Exercise 1: Holding Pens and Pencils
When I started out, I wasn’t sure what marks to use; I tried pen and pencil and kept marks the same for both media, so as to compare how they acted. I found that I was quite reluctant to ‘let loose’ and explore mark-making – as most of my drawings in the past had been quite precise and realistic – but after the first page of marks I found it quite liberating to squiggle away and the results were rather interesting. I have a tendency to hold my drawing tools almost at the tip, to a slight angle, so I was hoping that this exercise would help me to learn how to loosen up my control, and to stop me striving for perfection all of the time.
Conté crayon was reasonably enjoyable; I’ve had them in my art box for some time and have never really used them, so I took some pleasure in getting to know them and how they behaved. I found them velvety soft and agreeably smooth, although they did produce some strong lines when pressed harder. I found different tones and shading could be achieved when pressing harder or lighter, making what would appear to be the same mark-making technique appear slightly different in strength and opacity.
Charcoal is a material I have avoided, mostly as I find it smudges easily and spoils otherwise crisp work. But, for the purpose of this exercise, it was interesting to witness its behaviour; when I have used it in the past, I have mostly used a tool (such as a compacted paper stub or finger) to blend it for shading purposes, so seeing it in its unblended form shows an aspect of versatility . Pastels acted similarly to charcoal, in that the circular marks were not consistent when drawn very loosely, resulting in broken lines which created an interesting effect.
When it came to mark-making on a much larger A2 sheet, I seemed to produce the same marks as I did on the smaller sheet! These were mainly sweeping lines or continuous circles/spirals. Although, I did achieve a different effect each time. Using a larger paper size was intimidating, as I wasn’t sure I’d be able to fill the sheet as required, but eventually I found it to be quite satisfying and wasn’t conscious about making ‘mistakes’, as I usually am when working on a larger scale.
Exercise 2: Doodling
I absolutely loved getting stuck in with this exercise! I didn’t think that I’d be able to idly doodle without trying too hard to create an actual image, but I let myself go, as suggested, and was quite surprised with the results. I noticed marks and motifs that I’ve never stumbled across in my own work before, and it got me wondering where I’d been hiding them all! This exercise made me realise that doodling is quite indulgent, and I’ll be looking at filling some more pages – either in my sketchbook or just in a pad by the telephone – to see what interesting forms I come up with. I’d imagine that these kinds of forms are useful when generating ideas for abstract works.
Out of all the media I used, coloured pen was by far my most preferred; the colour was strong, the marks were clear, and the images produced were almost graphic, especially when doodling with a certain subject in mind e.g. here, I let myself be influenced by flowers and trees. I started off fine, but as I doodled more, I found that some images were probably identifiable as flowers or trees. Note to self – practice this some more without letting the theme distract too much from the task at hand!
Exercise 3: Mark-making techniques
Once I had marked up the many 5cm squares in my A3 sketchbook, I thought making a start would be easy; how wrong I was! Something about all those small, empty squares gave me ‘artists block’; not only was I not sure about what materials to use for each of the squares, but I also struggled to think of interesting – and varied – techniques to fill them with. I couldn’t put it off any longer so I got started, and found it became easier with each square…although similar marks cropped up again and again, which I was trying to avoid but clearly couldn’t. All I can think is that certain techniques are ingrained in me, and they rise to the surface in exercises like this and make it difficult for new ones to get noticed! However, the different materials used ensured any similar-looking squares were slightly unique in themselves.
The A2 exercise was equally as satisfying, as working with the softer materials on larger areas means the swatches are clearer. Charcoal cross-hatching is a little scruffy – for me personally – with the lines quickly becoming too thick and inconsistent. The technique that worked best for me here was using the dark pencil charcoal pencil, and pressing hard to create short, multi-directional strokes that are reminiscent of thick animal fur. Although, the pencil was worn almost to the hilt after using this technique! Using conté crayons was the least enjoyable part of this exercise, as they are far too crumbly, with smaller marks merging as the crayon became thicker due to wear.
Exercise 4: Using charcoal
As I mentioned before, charcoal has never been (and probably never will be) my favourite drawing medium, but nevertheless it was good to explore its versatility and discover what marks I could make and how I could apply them to future work. The darker charcoal, for me, yielded the best results in terms of depth of shading and strength of line, and I’d look at using this more when working on the human form maybe, using blending and the putty rubber to model the figure.
