A2 Fine Art exam: an oil painting triptych

These are the three paintings I created (that sounds too nice, 'slaved away at for 15 hours until my hand was actually in agony and needed post-paint brush holding rehab' is more appropriate) in my A2 Fine Art exam. In my 'Snapshot' project I looked at my old favourite Degas, Vuillard who was a genius at using patterns within his work, and Sickert who challenged my use of colour.
My best friend Emma is an excellent model and is the subject in all three compositions. I worked in oils on 10X14 inch canvases, choosing proportions which were a little bit thinner than usual as I noticed Vuillard often used such shapes to great effect.
There are things I am not happy with in the first and the last but that comes with the territory of exams when you don't have time to let the paint dry between layers. I did have lots of fun representing the patterns though. My favourite is the centre piece, I like all the different textures and surfaces within the composition and it also shows Emma in her most natural element as she is a book reading obsessive and will sit like that engrossed in her current book quite happily for a long time. I also still have to show you my coursework final piece, so I'll be posting that soon.