Mark making #BlogJune 15

On Sunday Penny and I “worked large” at Left Bank Art Gallery. I worked quite slowly for me, adding pencil, paint, and collage layer by layer – working across 8 panels at once. Next adding marks with NeoPastels, oil pastels and Inktense and finally a Posca for white splashes. Between each layer I sat and looked and thought … sometimes I work without stepping away at all, but not this time. I think the extra space around me encouraged a different way of working.

These are cellphone photos in changeable light so not totally representative but good enough for now. The photo without white edges is detail from the main work, which is 50x76cm on Fabriano Artistico paper, so will need flattening a bit.

I’ve always loved mark making; it’s generally how I add my strongest contrasts. I’m excited about these works, which use the colours of Hokitika Gorge but (to me anyway) have a feel of Mana Bay in Patea as a safe harbour.

#cjs20 day 16

Rae Missigman was the #cjs20 artist for day 16. I love Rae’s work and her project was super cute. I know from past experience if I made a tiny book I wouldn’t use it, so opted to practice her style in my art journal instead. I’m pleased I did and know I’ll use those new skills again.

Working on the Hokitika Gorge

Over the weekend I spent some time working on slightly larger paintings inspired by the Hokitika Gorge, following my visit after Easter. These are on Hahnemuhle 300lb watercolour paper using heavy body acrylics and water soluble crayons. I love the granularity of some of the mark making.

Do I know what the shapes mean to me yet? No! But that’s okay. I’m happy to sit with not knowing, because that’s often how my art works. What I do know is that the shapes are embedded in what I’m doing and critical to the works.

 

 

Colour me positive

Every week I participate in the #ColourMePositive19 challenge on Facebook. The admin posts a quote and what you do with it is up to you. I work in a 6×6 journal for these and see them as quick play with colour and mark making – they’re a chance to just loosen up a bit. I was away last weekend so did two last night. I used Tim Holtz stencils, Distress paint, Distress ink for inking the edges of the paper, black and white pens.

Get your gelli on

I love gelli printing, and have taught it in the past. I’m going to be teaching it again this winter, in Greymouth, and am really looking forward to it. I may do some more classes here in South Taranaki too.

In the meantime, I have a joint exhibition booked for the Lysaght Watt Gallery in October with Dimmie Danielwski – I’ll be using some existing works but also making a new body of work based on my visit to the Hokitika Gorge last year.

With those two things in mind, I’ve been doing some gelli printing. I’ll use the captions to explain what these are.

Multiple layers using stencils.

Multiple layers using stencils.

Using a final layer of paint to pull all the leftover texture off the plate.

A more painterly approach, using a brayer and the end of a paint brush.

A more painterly approach, using a brayer and the end of a paint brush.

Single layer print using a gel texture plate. 

Single layer print using a gel texture plate. 

Done using a brayer, and lifting small amounts of paint off at a time. This probably isn’t complete; I’m likely to do more mark-making into it yet. This is very much Hokitika Gorge inspired.

Done using a brayer, and lifting small amounts of paint off at a time. This probably isn’t complete; I’m likely to do more mark-making into it yet. This is very much Hokitika Gorge inspired.

Done using a brayer, and lifting small amounts of paint off at a time. This probably isn’t complete; I’m likely to do more mark-making into it yet. This is very much Hokitika Gorge inspired.

Done using a brayer, and lifting small amounts of paint off at a time. This probably isn’t complete; I’m likely to do more mark-making into it yet. This is very much Hokitika Gorge inspired.

The art in my head

In November I spent a few days in Greymouth and Hokitika, and visited Hokitika Gorge. The shapes and colours have invaded my mind & are appearing in my art.

When I did my final (4th) year at The Learning Connection a few strong marks emerged, including a sort of curved power pole with a cross beam, normally in cream. (I can’t find an image of these works anywhere)

I’m finding those marks have reappeared in a new form – this time as a cross with some tiny hatchmarks near it, a cross and some hatchmarks inside a circle, and a curved pair of parallel lines with a cross beam. The circle / oval are featuring too, and are fairly new to me in terms of consistent use.

I’ve shown below some works from 2008, and some of the new works I’ve been doing, which are gelli prints as a base with mark making in subsequent layers. Looking at these, the connection between the 2008 marks, and today’s marks, isn’t as obvious as I thought it would be … 

(in other news, I think my scanner glass needs a good clean)

2008 work

2008 work

cjs18 day 7 Rae Missigman

I love Rae’s art, having met her through Documented Life etc. I was super excited about trying her technique … and it wouldn’t work for me 😉  I think the crayons I have just weren’t waxy enough to resist properly. That said, I got some fabulous prints and loved some of her ideas for getting interesting marks using a Gelli plate. I have shared my fav, and it’s ghost print, below.

CJS17 with Dina Wakley

I love Dina Wakley’s work, and also her paints – they are a nice consistency and great colours, so I was excited about today’s inspiration.  The project was quite different to what I’d normally do, which is the whole point of Creative Jumpstart. I painted a journal page as the background, then a loose page of marks for using as contrast, then tackled the face on a second loose sheet of paper. I’m not good with faces, so printed one of the internet to use as a guide. Once it was all dry, I tore the face in half and combined with pieces of the mark making paper. I’m pleased with the final result, and will probably try this approach again.

 

Making signatures

I’ve starting making trial signatures for a swap I’m involved in. We each make 11 sets of signatures, and send off by the 20th Sept, and signatures back from a variety of amazing artists. You can see more about it here.

I have been playing with some quite heavy watercolour paper, and have decided it is a bit *too* heavy. The other day I ordered some lovely paper from Gordon Harris, and I’m going to have a play with those tomorrow. I’ve got some mixed media paper, rice paper, watercolour paper and one other – escapes me for the moment just what it was. So far I have stuck with black, white and red, and have been using foam stamps, old credit cards, a spray bottle, stencils and marker pens. The mark making is too dark for the look I want; tomorrow’s lot will be a bit less obvious. Here’s what I have been doing so far:

 

Mark making and working loose

Yep, more in the “working loose and having fun” series. It feels so good to be back to mark making – something we explored extensively in the first year of my art course, must be five years back now. I studied with the Learning Connexion here in New Zealand, extramurally, for four years. In the end I completed an Advanced Diploma of Art & Creativity (Honours). It felt like such an achievement, and really pushed me to learn new things. Anyway…

Having moved away from mark making to all kinds of other processes, I have come full circle. And yet I am not back where I started from. I am back to the same technique, but with a very different end result, and am loving it. I regularly check Katherine Tyrrell’s blog Making a Mark here; she writes in depth about mark making and has great links to blogs of interest.

So expect to see a bit more of this style for now, especially as Katherine Tyrrell’s recent post on working in series really got me thinking about working more consistently on one theme. Mark making – like coming home after a long day at work, it just feels good.