Exercise 5: Line and other marks
Again, I seemed to struggle coming up with new marks each time, but I resisted the urge to control what I was drawing and let my materials do the work. I did notice similarities again between some of the marks in the boxes, at which point I did try to consciously decide what to draw a little more. Pencil and pen were most pleasing, as the tips are fine but can be manipulated in various ways to allow for thicker areas of colour or tone. However, charcoal, oil pastel and wax crayons were rather frustrating to use, as they seemed to ‘resist’ application, especially the oil pastels that left rather a lot of residue on the page. These marks were merging together and didn’t seem to offer much in terms of depth or form. No matter how hard I applied them, it didn’t seem to make a marked difference to the strength of the colour.
The pen is my favourite tool, due to its ease of use and almost graphic qualities when producing various marks and strokes; it never seems to loose its consistency or fluidity.
Research Point: A Vincent Van Gogh pen and ink drawing
- Vincent Van Gogh: The Cottage Garden, 1888 – reed pen, quill and ink over graphite on woven paper
It was extremely hard to choose just one of the many extraordinarily beautiful pen and ink drawings produced by Vincent van Gogh to study, however this particular one – The Cottage Garden, 1888 – caught my attention immediately. I was taken aback (in a positive way) by the sheer number of different marks van Gogh had produced, just by using his drawing materials in varying ways. I set about identifying and duplicating some of the marks I found in my sketchbook:
Many of these were straight lines, applied in different directions and of varying lengths. For example, the low gate at the entrance to the garden is made up of vertically placed, long straight lines that overlap slightly; these suggest texture (i.e. wood) and also form, which makes you feel as though a gate is there even though it is purely a collection of lines which make up the overall shape (see below).
I especially liked the three main, dotted areas created in the sky and foreground of the garden; the sky features minute, lightly-applied specks that almost convey a cloudless day, while the bottom left and also bottom right of the drawing employs differing sizes of dots that suggest areas of earth that are perhaps dense (those dots placed closely together), and areas that are looser (the quite stretched, directional and widely-spaced dots). It is such a simple – but extremely clever – technique that tells you a lot about the structure of the garden.
The foliage and flowers are no doubt the main attraction of the piece, and are an exciting expanse of circles, hoops, squiggles and solid spheres to suggest the plethora of plants in the garden. Van Gogh is clever to use marks of various strength so as to break up the different blooms, such as the solid circular forms of darker, denser flowers next to the much larger-petaled, lighter ones (see below).
I am truly astounded by what I have seen in this one drawing, and will look at van Gogh’s work further when I have the opportunity. I never thought it would be possible to produce such exquisite work with simply some ink and different marks that suggest form and shape as opposed to actually realistically drawing them. After studying this piece, I aim to try and produce some similar drawings, possibly introducing colour to see how that affects the outcome.
Conclusion
I can honestly say this is the first project of this kind that I have ever attempted, where I have been encouraged to take up all manner of drawing materials and experiment with so many different mark-making techniques. My mind has been broadened as to what I can achieve with my materials, and has given me ideas for future work – and also made me aware of those materials that I am or am not so fond of.
Pen, either ballpoint or coloured, has emerged triumphant in this exercise as my preferred tool – mainly due to its consistency – with graphite pencil a close second. I believe that given time, with more practice, some of the other materials – such as charcoal – will gradually grow on me, and I’ll be actively trying not to avoid them in future, especially as they are capable of producing beautifully blended tones.
Holding my pen or pencil in a different way was rather strange, and I realised how difficult it was to train yourself to draw with the instrument in a different position. I don’t believe that dangling my pen or pencil will even yield any good results for me, but then I had to experiment with this technique initially to establish that.
If I am striving for clean, crisp and consistent marks, I will always reach for a pen or sharp graphite pencil. However, for softer and more subtle shading and modelling of quite solid structures, I will be employing charcoal a lot more often.
I found that when I introduced colour to my mark-making, I somehow managed to create much more interesting marks, as though the colour had a positive effect on my creativity and imagination in some way. I have a love of colour, and colour mixing – which will probably be evident as the course goes on – so it is only natural, I suppose, that my colour swatches were much more enjoyable to do.
Overall, my most enjoyed part of this project was the doodling; it is something I’ve never really participated in, despite being artistic. I have a tendency to want to produce tight, realistic drawings so maybe it is my controlling nature that has stopped me from doodling away, a fear of making marks that weren’t legible or didn’t translate into anything anyone understood. Therefore, being given ‘permission’, as such, to let my imagination – and materials – take over was extremely fulfilling and I’m glad to have had the opportunity to let those particular marks come out onto the page.
My BA (Hons) Creative Arts Journey with the OCA 