork, and the cutest girl I've ever seen in my life!

Jarad's work is sublime.

Just catching up with some of your other podcasts. Really enjoyed this, thank you. It's great to listen to film conversations. I love Jacques Tati too, very poetic. I think this episode is one that a friend of mine mentioned, Deborah Kelty. She has jus done a degree in media stuff and film-making at Llandrillo. She had heard of you in reference to this podcast. I have known Deborah since she was a small child and caught up with her family the last time I was in Wales. I thought it was really positive that people in the arts in Wales get connected in all kinds of ways.

Very few people are awarded Firsts in Fine Art. In my experience, they tend to be earmarked for a First quite early on, so it is extremely doubtful your friend's outcome would have been different. Moreover, if she had been heading for a First, the faculty would have made sure she got a great exhibition space, and that everything was set up correctly. She would have been among the 'most favoured', as it were. I still think she was right to appeal, as an objection to the clear failure of the institute to protect and showcase her work, but their minds were already made up on that one. With regard to the degree show, I remember we all had to prepare our space ourselves, with the help of students from the lower years if necessary. Sometimes, the space was where the artist had been working and it meant coats of paint, new partitions, screens and so on. It was quite intense. Some students didn't have such great work (in my opinion), but they were really creative in how they presented it, which I think is a skill in itself, and they had a lot of freedom to apply it. Maybe that doesn't happen so much any more for various reasons. Anyway, you are building a great portfolio now with all your activities and if you wanted to do a Master's further up the line, you will be ready for it and you will then see what a silver lining it was that you didn't do it straight after a BA. You will also choose the institute and programme very carefully and go in with your eyes open.

Thank you for this series and well done for getting your case heard. What baffles me is that the faculty didn't want to showcase all the student outcomes in the best possible light as a reflection of the Department and Institute as a whole. Reporters may have gone to the show, or bloggers, and they don't write about the work of individuals being poor; they comment on an overall impression, for example, a poor exhibition environment, not having sound, exhibits not working as they should, or being damaged, stuff stuck in corridors... This reflects on the institute not the artist. You can put small enough paintings and 2D in corridors, but rarely audio-visual, sculpture, installations, or large pieces. If I am in a gallery and a piece isn't functioning as it should, or is stuck somewhere that doesn't allow it to be viewed properly, I automatically think it is a curation and gallery issue, never the fault of the artist.

The biggest bullies are realistic artists who hate on you for drawing scribbles or doodles 😡

Draw random stuff then make it super realistic 😀

hello, amigo :) hope you are well . Can we collaborate? NON-commercial project , just for people . I'm a musician . Cheers

OMG, sorry, just responding to this as I listen... referring students to the module handbook when anyone asks anything... Nowhere, just nowhere, does anyone think this is good teaching practice. This call certainly wasn't a waste of time though. No one who spoke up was 100% happy. Even Bully 1, and that person mainly seemed to be happy because of the interdisciplinary scope, not the course per se, or else excused it because of COVID. Everyone also flagged the discrepancy between the workshops listed on paper and what was really experienced on the ground. So sad that the young student finally resorted to that stock idea of under-served communities, which is 'Got to be grateful what we get', like you have to just accept whatever crumbs are thrown at you if you can't go and study in a more established, more overtly 'prestigious' place. The whole idea of external moderation is to eliminate these discrepancies, so that the degrees awarded have some meaning, irrespective of where they are achieved.

And the crawling too, from the Bully, trying to get brownie points for bigging up the course and University. It's quite blatant. If the external examiner was really trouble-shooting, he would have picked that up. The truth is, these examiners are not looking for trouble. They want to keep hassle to a minimum. Moreover, even though I think the uneven communication is a huge deal, especially during the pandemic when it was a risk to come into the studios, so many excuses can be made about how it was a crisis that tutors weren't prepared for.

Thank you for sharing this. I have never met an external examiner or been around that external supervision process, so in my experience, it has always been a closed-door one. It seems that one way your institution implements a student feedback loop is through a meeting with the external examiner. On paper, this sounds marvellous of course and potentially, it is. However, this is evidence of how that can pan out in practice, with gaslighting and so on. Just ridiculous how one student undermines the lived experience of another just because it differs from their own, which is what you said anyway. You said that things were uneven. Bully No. 1 jumped in and dismissed your experience, instead of echoing what you said that experiences varied. I definitely gained a better understanding of the role of the external examiner through this video though. It's all about the overview, and what can be done to improve highlighted issues for next time. If individuals are treated unfairly, it is unlikely to be flagged in just this one visit. It would have to recur over years in obvious patterns with enough people for that to happen. In that sense, the external examiner's visit is for the most part a formality. External supervision is still important, but for individuals who feel they have been treated unfairly, it looks like there is no option other than an independent appeal, up against the institution, finding your own defence. No one will come to save you from within the institution, which is completely backwards. The institution should be there for you as the student not for the tutors.

It's clearly an issue that the only way to gain any power against institutions is to create a big enough storm, when just saying something about it to a person in charge should be enough. However, when the storm is created, you end up being caught in it too. It can follow you. The art world is so small. In other words, when the sh*t hits the fan, everyone gets a spot on them. Those faculty staff ain't moving. They have so little else in life. They will do anything when their backs are against the wall. Their mortgages and pensions depend on it.. You were able to walk away, start a RUclips channel, exhibit, become a videographer, do commissions, you can take your career in many different directions. You may have lost out, but only through the deficits of those who were meant to deliver a service to you,. They had no more power over you than that. I think what you have done in creating this series will have more impact, and it's just the beginning. It's cannier too. No one can demand it be taken down, it mentions no names, and it can be generalised to other art institutions. If the university had cared, there would have been a 'restructuring' of the faculty. for the subsequent year. People do what they are confident they can get away with. For some reason, the staff involved appeared to feel immune. You might not be 100% sure of the basis of that immunity. It must have been pretty solid for them to get away with not acting in the face of racism and bullying that caused a student to leave and a complaint about sexual assault. The journey might not be the one you packed for, but you will ride into the sun.

Did your university request your anonymised feedback on a regular basis?

Nice one Simon keep on doing what ya doing