Using Marks to create surface textures

Firstly I had to find some images that were rich in surface textures to work from. These could be from the internet, magazines, photos, anything really. I chose 3 very different works of art from 3 very different (in my opinion) artists.

The first picture was 'The Kiss' by Gustav Klimpt - and I used the frame around the area of the hand resting on the head of the female subject. The main reason for this, was the small circle shapes, the patterns and the flowers surrounding her head. I already had in mind some methods for putting colour and shape to the paper.

The orange circles with the smaller circles inside them, were the first thing that came to mind when I was looking for various ways to make those marks. I used small round clay cutters which I had already used in a previous making mark exercise for 'Happy' to create bubbles. The inner filled circle was another print effect of a small flat round ring setting from a jewellery making kit and the blue flowers from a piece of scrunched paper. I liked using 'The Kiss' because the colours appealed to me and seemed to give me more inspiration with regards to the shapes.

The next picture was Calla Lillies by Georgia O'Keeffe. I love the purity of this painting. The clear and bright white against the bright sunburst of the orange and yellow but with a darkness to the inside of the flower.

The first attempt was with paint and a palette knife, easy enough to portray the swoop and curve of the petals. With the texture of the paint, it almost didn't need the extra black paint to highlight the petals. I should have left that out, from a certain light, the texture of the paint did a good enough job of that. My favourite interpretation was the image to the bottom left of the photo above. This was all about using the lines to outline the whole flower but to have some lines closer than others to signify the darker shading or the colours.

Exercise 2

This was a similar exercise but it involved using real objects in my home or garden. I took a couple of photos of our conservatory furniture (this is bamboo type wood) and some photos of plants in our garden. I really enjoyed this much more than I thought I would and I've never considered doing this before, in relation to my sewing.

The first photo was of a leaf from our courgette plant, the leaves have been infested with some kind of tunneler worm/larvae - pretty to look at and use for inspiration but not good for my courgettes! The first image was with water colours. I thought that this put across the wishy washy texture of the leaf but it was with the neat acrylic paint that I tried to recreate the tunneler effect. I didn't feel as happy about this as I thought I would. But it did give me the idea to use some embroidery thread (the 6 threads skeins) and stick this to the page. I didn't feel that it needed the colour of the leaf beneath it. To me, the simple swirls of the cotton gave me the visual and physical textures that I needed. It seem to capture the texture better than any other of my methods.

The bamboo furniture was an easier base to work from. Not only in terms of using it to do 'rubbings' but also in relation to the patterns themselves. It became a weave in various ways. When I used the other piece of furniture, made from the same materials but in a different style, I felt like I  was seeing more things but somehow felt as if I was losing my way a little. I could see plaits but it was harder to convey those than I thought it would be.

The final object/image that I used was from another plant in my garden.

Quite a spiky plant and so the obvious choices were going to be sharp and pointy. But my favourite interpretation of this was the one above the photograph in the image above. It's quite dusty here in Qatar sometimes (sand and construction and wind.......) but our plants are watered every day and the combination is usually the little dried spots of dusty water that you should be able to see on the leaves. I really enjoyed using the vivid greens and purples but dotting the little droplets around.

These exercises have really changed the way I look at everything and how I try to interpret them now.

Making Marks in an expressive way - Exercise 1

I don't think I'm too bad at drawing. I'm no expert but it's usually obvious what I'm trying to draw. It was really difficult putting pencil to paper this time. Much harder than I expected it to be. If I actually thought about creating an image to convey 'happy', it's usually a smiley face or if the word is 'fast', well, it would be a car or a rocket ship. But this was (or so it seemed to me) about using pencil strokes on paper to try to convey the meaning of the word.

Given a choice of descriptive words to start me off and the first hour dragged. I think I expected to be able to just whip up a couple of images and was disappointed in myself for not being able to do that. Some words were definitely easier to draw. Sharp - easy, being someone who loves to sew, sharp to me, means pricked thumbs on a regular basis, sharp sharp needles! Happy was smiles, birds over water. Bumpy was a cobble stone path or pebbles on a beach.

