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.
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