Mark-making Research

————————————– WEEK 1 ————————————-

What is mark-making? In a simple way it’s using tools and ink to make marks on paper, no matter what kind of marks they are. It’s like playing with stamps when I was a kid. But for this assignment we are not just making pattern for fun, what we need to know is trying to understand the impression and feeling those patterns shown. In another word, we need to try to “talk” with the marks, learn their language and use it to express different kinds of emotions.

This is too abstract so I decide to start with mark-making reference first. I have seen the work of the reference artists that the PDF has provided. The different kinds of tools and techniques they used, like pencil, smoke, water marbling, really open up my mind.

There are two artwork that inspired me most.

http://hyperallergic.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/DSC09137.jpg

This art piece is named “Scribbles”, done by Sol LeWitt in 2005. The inspiration I get from this work is that mark-making is not only about mark and texture, I can use a simple mark as an element and duplicate it to form the pattern I want, even it’s a simple scratch or line, when a lot of them comes together they can form a wave or something else.

Cai Guo-Qiang – Drawing with Gunpowder – The Artist’s Studio – MOCAtv https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-QIj7E6CR8

After watching the gunpowder drawing by Cai Guo-Qiang, I realised that for the mark making is not just use the tools to draw out the thing, I can also use cardboard to cut the shape first, covered the place that I want to leave it blank and use tools to fill in the shape. It’s like you using filling function in Photoshop, u create the graphic you want then choose a texture to fill in the design.

And I have also look through Pinterest to look for nice mark-making pictures.

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/97/3d/1b/973d1bec16290863f2b1028da209ce97.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/236x/6e/5a/f0/6e5af03796acecf5696093c9017ead17.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/564x/4e/3a/51/4e3a51254361edde78b2f029962e5545.jpg

 

—————————————WEEK 2——————————————-

During this week I focus on line and line emotion study. I found a very useful article, the link is below.

Mood Lines: Setting the Tone of Your Design

By Rikard, Jan 11, 2015

http://zevendesign.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/moods1.png

The most useful one is this chart which shows the emotions and meaning of a varies of different kinds of line.

For example, the curve line is more soften, and link to feminine; horizontal straight line means calm and satisfied, but if you slant it to a degree it has energy inside, and when it stands up, which means become a vertical line, it means dramatic and aspiring.

In the article it also use many movie poster as example, so we can have a visual understanding of the line languages.

 

And this week I have finalise the six emotion I’m going to work on, they are Caring, Joy, Surprise, Anger, Loneliness and nervousness. To have a better understanding of these emotion, I look up for the definition of each word.

Caring – displaying kindness and concern for others.

Joy – a feeling of great pleasure and happiness.

Surprise – an unexpected or astonishing event, fact, etc.

Anger – a strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility.

Loneliness – sadness because one has no friends or company.

Nervous – easily agitated or alarmed.

The definitions are abstract, what I’m going to do is to link the emotions with my own experience, what’s the first thing I think of when people talk about this word? In this way I can have a better idea of how to express the emotion through my work. And I have googled some graphic for the things that related to each emotion, to help me generate the ideas.

http://naturalgasnow.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/bubble-burst_large.jpg
Manga from Junji Itou
http://hyperallergic.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/DSC09137.jpg

————————————– WEEK 3 ———————————————

This week I spend most time on finishing the final work, for research part I focus more on the techniques I need for my mark-making work. And keep on looking for new inspirations as well.

http://www.auntannie.com/SurfaceDesign/BubblePrint/

How to Make Bubble Printed Paper – Surface Design Technique – Aunt Annie’s Craft