Aim
Part of the process of planning a painting is to consider what elements need to be retained and developed, and what needs to be removed or altered in some way. You are developing skills in arranging and refining, working through different ways of arriving at ideas for compositions.
Referring to your collages, you will be making two drawings that combine elements of these works that you would like to develop further.
Method
Work on A3 or A2 paper with your choice of media, such as ink, pastel, graphite, watercolour - or a combination.
Look at all your collages - which compositions feel the strongest? And would combining different sections of them make them more interesting? You aren’t trying to do a direct copy. For example, you might have a landscape section in one that you would like to suggest in watercolour or ink with a gestural approach. Or there could be a close-up section of fabric in another that you might want to emphasise with a textured oil pastel mark. Would these different sections work together in a drawing? Don’t worry about having a clear narrative, you can juxtapose different sections to alter the reading and add ambiguity. 
Reflection
Make some reflections about the process of selecting and arranging your composition. How did your choice of media enhance the results? Make notes in your learning log about the process of working in this way and if you might like to develop it further.

Deciding what to draw…

Looking at all my collages, I’m trying to reflect on which compositions feel the strongest and whether combining different sections of them would make them more interesting…

I keep staring at them and I feel rather stuck. I think partly because I am looking at three very different visuals, which are somewhat already “composed”. The first one is a landscape that plays on perspective and scale, the second is perhaps the most interesting because it is the most legible. The last one is the most surrealist but feels too busy and chaotic.

The more I stare at them, the more I realise they all have something about being watched or judged. Someone is having fun but somehow there are expectations and consequences…

Drawing no. 1

I decided to break out of jail and simply take one of my collage and work on a drawing responding to the composition. My favourite was collage no. 2 so I started from there. I used my neocolor crayons and changed the composition somewhat to clarify the relationship between the lurker and the woman.

I feel this is not a refined drawing from a technical standpoint but then again I feel it’s not a completely bad one. I’m reminded of Paula Rego’s Policeman’s daughter and I am surprised to see there’s also a pet in hers. I think, with more time, I’d work on making the woman more realistic and less like a flat collage. It’s a fine line between cartoon and art. In Rego’s painting, the woman is not realistically rendered but at the same time she is not cartoony. I’m guessing because she drew her from real life observation.

Drawing no. 2

The approach to draw inspiration from one collage worked well enough so I decided to use the last collage as a reference. This time I used ink for the background but the neocolor crayons were not far and I ended up reaching for them again. I didn’t have a plan so I picked up elements of the collage which I liked, trying to create something that held together. I didn’t start from the whole idea, I started with the pigeon head on the side and then the flowers to balance it. I am realising that I do this a lot, whether in the drawing or the collages: I disrupt the balance and then look for something to add that will restore the balance. I painted the glass next, another element from the previous collage. The hand was an element I had cut but never used. Again it just felt “right”. I ran out of time and looking around I saw the sea in the first collage and pick that up. The final touch was to draw a table or something so that glass wasn’t flying. I wanted to use a different texture so I reached for my graphite stick. I accidentally realised it was water soluble and created the circles last.

Final reflections

The process was interesting. It definitely was generative in that I cannot imagine having produced the final drawings without having gone through each stage. There is a chance element in that process that makes it interesting but also somewhat arbitrary.

Would I adopt this as a practice? Possibly. Even though it feels painful at first to start without a plan for an outcome, I can see how the process (collage, collage+drawing, drawing) can be the “plan” that keeps me going and takes me to unexpected places even if my end goal is unknown.