Eric Ravilous, Vase of Flowers in a garden Eric Ravilious (1903-1942) was an English painter, designer, book illustrator and wood engraver. He became an official war artist in World War II and was killed while accompanying a Royal Air Force air sea rescue mission. He became one of the best known artists in the 1930s. […]
Category Archives: Making marks
Research point: Eric Ravilious
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Check and log: Making marks
Check and log How did holding your pen or pencil in a different way affect your drawing? Different hand helds were helpful for inventing new types of marks, and in exploring the possibilities of each drawing medium. A typical effect was less control over the effect of the marks I made. In some cases, the […]
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Trying new media
I enjoyed searching for new drawing tools, because it made me look in a novel way at my household items – not interested in their usual function, but whether they could be used as a drawing tool. I selected what I had from those suggested (wooden stick, bamboo stick) and some more out of curiosity […]
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Line and other marks
Again I was a bit confused by instructions and not sure whether the focus was on varying lines or mark making in general. I decided to do a bit of both on interpreted this exercise as trying out the variability of lines for making marks in different media. Page 1: HB pencil The first page […]
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Using charcoal
More and more I realized that I like charcoal a lot. I’m attracted by the irregularity of the marks, which I find inspiring. I did use eraser in some squares to make some highlights, but did not like the idea to take bread instead of putty rubber, not wanting to waste food. Page 1: Thick […]
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Mark-making techniques
This exercise focused on techniques like hatching and stippling to create shades of tone from light to dark, to be explored with lots of different media. It also asked to work out shapes and form. The instructions confused me, because initially I did not know what I was expected to do – exploring mark-making ok, […]
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Research point: Vincent van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh, The Flower Garden (1888) I chose this drawing as an example because I liked the garden topic and admired the variety of textures for the plants that van Gogh had created. Remarkably, the walls of the house are the lightest area of the drawing, without any marks. Every other space on the […]
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Doodling
This exercise was about trying out different media, inventing new marks and becoming involved with what I was doing. Page 1: Doodling with a HB pencil Initially I made neatly separated areas with different mark-making patterns, searching for continuous variation. An important change occured when I began to dissolve the boundaries of a pattern consisting […]
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More artists: Cy Twombly
I later showed the mark-making sketches to a friend who is a painter, and when he saw the drawings for Holding pens and pencils he told me that my experiments reminded him of the works by Cy Twombly. I learned that Twombly (1928-2011) had been a leading figure in abstract expressionism, well known for his […]
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Holding pens and pencils
This exercise was about trying out different ways to hold pen and pencil and how this affects the marks that are made. It was also about making different types of movements, varying drawing pressure and exploring a variety of different drawing tools. I filled seven sketchbook pages for this exercise, because there was so much […]
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