Sketchbook Pages - Mark making and textural studies (May 2012)

Assignment 1: Project 1: Making Marks

Review: May 6^th 2012

·         Have you ever thought about drawing in this way before?

·         Were you able to be inventive about the range of marks you made?

·         Did you explore a wide range of media?

·         Are you pleased with what you’ve done?  Will it help you to approach drawing more confidently?

·         What exercise did you most enjoy?  Why?

·         Which media did you most enjoy working with? Why?

·         What other forms of mark-making could you try?

·         How will these exercises enrich your textile work in the future?

Obviously, having started but not completed this course a few years ago, I had done these mark-making exercises before.  I have also experienced this way of working on other courses.  I have always found it quite challenging to find different ways to make marks in response to words but feel that I am growing in confidence, especially when recording textures.  When I compare the exercises completed now to those I did before, many of the marks seem bolder and more purposeful. 

I have tried to make a variety of marks with different materials but when I look back on the work I have done for this project, I notice that I have tended to reproduce very similar marks – straight lines, jagged points and swirls seem to come up quite frequently!  This is an area that I need to continue to practise and research.

I feel that I explored a fairly wide variety of media but was restricted to what I had around the house due to financial constraints.  Time was also a factor.  I spent about 20 hours on this project and feel that it is one that is never-ending! The possibilities of mark making on different surfaces with different media seem to be limitless!  Looking through my work I feel that I could have explored mark making with found materials – sticks, knives, forks, etc in more detail and may work on this in my sketchbook.  I also need to practise using mixed media techniques as well as making marks on a wider range of surfaces.

On the whole I am quite pleased with the work produced for this project although when I look at it I can see that it is quite restrained!  I enjoy working in small scale and including detail – particularly using fine black pens or a 2B pencil.  I have enjoyed working with oil and soft pastels, however, and their effects have been a revelation!  I think that, as well as continuing to work in ways I enjoy, I need to try to work in a freer, more spontaneous, and possibly more abstract way so that I can develop a wider range of skills.

I particularly enjoyed the textural exercises despite finding it difficult to accurately record textures!  I found it difficult to ignore the images and just focus on the texture.  This is where I drew inspiration from the previous exercises and thought of words to describe the texture of each image.  This was very useful in re-creating the required textures.

As a result of these exercises I spent some time making textural studies in my sketchbook.  Although I often drew the whole object, I tried to focus on the texture when choosing and using different media to re-create it.  

I think that these exercises will support my textile work as the marks I have made with pencils and other drawing media could all be re-created with different types of stitch, fabric and a variety of textile techniques. This is possibly a question that I need to come back to at the end of each assignment during this course!