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 of tiny circles by increasing the distance between them, thus letting the pattern grow over the sheet.
From the next pattern on, I no longer separated different mark types with white space, but instead set areas of different marks directly next to each other, thus creating
a larger area of different textures. While drawing these patterns, I engaged so much with what I was doing that I felt the different textures were reflections of layers of
my personality, and therefore termed this pattern “soulscape”: a soul landscape.
Page 2: Doodling with various black drawing tools
On this page, I began to let go and covered the whole A2 sheet with all kinds of different patterns, varying size, density, and movements.
I combined dip pen and ink, black felt pen, biro and ball pen, observing the different characteristics of their marks, and how they all produced a different tone of black. None was well-suited to produce larger areas of deep black, nor subtle shadings, but I liked the almost endless variability and the strong black-and-white contrasts they created.
Page 3: Thinking about landscape – charcoal block grade 3
I repeated the doodling task with charcoal, and was inspired by the medium itself to think about landscape, which influenced my mark making such that I created rather organic, less controlled structures. My movements were fast and agitated, and I began working over some areas several times to intensify the structure and contrasts.
I felt that I wasn’t properly addressing the task, and that it asked me to think about something conveying an emotional quality which could have then influenced my mark-making in more subtle ways. I was imagining a wild landscape close to a lake, with long grasses next to the water and some windy weather bending the grasses, possibly inspired by the types of marks the charcoal made. I feel that the drawing conveys a much more agitated scenery than my mind’s image.
Nevertheless, I liked the drawing and enjoyed the task, and decided to have another go with charcoal.
Page 4: Again thinking about landscape – charcoal block grade 1
Again I started by making some some charcoal marks, briefly tried to focus on a subject, but the only thing that came to my mind was landscape. So I produced a second imaginary scenery, this time focusing on creating depth and perspective and combining different types of marks into the drawing.
I thoroughly enjoyed drawing this picture, and stopped to worry about not properly interpreting the task, concentrating instead on observing what I was doing and working on the structures and patterns I created.
I think that I got carried away by the expressiveness of charcoal, rather than being guided by some inner vision or feeling and letting this influence the drawing.
For me, trying to focus on an original idea and its emotional quality, then choosing an appropriate tool and sticking to what I intend to do, might get into conflict with a natural tendency of starting out “somehow”, then letting go and being taken over by the momentum of playing with the drawing medium.
Page 5: Blue landscape
This page was the last in the doodling exercise. I combined different media into a single page, but remained monochrome blue. I employed the same method of starting with some patterns, adding more by variation, and then reworking the whole into an imaginary landscape.
In the meantime, I had worked on the research point for this project and studied a van Gogh drawing, the “Garden of Flowers”. I think this had sensitized me for the variation in textures, and it may be reflected in slightly more varied textures in pages 4 and 5, compared to 3.