More responses to tutor feedback

My tutor asked me to look at my favourite pieces and list about 50 of the strongest words that come to me. My words are:

Flowing, Swirling, Performance, Balance, Grace, Effort, Style, Cold, Moment, Lines, Pop, Bubbles, Purple, Twist, Ice, Slide, Explode, Splat, Rhythm, Music, Dance, Exercise, Movement, Precision, Spin, Bounce, Solo, Alone, Spotlight, Training, Practice, Dedication, Loose, Hesitant, Party, Fizz, Hours, Aim, Cumulate, Target, Goals, Development, Fear, Excitement, Magic, Anticipation, Courage, Sweat, Lively, Rink, Challenge, Athlete.

Then to make these words into sentences:

Flowing grace and style. 

The cold of the rink, the smoothness of the ice.

Anticipating the magic of the spotlight.

A person working as a machine.

The performance explodes with excitement.

Perfectly balanced twists and turns.

A celebration of music and dance, of training dedication and precision.

Hours of dedicated training and practice, overcoming the cold and fear to develop the skills to execute the performance.

Cumulating in the performance in front of the audience alone in the spotlight.

Glimpsed and incomplete, small and alone in the vast rink.

To celebrate the hours of dedicated practice and training to develop the skills, the rhythm and the balance to execute a complex routine alone in front of the crowd. The surroundings a blur, an unimportant background.

Twisting, gliding, spinning, jumping, moving freely across the cold ice, overcoming fear alone in the spotlight. 

Then to form those sentences into two paragraphs.

Beauty and grace in the cold grubby ice rink. Hours of dedicated practice and training to develop the skills, the rhythm and the balance to execute a complex routine alone in front of the crowd. Twisting, gliding, spinning, jumping, moving freely across the cold ice, overcoming fear alone in the spotlight. 

Using loose flowing lines to convey a frozen moment in the swirling performance of the figure skater. The focus is on the person, a human being working as a machine. The surroundings are a blur, an unimportant background. The figure is glimpsed and incomplete, small and alone in the vast rink.

My interest is in the beauty to be found in ugly places and the effort of people to achieve that beauty. My drawings are meant to be contemporary, not historical, I am in the here and now, this is what I am seeing and recording, I don't feel able to comment on the past or look into the future. I fluctuate between wanting to record and expose the rigours of practice which the public never sees or to comment on the loneliness of the performer in front of the crowd, maybe the resultant image is a bit of both. We the viewers look on from the stability and relative comfort of the sides outside the barriers which contain the ice. We could be supportive and encouraging or pushy and domineering. Because we are outside the ice we have only our single window view to try and understand the complexities of the relationship between the skater and the ice, a world we cannot enter unless we are prepared to embrace the unpredictable and step onto the ice.