Mark Making!

This week I have been very busy creative motifs ready for screen printing. As part of this I have tried to explore relevant forms of mark making. I have used objects that are relevant to the theme of my journey to do this with, including litter and leaves.

The motifs in the picture above were created in a variety of ways. For example, the circles in the bottom right of the picture were inspired by coffee cup stains. 

As I have been concentrating on litter in my journey so far, I wanted to experiment with incorporating it in a slightly less obvious way. I used a left over coffee cup from a morning in the studio dipped in ink to create some different shapes. I quite liked the unevenly distributed splodges of ink aswell which added some character.

The sheet in the bottom left of the picture was created by using leaves in a variety of different ways. Some marks were created from prints of leaves with ink on to highlight the venation. I quite liked the effect of this as it looked like a realistic leaf, however some worked better than others. I liked the simple leaf shapes' effect best as it was easy to see its shape.

Others were drawn with the stalk from a big oak leaf. It acted like a dipping pen and was quite successful, but it worked so well that it just looked like any ink drawing, and the implement didn't add any extra character. I will try a more flimsy stalk in the same way and see if this does create a different look.

Some others were drawn with the leaf itself which with the waxier leaves worked quite nicely, sometimes creating a double line which was a nice effect. However, flimsier leaves didn't create enough of a line, so weren't as effective.

Marks like the ones shown in the sketchbook page below were inspired by some toadstools that I found one day when walking past a nursing home to university. The scale of them really surprised me and I loved the colour and pattern on them. 

The circles on top of the toadstool are represented here, as well as the texture that the tearing of the mushroom created. The other two patterns were from other toadstools which had a less circular pattern on top.

Some of the other patterns that I have created were developments from the studies I did consisting of lines made whilst on the bus and walking. The circles are developments of the coffee stain idea, because I felt like they were too regular, where as these ones have a more hand drawn quality.

The remaining square based patterns are inspired by the fabrics on the bus that I travel on to university every day. One print is made up of brush strokes and the other is composed of prints from corrugated cardboard.

I think some of these motifs will compliment my other drawn motifs really well and the next stage will be to select my favourite ones ready to be developed onto screens.