Unit 2 Assessment.
Learning Outcome 1: Develop and realise a self-directed programme of learning which draws from wide-ranging subject knowledge. (AC Knowledge, AC Process)
This unit has focused on expanding my practical vocabulary through material exploration, scale, and emotional intention. I have been thinking more critically about the conflicts and interactions between materials, such as using oil-based primers with water-based ink, to mirror the tensions, endurance, and adaptability found in natural environments and within my own body. I have begun to treat the surface and layers of the support as active participants in the work, exploring how physical layers (wood grain, primer, texture) echo the metaphorical layers present in the landscapes I’m drawn to.
My process has become increasingly intuitive: leaning into emotion rather than replication, using ink expressively to evoke atmosphere and feeling rather than copying photographic reference. I’ve pushed myself to work at larger scales while sustaining detail, experimented with new tools and texture-making methods, and carried out structured experiments such as painting the same composition across five different plywood boards. These developments reflect a more self-directed, inquisitive approach to practice, rooted in a deeper awareness of material, place, and the embodied experience of landscape.
Links & Notes
Wood Experiments — Testing five plywood surfaces by painting the same composition on each to understand how material, grain and preparation influence the behaviour of ink.
https://www.siobhanmcmorran.com/journal/wood-experiments21-Day Challenge — Building daily creative consistency through quick studies, strengthening intuition, confidence and material fluency.
https://www.siobhanmcmorran.com/journal/twenty-oneSnags of Drumguish — Exploring texture, atmosphere and overlooked forms; shifting toward expressive mark-making and emotional resonance.
https://www.siobhanmcmorran.com/journal/snags-of-drumguishAnselm Kiefer: Where Have All the Flowers Gone? — Reflecting on scale, materiality and layered surfaces to inform my own experimentation with conflict and depth.
https://www.siobhanmcmorran.com/journal/anselm-kiefer-where-have-all-the-flowers-goneGarden Futures — Considering constructed landscapes and how environments are shaped, curated, and controlled, contributing to my thinking around place, belonging and narrative.
https://www.siobhanmcmorran.com/journal/garden-futuresThe Garden Exhibition — Looking at narrative, perspective and environmental layering as part of expanding my visual and conceptual approach.
https://www.siobhanmcmorran.com/journal/the-garden-exhbitionCreag Bheag — Exploring mark making, layered shadows and intentional contrasts; experimenting with texture to capture the landscape’s energy.
Linder: Danger Came Smiling — Examining experimental composition and layered imagery to broaden my understanding of texture, structure and mood.
https://www.siobhanmcmorran.com/journal/linder-danger-came-smiling
Learning Outcome 2: Articulate a thorough understanding of your research and establish an informed critical position. (AC Communication)
My research this unit has deepened my understanding of pain, embodiment, contrast and identity, and how these themes can be communicated visually through landscape and ink. A recurring thread in my reading has been the idea of contrasts — contrasts within the body, in diagnoses, in lived experience, and in the environments I depict. Learning about autism in The Lost Girls of Autism has led me through my own autism and ADHD diagnostic process, revealing another set of internal contrasts that mirror the tensions in my materials and in the landscapes I am drawn to. Alongside this, my research into scoliosis and the body’s asymmetries has further underscored how physical contrasts can become conceptual anchors in my work.
The case study on the Skellette Brothers was particularly influential, as it showed how artists with lived experiences of pain and fracture can channel these realities into their creative processes without having to explain them verbally. Seeing this affirmed that the fractures in my own life (medical, emotional, and neurological) can come together in fusion within my practice, forming a quiet but powerful presence within the work.
Completing my research paper strengthened this understanding by helping me articulate how art can act as an alternative language for pain and complexity. It clarified how my paintings can hold space for experiences that resist easy articulation, creating a shared sense of recognition and belonging through atmosphere, contrast and emotional resonance. This research continues to open new avenues for my practice and informs the conceptual foundation of the work I am making going forward.
