Conclusion and work for assessment

For me Drawing 2 has been about relinquishing control. I don't like tight controlled pieces of work when I see them produced by other artists but in my own work I was unable to break free of the need to be neat and accurate. Left to my own devices I was making drawings like the dog and cat pictures for Part 5, Project 3 A finer focus.

The feather drawings for Assignment 2 allowed me to make a picture that was visually pleasing to me but contained random marks because, even with practice, the feathers had a tendency to do their own thing.

The colours are a bit tentative but I can feel movement in the drawing.

Drawing from a distance for Part 3 Project 2 meant that I had to work the wobbliness of my lines into my finished drawings.

This drawing influenced the way my parallel project progressed. Is it more of a study than a finished piece? In the past I would have said yes but contemporary artists such as Tracey Emin don't make highly finished work, and those that do, such as George Shaw make pictures that are still and lifeless, even if there is the tension that something may be about to happen.

The skate drawings for Part 3 Project 3 removed control because I was using the lines created incidentally by something that wasn't a traditional drawing implement, also the resultant lines were abstract so there was no expectation that they would represent anything but themselves.

 The coloured versions have overworked the original idea so I repeated them in black and white.

Though maybe I prefer them cropped.

I feel that when I got to Part 5 I had got into my stride and started to make work that feels authentic. In the past I have felt that my coursework is not genuinely my work. Project 1 A changing scene led to some drawings which I would be happy to display and gave me techniques that work for making drawings outside of the demands of the course, I drew runners in a half marathon and people at the Tate in the same style.

Project 4, Time and the viewer led me to make the hagiographs, something completely different to anything I have done before. 

I enjoyed combining practical making with the unexpected way that the cut paper behaves when the hagiograph is turned. I made plans to film the machines working, but subsequently decided that the whole point of them is that the turning of the handles controls the passage of time, the viewer/operator can move quickly or slowly. I hope that they can survive the journey to Barnsley and turning by the assessors.... 

Here is the finished original box.

This is what it looks like under the window.

This is the small hagiograph

There is more development that could be done with these, what happens with different paper cuts and different viewing windows?

Finally the daffodil drawing for Assignment 5.

It is the development of an idea that I have been carrying with me for some time and, on the face of it a controlled, detailed drawing. Until now I have been unable to make the idea for the drawing work and this has been because I couldn't cope with less than perfect drawings of the flowers. I have realised that the errors that I see don't matter. The drawing is about the uniqueness and imperfections of the flowers as they bloom and fade. I want you to study them for their faults and differences and enjoy them for what is "wrong" about them. I have wrestled with concepts of colour for this piece and ultimately left the drawing in black and white, I think that the addition of colour in the test pieces is a distraction. The drawing is about the equal beauty of the flowers whether they are buds, or in their last stages of life. When I have time I would like to repeat the drawing on a smaller scale and either add colour from the start or make myself add colour and see what develops, but my recent experiments have led to too many overworked drawings.