Saturday 5 December 2009

My Critique From IGMA

My critique on the Fellow submission arrived this afternoon so I thought I'd share it with you. You never know, it might help any future candidates out there to be successful! Reading it gave me an even greater "High" than the email telling me that I'd made it! OK...enough prattling on...here it is:-
Positive:
Outstanding use of accessories.

Some of the most realistic food I have ever seen. Thoughtful & powerful variety & presentation.

Truly exquisite work. The pastries are making me hungry-fabulous crust on pie & the croissants are amazing. Love the asparagus.

Lovely to look at. Colors re unbelievable.Shading is perfect.

Clams are well done & love the sea urchin.

Absolutely love the cherry pie-cherries with pits! Very nice asparagus. Wonderful variety & presentation.

There is a sense of scale with the tiniest details that I don't often see in foods. Delicacy of berries, cherry pits, croissants-wonderful!

Beautiful shading & colours on most-lovely food choices/variety. Catch of the day-nice choice.

Areas of improvement:


Leaves in the fruit basket need more variation of shape & color & are too thick. The blackberries are a little large compared to the apples & the apple stems are too fine.

Diameter of the asparagus is large in scale, but borderline to the largest we've ever seen. Lemons on asparagus crown are too bright.

The fish seem to be an odd color. The fish are poorly detailed compared to the other pieces. The lobster is too bright blue & the body seems too narrow.

The seafood is the weakest part of the submission.

All the pastries, though lovely scale, look "burned" in the oven. The pastry dough seems too dark brown.

When you read the areas of improvement it's amazing that I ever "made it"!!! The committee have obviously never seen my homemade croissants!!!!

14 comments:

Debbie said...

Lin I have a question. Do you actually know who judges your work or is the judging secret? Are they actually food artisans themselves?
Because in one sentence they are saying that your colours and shading are perfect and in another they are saying the colours are wrong..

I personally think your food is fantastic. xxx

linsminis said...

Debbie..all I know is that the committee is made up of 4 Fellows, the IGMA President & another 4 members who are either Artisan or ordinary members. The submissions are "blind",in other words the judges don't know who the artist is when judging the work...but then, I don't know about you, but I thibnk most people's work is quite recognisable! I think each of those "comments" are from different people & as we know, nobady judges any kind of art work in the same way!
I hope you are still behaving yourself!! :-))

Stephanie Kilgast said...

"All the pastries, though lovely scale, look "burned" in the oven. The pastry dough seems too dark brown."
I think this is ridiculous, in pastry shops you always have lighter and darker pastries. In France, you can choose your "dark shade" for baguettes.

I agree on the fish (from what I can see on the photo) he's not as good as all the rest.
But I love all your work, it's just perfect and very realistic.

I'm going to attempt IGMA artisan next november, I still need some improvement in my work :)

hugs!

linsminis said...

Go for it Stephanie!! regardless of what anyone says....even if you don't make it 1st time,(which I'm sure you will!) it certainly improves your work beyond belief...I know it did for mine!

Theresa said...

The critique seems a contradiction of the pros and negatives... I wonder that there are one set that give pros and one set that give cons.. I am sure not, but if the same judges for both, I don't understand how the pros can then become the cons?
I think it's great and congratulations!

Norma Bennett said...

Obviously the pros greatly outweighed the cons, and that's the key to assessments isn't it - putting the positive elements on a scale against the negative elements, and it's clear which way your scale balanced! And anyway, that asparagus came from a well fertilized patch didn't it - and the pastry cook a little remiss at keeping an eye on the oven :)

Critiques always useful tho to know what to keep an eye on so thanks for sharing. I found it interesting even tho I don't touch polymer clay - I leave it to clever people like you :) (I hate to cook real food let alone starting on plastic! - LOL)

Debora said...

Norma, you couldn't have said it better. I fully agree with you when you say that critique is always useful. Pick up what you can take along, and for others it's always good to get an idea of the aspects that are judged and the way they are balanced.

Again well done, I can only bow for your skills and determination

cockerina said...

apparently he eats raw croissants ... hee hee!
your thumbnails are incredible, you do not worry about them and go ahead!
love, Caterina

Christel said...

You know I love your work and I find it interesting to hear what they say. I am currently waiting to hear my critique, maybe I will have it on Monday. You rock Linda:) I so wish I could have seen your food in real life, but as you know I was so near but still so far away..swoosh;) Lol

linsminis said...

ROFL Christel! There's always next year.....?

Linda Carswell said...

I am sure you must be so pleased that this is all now behind you...positives & negatives...don't really seem to matter now do they!
All I can say is the judge obviously doesn't buy 'farm fresh' eggs!!!
Congratulations....I "LOVE" your work!!!

Regards, Linda

julie campbell said...

Lin that is really helpful posting it here . I am still waiting for mine to arrive but had I not read yours I just know that I would have focussed on the negatives even though I have passed LOL
Your positives are wonderful and you should be glowing. As for those negatives, just matters of opinion but they do stop our heads swelling too much LOL
julie xxx

Debbie said...

Thanks for answering my questions Lin and yes I'm behaving myself, well in a fashion. LOL xxx

Unknown said...

Hey Linda! I got my critique too- overall really good stuff, but there were was a puzzling contradiction, just like you got. I'll post mine later on tonight!! Ok, I'm off to look at your sumbissions, I'm sure they're wonderful!! i'm playing a bit of catch up right now ;-)