Mark Making Workshop

For class this week, we had a mark making workshop which introduced us to the basics of creating our own marks using whatever items we brought from home.

For myself, I brought a variety of items:

1. Cooked Cup Noodles

The noodles were an interesting item to experiment with despite it being somewhat harder to work with. It had an oily texture when I held it in my hand as well as the noodles sticking to the paper as I applied it with ink.

Here were the results it produced:

It created this sort of murky grey & hazy texture which looked rather interesting to me.

2. Foam wrap of fruits in supermarkets

Next, I tried using the foam wrap you would normally see used for fruits in supermarkets. The results was what I would expect, perhaps experimenting with the strokes would create a different mark.

3. Uncooked ramen noodles

I was curious to see what kind of results the uncooked noodles would create as compared to the cooked noodles.

I first tried dipping the ends in ink & brushing over the paper, it created interesting lines. However due to the fragility of the noodles, it broke easily & created quite a mess around.

Since the noodles broke, I tried using the broken bits & experimented other methods of creating the marks. Such as pressing the paper over the lino cut texture.

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Once again, as the noodles were very fragile, it broke easily under pressure & left me with white patches on black ink. I realised I could have replaced the noodles with other materials such as satay sticks for example to create a similar effect. As the satay sticks are much sturdier, it would leave less of a mess but allowing me to achieve similar results.

4. Drip Painting (Jackson Pollock inspired):

Last but not least, I was inspired by the works of Jackson Pollock & his signature drip painting style. It resulted into something a bit more abstract, perhaps experimenting with more colours (white or grey) would give the result a more interesting effect.

That’s all for this week & I will be back with more experimentation & trying out various methods for mark making!

Mark Making Artist Research

Prior to beginning on our first project which is to create six lines using a technique known as mark making. We were tasked to conduct research on various artists whose work would serve as inspiration for us when we embark on our own projects.

From there, I selected 3 artists whose work, style, attitude & beliefs resonated deeply with me & the kind of work I would like to create for this project. The 3 were, Cai Guo-qiang, Hilma Af Klint & Sol LeWitt.