Marks, lines, smudges and smears, oh my!

While thinking about mark making as a topic for this post, I began without realizing it, scribbling thoughts of lions, tigers and bears, except it came out marks, lines, smudges and smears. 

A chant from the 1939 film ‘The Wizard of Oz’ had popped into my head. It’s the scene where Dorothy, having met the Scarecrow and Tin Man proceed down the Yellow Brick Road through the dark forest. Frightened by what they might meet ahead, they mutter “lions, tigers and bears, oh my!” only to be surprised by a lion, albeit cowardly!  Why was I thinking of this? Well it reminded me that I felt a bit uneasy about writing. I do feel more comfortable with a paintbrush, visually making images rather than composing descriptive text.  Intriguingly this popular adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s children’s novel ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, unfolds as a story about the characters expressing regrets about not having the abilities to fulfil their desires, not realizing they already have the qualities they believe they lack. 

When people know I am an artist, I often hear them express their regrets of not being artistic and I have often wondered why there is such a feeling of inadequacy. Maybe it is similar to the ‘Oz’ characters, they believe they don’t have any ability to draw or paint because they feel they lack creative potential. Do they think they need to negotiate a Yellow Brick Road to see a Wizard or is it simply finding the key to what they already have?  

“Every human being is an artist...” was famously declared by the enigmatic artist Joseph Beuys, an influential figure in European avant-garde art during the 1970’s and 1980’s. It is difficult to consider Beuys words without mentioning how controversial and passionate this artist was about delivering his message on “creative potential”, possibly a candidate in the artistic wizard category considering his mantra. Beuys believed that creativity should not be seen as the special realm of the artist but that everyone should apply creative thinking to whatever they are doing, claiming creativity could role shape politics and society or as he termed it “social sculpture”, an Emerald City? 

Putting aside the enigmatic personality and the rhetoric, Beuys is a case in point of an artist who developed his creative potential through his drawing practice. He saw his mark making as an act of showing his thoughts, promoting drawing as “the form of the thought, the changing point from the invisible powers to the visible thing....”  He later said that the years spent making his drawings, numbering thousands, unlocked his creativeness for his art making.

As I look at my drawings, I remember the trepidation I felt at starting a new sketchbook as an art student and that ‘oh my’ sigh at the first drag of the pencil as I wondered how I was going to fill page after page with creative ideas. It is daunting, taking those ‘invisible powers’ and changing them into something visual. The decision is whether you daydream like Dorothy as to what is ‘over the rainbow’ and wonder ‘why can’t I’ or dare to dream and make the dream come true.

I found marks, lines, smudges and smears unlock the first doors into learning to draw and paint, by simply experimenting with different tools and materials I created a way to overcome that awkward feeling. It allowed me to gently ease into creative thinking and encouraged me further as I became less self-conscious. I now regularly use mark making as a warm up exercise and the bonus is the self- assurance gained for observational studies. But as in all things, it’s about practice, making small steps in a bid to take longer strides, making a personal discovery about what can be achieved. Dorothy eventually realized that she always had that ‘inner spark’ to make it home and I, the words to write this blog. So follow the pencil lead road and discover your creativity.         ©MRMansell

Making marks on a surface defines drawing but can it be said of painting?

Anything that makes a mark and any surface that accepts it underpins the basics of drawing but thinking more it could also be said of painting. There’s a quote that I noted down from the French artist Henri Matisse that helped me put some clarification on the matter.

For me, my mark making is the initial act of a creative thought, the first marks are my artistic intentions that I will eventually translate into brush strokes. In other words my drawing is my shorthand to painting, the fulfilment of my original observations. So in some respects my drawings are paintings with reduced means however drawing is a more direct and economic way to express an idea or feeling in pictorial terms, painting as Matisse puts it has more to it. So yes, painting does have more contemplation assigned to it as broadly speaking paintings are considered ‘finished’ works. Technically the gap does widen here between the two mediums as those ‘finished’ painted pictures take time and a degree of know-how a must for any successful endeavour.

With drawing, the only requirement is one simple mark making tool and a plain surface. That impulsive physical action to pull or drag a pen or pencil across paper unfolds expressive marks which makes visible any artistic thought. The writer and critic John Berger in his book entitled “Permanent Red” noted that for the artist “drawing is discovery” and that every mark made on paper is a stepping stone from which you proceed to the next until you have crossed the subject like a river and you look back to see where you have come from.  With painting the stepping stones are longer and the river wider with the view much more public. In a way drawing relates to my own needs as an artist and it is a personal discovery. In my method of working, I find that my preliminary studies help me discover ways of seeing subject matter and how to convey my ideas into paint.

 Drawing is essentially about mark making and it’s all about variation in pressure and weight, giving every mark character and quality. Experimentation promotes knowledge to what works, what does and what needs more practice. I read somewhere that the sooner you make your first five thousand mistakes, the sooner you will be able to correct them. Each mark brings you closer to expressing the subject matter but this for me can be said of painting.  I need only to refer to a very good tutor, Vincent Van Gogh. For him drawing was the “root of everything” and you can see this in his unique graphic style and the expressive nature of his mark making. I suggest taking a look at Vincent’s drawing 

“Wheat Field withCypresses” 1889 and then to the painted canvas of the same name displayed at the National Gallery in London.  The works are simply inspirational showing an artist mapping his artistic thoughts and jumping into a flow of creativity, exploring and extending his approach by making marks to test the sweep of the brushstroke. You can’t help but feel that here is where drawing and painting simply connect as one. 

Van Gogh used drawing as an inextricable part of developing more as a painter, something which I am following upon.  It doesn’t matter how much artistic experience we have, with simply making marks on a surface, it opens the mind to many more possibilities. Make your mark today, rediscover creativity through drawing, I am.

Recommended Read:  for both artist and those who want to discover drawing

 “The Confident Creative: Drawing to free the hand and mind” by Cat Bennett, Findhorn Press, 2010

Just a little more..... Today's post is dedicated to my Welsh background and family "Dydd Dewi Sant Hapus' 

(Happy St David's Day) 

Here is my little 'Ddraig Goch' (Red Dragon) painted just with fingers and a rag.

So a 'Dioch yn fawr' (thank you) for reading my art blog. 'Hwyl' (Goodbye) till the next post.