Research on Mark-making

Time to share what I have learnt so far about mark-making. Let’s start with defining what is mark-making! According to Mick Maslen and Jack Southern in their book, The Drawing Projects: An Exploration of The Language of Drawing, marks are defined as “the alphabet that forms the words that make the prose, and are the elements with which the drawing is made” while mark-making as “the broad term used to include all marks that are made visible a a manifestation of applied or gestural energy”. Simply put, mark-making describes the dots, lines, patterns and textures created in an artwork, regardless of the material used to create the mark or the canvas on which the marks are made.

Different marks have different meaning and usages. According to VanseoDesign.com, different lines have different meanings. Below is a quick summary of what is written in their article, “The Meaning of Lines: Developing A Visual Grammar”.

  • Thin Lines – “suggest frailty and convey an elegant quality”
  • Thin Lines – “suggest strength” and “make a statement”
  • Horizontal Lines – “suggest calm and quiet” and “a restful peace”
  • Vertical Lines – “suggest stability, especially when thicker” and “may give the impression of dignity”.
  • Diagonal Lines – Describe as unbalanced and  could “convey action and motion” therefore “create tension and excitement”
  • Curved Lines – “express fluid movement” and “can be calm or dynamic depending on how much they curve”
  • Zigzag Lines – “create excitement and intense movement” as well as “convey confusion and nervousness”

The article also touches on how lines can feel natural or artificial depending on the texture of the line. A straight and perfectly even line feels artificial while a line with slight variations in its thickness feels more natural.

While doing this research, I came across this artwork by a British artist called Bernard Cohen, titled In That Moment.

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/images/work/T/T00/T00800_10.jpg Bernard Cohen In That Moment

His usage of curving lines and bright colours caught my eye and the way that the lines seem to have two tones to it, reminds me of neon lights. According to the Tate.org.uk, this artwork is “a single line which Cohen continued till the whole surface was covered. Changing the colours a random intervals, he painted it one stretch at a time, first by brush, in oil paint, and then by overspraying with an emulsion of oil and egg. This yielded a line with two distinct textures, each immaculate.”. I thought the method that he used to create this artwork is quite interesting. I mean, who would have thought to spray a mixture of oil and egg over oil paint? Or maybe I am just not that familiar with painting techniques hahaha.

This concludes my research on this topic. Off to the next step of self-exploration!

Sources:

Title image is taken from http://alwaysarty.blogspot.sg/2014/03/mark-making.html

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Louisa Lek

*nervous laughter*

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