Check and log
How did holding your pen or pencil in a different way affect your drawing?
Different hand helds were helpful for inventing new types of marks, and in exploring the possibilities of each drawing medium.
A typical effect was less control over the effect of the marks I made. In some cases, the marks became rather erratic and zig-zag like, in other cases, they became very soft and conveyed the fluency of movements.
It was also interesting to make marks with the left hand – more difficult, but getting over habitual mark-making by the conscious effort required to control the left hand (for me as a right handed person) created novel effects.
Which drawing tools suited the different mark-making techniques you used?
Drawing with pen and ink was best suited to making clearly defined lines with rather slow and controlled movements. It worked less well when movements were fast and expressive, because the ink ran out quickly, producing greyed, stained lines.
Charcoal was very nice to make deep black marks and strong contrasts, also for subtle shadings. With its tendency to produce irregularly shaped marks and to smudge, it was less well suited for making clearly defined, precise marks and “clean” effects.
I found Pencil (and other graphite-based tools) very versatile for fine-graded, subtle shadings and fine lines, but less well for deep contrasts because the darkest tones are rather grey than black, even with soft graphite. Pencil was also very good for hatching techniques because it permits fast movements without interruptions from running out of pigment (in contrast to dip pen).
Felt pen and fineliner were good for clean, uniterrupted line-based marks, but less well suited for covering entire areas with colour, or for shadings. They dry out quickly on rough paper, so I’d rather use them on very smooth paper.
The pastel tools (soft / oil / wax) were very good for shadings of tone, from very light to very intense. They would certainly be well suited for creating fine blendings of colour. They are less well adapted to draw precisely defined marks, especially not on small drawing areas. It was also easy to create tonality and depth effects simply by varying the pressure when drawing.
The unusual drawing tools were very good for creating novel and surprisiing marks when used with ink.
Did you find that any marks or tools you used matched particular emotions or feelings? Did one convey calm and another frenzy for example?
I felt calmed down almost always when I used ink-based tools, because it required rather slow and controlled movements to make the lines. By contrast, when using charcoal, I regularly got carried away into an almost subconscious mode of drawing, fast and expressive.
I see these feelings reflected in the sketchbook pages where the charcoal drawing became quite dramatic, although even my pen and ink marks tended to become expressive and hasty, rather than straight and orderly.
How did the introduction of colour (soft pastels, Conte crayons) affect your markmaking?
At this point, I didn’t feel like exploring colour effects, and mostly produced monochrome marks in a single different colour, like brown or blue. In the few cases where I used more than one colour (some felt pen and coloured pencil attempts), the type of mark I made became less important and my attention was caught by colour blending effects.
Which of these experiments have you found most interesting and rewarding?
At the beginning, the task to take a large piece of paper and make marks by large gestural strokes had a liberating effect and resulted in abandoning the A4 sketchbook in favour of the A2 sketchbook.
I very much enjoyed drawing with charcoal, because I like the strong contrasts it can produce and its tendency to direct my attention away from fine-grained detail towards shape and tonality. I also like the irregularity of marks it makes.
Also, I found experimenting with unusual drawing tools very rewarding and mind-opening because of the new and unexpected marks that resulted.
Personal reflections on this project
For me this project was about making a start into the course and finding my personal approach to the tasks.
The exercises encouraged me to explore a variety of different media and mark-making techniques in a more conscious way by deliberately doing things differently.
I feel that I have made a nice step forward by overcoming an initially distant attitude to drawing, now feeling engaged and more confident. I started with small movements and tiny marks in an A4 sketchbook, and developed momentum and energy to make larger, expressive marks, covering an A2 sheet with ease.
I especially enjoyed drawing with charcoal and am looking forward to get on with this medium. I would also like to devote some time to explore soft pastel, which is a completely new drawing tool for me. Some more mark-making work with colours would also be good.