Mark making, as the name suggest, is where by the artist uses different tools and materials to create patterns and textures, forming a repetitive pattern of artworks. Every artist makes their own unique marks using different medium that consist of its own particular quality of mark. 

Below are some artist that uses mark marking to create an identity to their art works. A similar pattern or style can be seen throughout every piece of work from an individual artist. The tools used and executed styles were often related to the artist in many ways. For example, the up bringing of the artist, a triggering experience that they suffered. Thus through their artworks, they create a mark to show the world their emotions and perception of the world. 

Cai Guo Qiang: a Chinese artist who uses gunpowder on rice paper overlaid with stencil to create his artworks. While living in Japan from 1986 to 1995, he explored the properties of gunpowder in his drawings, which eventually led to the development of his signature explosion paintings in his artworks. His concepts revolves around the cultural and political revolution of the world today. The final art work might look like trees, stars, or explosives. No matter what the imagined scenario is, we can often relate them to environmental decay, mental pressure or distress, or even war.

Julie Mehretu: an artist that uses acrylic paint, pencil, pen and ink to mark-make and overlaid onto large scale paintings. All these layers convey a compression of time, space, and place. Her art works are also inspired by different historical art period, such as Italian futurists and Expressionism. She creates her painting in an abstract way to portray images of cities, architecture, histories, and wars. Through her messy paintings, her works are described as a tornado of visual messy where cities become flattened, like many layers of urban graffiti; a story map with no location. 

Yves Klein: a controversial French artist who uses a single colour, the rich shade of ultramarine that he made his own: International Klein Blue. At the age of nineteen, he looked up at the sky and realised the infinite space surrounding the universe. To depict his vision, he chose to use only this single colour. In Klein monochrome blue paintings, he insisted there was nothing there at all, only “the void.” As such, his abstract artworks invest in the forms with the viewers’ own feelings rather than discovering the artist’s.  Klein believed, only colour offered the path to freedom. At a later time, he began using nude models as “living paintbrushes,” covering them in paint and have them pressed and dragged their bodies across the canvas. These works recorded gestural impressions and the physical energy of the body. 

Emma Kunz: describe herself as an researcher, artist, and a healer. It was said that her artworks provide answers to her questions about life and its spiritual implications. When she was 18 years old, she began to use her abilities of telepathy and prophecy as a healer and gave treatments that were often on the called miracle. Her drawings represent dimension, rhythm and symbol, where each colour and shape had a precise meaning in her understanding of the world. The paintings served her as her answers in her search for enlightenment.

Different types of mark making techniques.

• Automatic Technique 

Automatic techniques are said to be more free-style and abstract, encouraging spontaneous creation, where the outcome may be unpredictable. The techniques used ( like manipulating materials or playing with tools and images ) creates surrealist visuals, just like open windows concealed behind our everyday lies. 

Example of Automatic Technique – Automatic Drawing. Drawing without thinking. Let your hand flow without your mind in control. Avoid conscious control over the image. 

Example of Automatic Technique – Torn Paper collage. Tearing paper into pieces or cutting them up into shapes, then dropping them randomly onto a sheet of paper untouched; fixing them with a glue. 

Example of Automatic Technique – Sand Painting. Using glue, randomly smeared it on to a sheet of paper, then sprinkle sand onto it. Leave it to dry and let the excess sand fall off the paper. Further manipulation with brushes or knives could be use to beautify it. 

• Using Mark Making Tools

Creating different kind of tools with simple everyday objects like cotton bud, feathers, leaves, toothpick, etc. With that, turn them into a pencil-like structure that can easily be used and drawn with our hands. These tools allow us to create repetitive and unique marks based on the object that is used to make the tools. 

• Monoprint 

Monotype printing is considered to be a versatile method that allows considerable freedom in the approach to imagery. Artist can decide to work positively or negatively, using different medium inks, to incorporate other materials or not. 

Mark Making and emotions

(final execution)

To me, emotions are best described in book. Books that create love, anxiousness, tension, and many other emotions that readers could easily relate. They are emotions described in the most literal form, and are able to touch the heart of thousands. After consultation, the lecturer suggested that I would need to find a connection between my final mark making work and books itself. For example, finding a book that I love and expressing the story of emotions from the book onto my each of my mark make. 

Noted that Most of my works are inspired by Cai Guo Qiang’s work. If you take a look at his works, there were a lot of messy grainy, grunge texture created by the gun powder on the slightly brown paper that he used. I am in love with the colour and effects created, and when I look at those brown pages on my books that had been on my shelves for ages, I felt a deep connection between Cai Guo Qiang’s work and my final creation. Therefore, you will notice that some of my mark make consist of grainy and grunge textures, where little brown undertone. 

After consultation, I decided to relate emotions based on the book “50 Shades of Grey”. Although this is a very controversial book, I felt that the emotions written in it truly captures my attention; having butterflies in my stomach. The main characters in the story; Christian Grey and Anastasia first began feeling in love in the sweetest and most romantic way. Happiness did not last long as Anastasia gets to know more about Christian Grey, and went through an emotional wreck. 

The 1st emotion, “desire”, talks about how Christian Grey talks to Anastasia in the most absurd yet alluring way through his words. He would say things like, “i would like to buy that lip” , “if u were mine u wouldn’t be able to sit for a week.” This made Anastasia burn with passion, towards this relationship. 

