Self assessment of first assignment

My first two pieces are complete.
I tend to spend a lot of time thinking about my selection of objects and at first it felt a little unnecessarily to do preliminary for my man made drawing. My selections remained on a table for a couple of days so that I could keep looking at the items and different view points until I was happy to start a few sketches.
My first subject I chose to do was the man made selection. Having chosen a shinny silver jewellery box and a necklace with glass and shinny beads, most of the drawing effects had been covered within the coursework. My first sketch was more or less the viewpoint that I used for my final piece and I already knew that I would like to use charcoal and/or soft pastel.
The natural objects was a different scenario altogether. I learned a great deal of why preliminary studies should be conducted. I struggled to find interesting objects to draw and then struggled on how to draw them. Firstly I chose a selection of items that could be found in woodlands. A piece of bark, a branch, ivy leaves and some berries. Having found the perfect compilation for a photograph, I found it almost impossible to rethink my objects into a different composition. My preliminary studies were not very interesting. I could not find a viewpoint or composition that was not too fussy and I was unable to cope with all of the textures on one page. Although I love the idea of what I was trying to achieve, these drawings were discarded for a hand full of fruit! (I may try again at a later date when I have more experience.) I was very happy with the outcome of these fruits. The colours were excellent to work with and they sat well on a large sheet of paper. Until working on this OCA course, I had no experience of working on paper any larger than A3 size and have no inclination to try any larger that an A2 at this present time. I have needed to redraw a couple of items to enable them to fit the page but on the whole I'm managing quite well and improving with every sketch I make. I do need to practice my proportions, as these are not always that accrete.
I find hatching frustrating. I am able to use hatching where necessary but I do favourer shading with deeper colours or darker pencil used on the side of a rounded nib.
I feel that I am developing a style and know what I don’t like. I don’t like fiddly drawing with tiny markings and much prefer large sweeping strokes of colour. I enjoyed the section looking at the works of Patrick Caulfield and was influenced by him on my drawing on the fruits. I didn’t want to add a background as in some of his pieces but compromised a little by adding some shadows.
I do hope that the lack of background does not effect any marks on my work as this was a decision not to use draw a background in.