Project Making Marks continued.

Adding colour was useful for creating 3D illusion by using darker and lighter shades of the same colours next to one another such as in the exercises on page 17 - Hatching and Stippling and page 19 - Line and Other Marks. It also had the effect of advancing or receding depending on the colour temperature used (3rd example, last page, Hatching and Stippling) or by mixing complementary colours giving more intensity to each colour (last page, Line and Other Marks) with violet/deep yellow and deep blue/rusty orange. Another example on the same page looks vibrant and fiery – almost jumping out of the page, through using red and orange in combination. By contrast, another one is calmer and receding because of using dark cool greens and blues together.

 

Most interesting and rewarding experiments
Overall I quite enjoyed all the mark making exercises. As I’m naturally quite inclined to sketch, draw and paint in quite an abstract, perhaps indefinable way, I guess this may have something to do with it.
I found the following particularly enjoyable:
 Doodling while thinking of a subject - using charcoal, chalk and soft pencils; they appear to have great ability to emulate weather phenomenon and climatic elements.
 In another doodling experiment, I was impressed by many unpredictable techniques and effects which occurred often by accident, such as blowing ink through a straw producing branch like lines. In lines and marks: using the top end of a quill for wavy and zig zag lines and freehand scribbles generating a random naturalistic appearance. These usually materialized from holding tools further away from the tip with a relaxed and flexible grip.
 Using larger sized paper (A3 to A1) was liberating and it felt easier to be more spontaneous particularly with the above mediums.
 At one point I found I was having fun making patterns which reminded me of ‘Spirograph’ a drawing toy from the 1960s. These developed from playing about with fast marks with a ballpoint pen held half way along or close to the top. Through this I think I accidentally found a quick and easy way to produce singular and multiple (though not accurate) ellipses. As I’m often inclined to doodle with ballpoint pens it was perhaps a natural progression with them. I tried this out with pencil, plus charcoal which worked well on a larger scale.
 Ink - pressing an inked fingertip onto the surface gave intriguing textural effects perhaps indicating foliage or rough stony areas. Toothbrush – to flick and spatter and scrape to suggest conifer like foliage.
Dip pens - the contrasting variety of thickness of mark, with a relaxed hold, while twisting and turning them. Fine liners and ballpoints - very scribbly scratchy marks produced on fairly textured paper. I used Quink black ink in these exercises, with which I found easy to obtain certain interesting watery effects and it develops a watery looking bloom when manipulated on smooth paper with a brush. Dilute and undiluted Quink used in combination produced a 3D effect. It appears to be quite soluble when dry if a wash of water is applied over the top. I also like the way the ink settles into the paper in an erratic way. The ink in Crayola children’s markers dissolves in a similar fashion.
 Charcoal and chalks ie. conté and soft pastel - for the ease of producing areas of soft tones quickly and full of depth . When twisted around on side - full of 3D depth and not to forget, lines and tones of varying thickness capable with just one stroke.