I wanted to made the mark make feel like words that Christian Grey used on Anastasia. I played with different materials that can create distinctive negative space between each the black ink. This creates an illusion that resemble lines of words made by Christian Grey. 

The mark making is created against pieces of burn paper, which is an automatic technique that I have learnt through my research. It is hard to control the the fire when burning the paper, and the material of the paper will determine how easy or difficult it can be burn and form burnt marks. The paper that I end up using is charcoal paper, as it is thinner than other types of paper. This helps to create more burnt marks onto the paper. All in all, the burnt mark describes Anastasia’s burn passion towards Christian Grey’s words.

The 2nd emotion, “thrill”, talks about how this burning passion Anastasia had for Christian Grey took her emotions on a roll coaster ride. Their dates and his gifts were always out of the norms, and this gave Anastasia thrill and excitement into something she had never experiences before. The mark making created for this particular emotion was by the use of wires, twisting into a circular shape that represents the effect of hypnotise; just like how Anastasia was blinded by Christian Grey’s love. The mark make was then printed on to a black white piece of paper, indicating that Anastasia was just like a blank piece of canvas; she had no clue what kind of guy she had gotten into with. 

The 3rd emotion, “Astonishment”, relates to Anastasia when she found out the “hidden life” of this handsome and attractive young Christian Grey. The BDSM lifestyle of his, and the contract between the dominant and submissive. Here, rattan strings were used to mark make, which was a representation of the “tools” Christian Grey uses on Anastasia, and the countless marks of lines and strokes created describes Anastasia’s shocking emotion after learning the truth. It was like a burst of astonishment, exploding inside her. 

The above photo shows the mark making done on a smooth piece of paper and the bottom photo shows mark making done on a crushed paper.

When the mark make was created, I felt that the strokes were not intense enough. Therefore I tried the mark make onto a crushed paper. With the folds on a crushed paper, it intensify the marks created.

The 4th emotion, “frustration’, talks about the anger Anastasia felt when the couple are are always on the verge of break up and then getting back together again. Anastasia felt anxious and frustrated about not being able to have a “normal” relationship with Christian Grey as she was oblivious about his past; even so, she was unable to resist him. I wanted to express frustration as an intensive struggle that Anastasia felt. 

I first began experimenting by smearing black ink onto a huge piece of tissue paper, and using a tool with a flat smooth surface to rub the ink onto paper. From the image above, you can see that the ink on the paper is quite even. 

I then began experimenting with another method of transferring the ink onto the paper; by using my finger nails. The though of using my fingers came across when I felt that frustration can be express through our hands. For example, crushing of our fist, or grabbing something intensively. With that, I grab and scratch the tissue forcefully as I transfer the ink onto the paper. The result was a satisfying one. The harsh lines created by my fingers were hot-blooded and vigorous, yet the the messy and uneven line was an emotional heartfelt. This was how I could relate to Anastasia’s emotions; or at least, from a woman’s perspective. 

This method of mark making was that applied on a strip of paper formed by pages from a book that had been kept for quite awhile, turning the pages into a brownish tone. The hidden text from the books behind those mark making created, suggested that Anastasia could no longer think rationally, and was blinded by her emotions.

The 5th emotion, “misery”, is an unavoidable emotion that a woman will feel after every break up in a relationship; Anastasia is no exception. For this emotion, I wanted her sadness and misery to be depicted as grainy rain drops. For Anastasia, she wanted to hide her sorrows. She would continue her daily life routine without showing the sadness she was suppressing; its as though she was crying in the rain, no one is able to see her tears. How this mark make was created was by using a wet brush with black ink, rubbing my fingers onto it, allowing small tiny sprinkles of black ink to fall onto the paper. 

With that, I decided to add little touch to the paper, to bring out more of Anastasia’s hidden sadness and misery. Using hot glue, I created dots onto the paper which can only be seen if you look closer to it. The translucent glue gives off the illusion of Anastasia’s concealed emotion. 

The 6th and last emotion, “shock”, occurs when Anastasia began to discover about Christian’s Grey past, the nasty truth that turn him into the man he is today. This emotion is filled with a slight grunge texture, with a smokey grey undertone that represents the sudden surprise and upsetting emotion that Anastasia was experiencing. 

With the use of a plastic wrap to mark make, I created a grunge texture. However, I wanted to create harsh contrast with more darker black patches on the paper. Therefore I experimented with the amount of black ink used, and the amount of force exerted on the plastic wrap and onto the paper. 

After finalising the mark make, I experimented with another automatic technique called the torn paper collage. Where I torn stripes of paper and dropping them randomly onto a sheet of paper, and then fixing them with glue. I left some parts of the left side of the final product untouched (the white/ blank parts of the paper) which suggest that a new chapter of the story is about to unfold in the next book.

Conclusion:

Through this project, the hardest thing for me was to create a theme/story and linking them to the emotions. I know that there are many ways to showcase an emotion, but I started off as a lost child without having any idea of how to interpret them. Luckily through the consultation with my lecturer, I had a clearer vision of how I could use a particular book that I really love to convey the emotions to my viewers. I am able to convey each emotions through my understanding of each character in the book, and express them in the most visual form. Overall, I it has been an enjoyable journey when these ideas starts to come together.