I really struggled with slow. I tried drawing slowly and still couldn't get it. No one would look at those small blocks of pencil work, knowing that I had drawn slowly. I think I was trying to convey unmoving and still rather than slow. It was also difficult to show 'sad' as well. I've been sad and I tried to get some of the blackness across but also the criss-crossing of the marks to show some confusion which is often what I feel when I'm sad.

I attempted this again to see if any there were any other images floating around and I actually felt more confident with this attempt.

Exercise 2 involved using different types of pencils and use of pressure to give three different areas of tone. Going from light to dark and obviously the one in between. I really enjoyed doing this. Getting hold of supplies in Qatar can be anything from brilliant to awful so I was restricted to using the few 'B' types and a graphite pencil that I already had. I'm fully intending to do this again with some more grades and types, when I've been shopping again.

Exercise 3 - I had a blast! This was 2 hours of unadulterated fun, painting and stamping and colouring and smudging. Using various types of paper, a mix of chalks, pencils, paints and felt tip pens - watching the different effects of each combination. I can't remember having so much fun. It has definitely given me of an appreciation for experimentation. But I also found that once I could introduce colour and texture to my mark making, I was more able to try to convey what the words meant. At least to me.

I used standard drawing paper and a variety of pencils, pastels, chalks and paints. I've worked with acrylic paints before and like how they appear when very little water is used (or no water is used at all). I also took great pleasure in rooting through old paper bags, ripping the slightly smoother brown paper from a corrugated box. I find myself looking at everything now, with a new eye. Objects that I before, would have taken at face value, a paper bag that the deli put my cheese in or the box that we brought the bottles of wine back from the booze barn in, I now look at and can feel my brain ticking over and analysing them. Wondering what they feel like, trying to imagine what chalks would like on them.

It's very liberating as well, using different items to make the marks, scrunched up paper dipped in acrylics or a palette knive, an unravelled skein of embroidery thread (thanks Henry - our rescue dog) or the round lid from a paint tube.

Another benefit for me, was seeing the effect of my movements on the materials used, affected the outcome. Using a pastel pencil on a scrap of linen, caused the fabric to move, altering the line of the pastel. I knew that water based materials or a felt tip pen on kitchen towel would cause the colour to spread, it's size all depending on the amount of water used or the length of time I left the pen tip in contact. But these were all things I had forgotten.

The act of turning the colours and textures used, into the 'words' came a lot easier to me this time. Sensuous to me, means soft and pink or flesh toned, the curves of a body I suppose. Blue bubbles definitely convey happiness, memories of childhood and running around the garden with washing up liquid and water in a small plastic tube. I had, I think, the greatest success trying to make the marks of Sad or Fast.

Fast - well, that means speed, quickly, a blur fading to almost nothing. I also imagine lines, I don't know if that comes from a line on the road or the line of an airplane's vapour trail in the sky. Using the acrylics, straight from the tube, enabled me to give the texture and appearance of the line as I used a palette knife to flick across the paper. When it was dry, I liked being able to touch this as well. If I closed my eyes, did it convey 'fast'?

Sad or Sadness to me, has always meant a blackness, a scramble of emotions. I used the tangled skein of embroidery thread, dipped in black acrylic and then stamped onto the paper. Then, using the same thread (still with black paint on it) I dipped it into the scarlet. This was to show the anger that can sometimes be one of the emotions that are in the mix.

I think I mentioned earlier on, that 'Sharp' meant pain, too many needle injuries from embroidery or cross stitch. So red was always going to be the colour for that. Again, I was attracted to the acrylics and the pointed palette knife this time.

I have really enjoyed exercise 3. This has definitely opened my eyes to the difference that can be made, simply by the choice of paper/fabric and by the choice of mediums used. I was able to lose myself in this exercise for several hours but rather than feel that I had just wasted a few hours messing around with paints and pencil, I came away feeling that I had made powerful progress in my way of seeing things.

You can see all the images in larger scale on my flickr page