Mark Making

I've taken a few classes that focus primarily on making marks on paper using unusual & traditional tools to get interesting results. In the picture above are a group of my tools and some of the marks made. Included are stimudent taped to a tongue depressor, a tracing wheel used in sewing, a hand made "folded pen" on the far left, a couple other calligraphy nibs, a rubber tipped "shaper", a poppy seed head & a sea shell not seen. 

                                         This is my favorite nib, nick named the "blue pumpkin".

                                                              a brass parallel pen below

                                                                     automatic pens

Resists can be used to preserve the white paper or other surface underneath. Paste paper is a bit like finger painting for grown ups.  The types of marks and designs are almost limitless. Below are a few pieces made recently when a friend & I had a play day set aside to experiment with paste paper.

Water color can be used for striking results in calligraphy pens. This was a exercise where you add more & more water color to a small amount of water and increase the size of letter forms with each line to create a full page background. The writing is a stream of consciousness that is not meant to be legible.

Letting you inner child and it's imagination and not allowing the inner critic a voice in the process are helpful in playing with marks. A valuable suggestion from one instructor, Laurie Doctor, was to work on three pieces at once then assign one to ruin. It was amazing how spectacular the ones we tried to ruin turned out.