Links & Notes
The Body in Pain — Exploring Elaine Scarry’s theories of pain, language and unmaking, and how these ideas connect to my desire to communicate non-verbally through ink and landscape.
https://www.siobhanmcmorran.com/journal/the-body-in-painUnwell Women — Researching the medical history of women’s bodies and diagnostic dismissal, informing my understanding of embodied experience and how it might be woven into my artistic language.
https://www.siobhanmcmorran.com/journal/unwell-womenWritten in Bone — Looking at the skeleton, spine and archaeological narratives to deepen my interest in structure, endurance and the symbolic parallels between body and landscape.
https://www.siobhanmcmorran.com/journal/written-in-boneThe Lost Girls of Autism — Reflecting on late diagnosis, masking and internal contrasts, and recognising how these themes of belonging and fragmentation appear in my work and my own diagnostic journey.
https://www.siobhanmcmorran.com/journal/the-lost-girls-of-autismResearch Paper: Art as an Alternative Language for Pain — A critical examination of how art can communicate pain, fracture and embodied experience. Writing this paper helped me contextualise my practice within wider research and recognise how contrast, disruption and lived experience can be held and expressed through landscape painting.
https://www.siobhanmcmorran.com/journal/research-paper-art-as-an-alternative-language-for-pain
Learning Outcome 3: Analyse and critically reflect on your practice and its context. (AC Enquiry)
Throughout this unit, reflective writing has become central to how I understand and develop my practice. My blog acts as a companion to my making, allowing me to slow down, articulate intentions, and recognise the patterns, contrasts and emotional undercurrents in my work. Writing about landscapes, belonging, pain, autism, and embodiment has helped me see how these themes intersect and how they quietly shape both the subjects I choose and the way I handle ink, texture and atmosphere.
Reflection has also enabled me to locate the origin of my ideas, exploring where ideas come from, why they persist, and how they surface through lived experience, material encounter and the work of other artists and writers. Engaging with artists such as Kees Stoop, and writers like Nan Shepard in The Living Mountain, has helped me recognise how attention, slowness and intimacy with place can deepen artistic practice. Shepard’s writing, in particular, resonates with my own interest in how landscape and the body meet, and how being with a place can reveal emotional and sensory knowledge that sits beneath language.
Positioning my practice within these broader reflective contexts, personal history, cultural narratives of land, sensory experience and identity, has helped me understand how my work holds experiences of difference and disconnection without needing to explain them verbally. This ongoing self-enquiry has strengthened my artistic voice and clarified the direction I want my work to take moving forward.
Links & Notes
Writing as a Companion to My Art Practice — Reflecting on how regular writing supports clarity, intention and emotional understanding in my work, and how it helps connect my lived experience to my visual language.
https://www.siobhanmcmorran.com/journal/writing-as-a-companion-to-my-art-practiceWhere Do Ideas Come From — Exploring the origins of my ideas: how memory, place, accident, material and body converge and lead to creative impulses.
https://www.siobhanmcmorran.com/journal/where-do-ideas-come-fromTrees and Self-Reflection — Exploring the connections between body, landscape, memory and belonging; reflecting on how embodiment and place influence my artistic decisions.
https://www.siobhanmcmorran.com/journal/trees-and-self-reflectionAmanda Thomson — Belonging — Thinking critically about place-attachment, home landscapes and the emotional resonance of certain environments, and how these reflections inform the themes and atmospheres within my work.
https://www.siobhanmcmorran.com/journal/beloging-by-amanda-thomsonKees Stoop — Leven en Werk — Engaging with the lifetime practice of Kees Stoop deepened my understanding of how process, material longevity and the layering of time underpin painting as a form of endurance and reflection.
https://www.siobhanmcmorran.com/journal/kees-stoop-leven-en-werkNan Shepherd – The Living Mountain — Reading Shepherd’s reflections on presence, sensory awareness and embodied experience in the Cairngorms has helped me think more deeply about slowness, attention and the emotional knowledge of place within my own work.
