This research project is an enquiry into modes of transition between two and three dimensions in the generation and revelation of form and image. This can also be expressed as an exploration of the relationships between drawing and making, line and form, plane and solid. The project originates from an understanding that this issue has been central to my practice in both vessel making and sculpture and a particular interest in the potential for hybridisation of digital and handcraft processes, focusing on the extent to which a handmade quality and emotional content can be incorporated into a digitally-generated object.

I intend to explore the potential for a cyclical and reciprocal relationship between drawing and making. This will embrace exploration of methods for generating a 3D solid from a 2D image, and then revealing formal or aesthetic qualities of that solid through a 2D intervention or analysis, such as that derived from cross section, silhouette or shadow. These are 2D concepts but have implicit 3D counterparts and will be important ideas in the development of objects and images as well as key sites for the exploration of the context for this research.

Combination and hybridisation of digital and handcraft processes will be central to the method used in this research. 3D CAD and Rapid Prototyping technologies give the potential to visualise and realise transitions between two and three dimensions that would not be possible through ‘analogue’ processes. The language of 3D CAD menus and instructions are also powerful tools in developing a logical and analytical approach to hand processes. I will explore the making of solids and the 2D interpretation of them through both digital and hand processes in order to be able to reflect on their potentials as means of addressing the research question.