CAEL1001 Chap.12 The Self-Directed Creative Project
The Self-Directed Creative Project
The self-directed creative project is published at 40 per cent as a creative work hurdle task, uploaded through Canvas and due 22 November 2026 at 23:00. The unit describes it as developing, resolving and communicating an independent body of creative work that builds on the experimentation, research and reflection undertaken across the semester, and its criteria add a word the other tasks use less heavily: resolve.
You get three studio weeks. Week 11 is the transition to independent practice, week 12 is an individual feedback conversation while you work, and week 13 is a small-group review in preparation for submission, which leaves roughly one and a half uninterrupted sessions.
This chapter covers how to find a direction in the work you already have, what makes separate sheets read as one project, and what the unit means by resolved as opposed to finished-looking.
What this chapter covers
- 01
What the University publishes: weight, task type and date
- 02
Three studio weeks, and how much of that is actually making time
- 03
What to bring to weeks 11 to 13
- 04
Why the project is meant to grow out of the semester
- 05
Finding the repeat rather than the favourite
- 06
Stating a question rather than a subject
- 07
Choosing what repeats and what varies
- 08
Setting a stopping condition in advance
- 09
A body of work against a series
- 10
Complete, cohesive and intentional, tested separately
- 11
Iteration against repetition
- 12
Using the individual session and the group review as evidence
Writing a project proposal you could be held to
- 1Replace the theme with a question that can be answered differently in different pieces, such as whether a drawing can record its own removal.
- 1Name the origin in specific weeks, so that the development is traceable back through work you have already made.
- 1State the constant: same sheet size, same starting ground, same fixed working duration, so the set has something to be measured against.
- 1State what varies, and give it a small enumerated range, such as what the removal is guided by in each piece.
- 1Give a number and a stopping condition, and finish on a test a viewer could run, which is what makes the project capable of failing.
Key terms
- Self-directed project
- A project you set, plan and carry out on your own, drawing on the ideas, techniques and processes the semester has covered.
- Body of work
- A set of pieces held together by something constant, such as a material, a scale, a procedure or a duration, so that they read as one project rather than as separate drawings.
- Resolved
- Complete, cohesive and intentional. Three tests that fail independently, and none of them is about how polished the work looks.
- Unresolved
- Incomplete, inconsistent or requiring further development. Work that stopped when the deadline arrived rather than because somebody decided it was finished.
- Stopping condition
- A number of pieces, a date or a recognisable state, decided in advance, that determines when the project is done.
The Self-Directed Creative Project FAQ
I have no idea for the project. Where do I start?
In the work you already have. Lay every sheet out and look for a repeat rather than a favourite: something you did more than once without being told to, possibly in different weeks and different media. That is what a direction looks like from the outside, and it is easier to find in evidence than to invent.
What makes a set of drawings a body of work?
A constant. Something has to stay the same across the set, whether that is the material, the sheet size, the procedure or the duration, so that everything else can move against it. Deciding the constant explicitly is the most reliable way to make separate pieces read as one project.
Does resolved mean it has to look finished?
No. A deliberately rough, fast, provisional work can be fully resolved if the roughness is a decision that serves the question and is consistent across the set. What makes something unresolved is that nobody decided it was finished, which is a different thing from how it looks.
Should I include the piece that failed?
Not in the project, where an unresolved piece weakens both cohesion and completeness. Put it in the diary instead, documented, with a reflection on what failed and why, where it is positive evidence for critical reflection and experimentation. The two submissions have different jobs.
Assessment move
Arrive at week 11 with work rather than an idea, because the unit asks you to bring current project work and there is very little making time in the three weeks. State your question, your constant and your stopping condition in one paragraph before week 12, since that is what turns the individual session into a useful conversation instead of a request for direction.
At the group review, show everything, say nothing first, and ask only which two pieces should be cut and what the constant appears to be, because that tests cohesion with a week left to act on it. Photograph the whole set before study vacation ends, and confirm both November dates on the current assessment pages.
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