I raced back from North Norfolk yesterday to set up the exhibition with Clive Barnett at Art Van Go in Knebworth, Hertfordshire. I am delighted to be showing some new work alongside Clive, who shares my interest in mark-making.
The exhibition runs from 2 to 19 September.
Secondly, I was honoured when Maggie Grey asked me to write an article for Workshop on the Web about my daily mark-making practice. This has now been published in September's edition (subscription needed).
In the studio, I am still stitching. I took some finished pieces to the framers this morning and am now finishing off some smaller ones that I think I will show unframed. This is all for the exhibition with Clive Barnett at Art Van Go that starts 2 September. I've pinned everything up on the studio wall to decide what goes in ... and what doesn't - and to choose titles for the ones still unnamed. It is all hard work - and there's lots of associated admin, none of which makes for a particularly interesting blog post.
However, I have not shared the details of the last round of mark-making / drawing, so ...
This was the fourth round of forty days of daily mark-making. In fact it was forty-two days and finished at the end of July. I've only just got round to sorting through the photos. This time I had decided it would be interesting to work on loose sheets of paper, which is what I would normally prefer to do anyway. But, having worked in a sketchbook for the previous 120 days plus, I found it surprisingly difficult to get going. Despite the increased freedom, for the first week or so I could only manage my minimum one page a day.
There's something about working in these blocs of forty days - each develops its own rhythm or character. And each time, there's been a period of adjustment at the beginning - uncertainty about what to do, having to find new strategies for working. And at the end, I have sometimes felt that it was becoming predictable, routine, that I was just repeating myself. It's curious and I wonder whether it would be the same if I had committed to a continuous practice rather than a time-limited one.
I value activities that put me in a position where I don't quite know what I'm doing. So this period of adjustment each time is not a bad thing in my view. The difficulty is a sign that I'm having to find my way and learn something afresh. I actually prefer this to feeling that it is too easy, automatic and I am not having to think.
The value of this practice (for me, I don't know about others) is the engagement with the process and the materials. This is more important than the quality of whatever results. I think what I'm looking for is the development: changes in the kind of marks, the ways of organising them, finding different methods for making them, effects I haven't seen before.
So, what happened in the end, once I got through this awkward adjustment phase, was that I found myself alternating between two contrasting strategies. The first was that I took full advantage of the loose sheet to manipulate the page: folding, crumpling, rubbing, scratching and piercing the surface. It was more of a collage approach - and sometimes I layered two pages together, making holes in one so you could see through to the next. It was quite intensive and I usually worked on no more than two pages at a time or even worked into a page over two days.
The second strategy was to do a series of ten (or more) pages, working quite quickly with the same media (mostly ink) and a similar theme. This led to series of very similar looking pages but I found it very informative. It was an excellent way of trying different combinations or layers of marks - variations on a theme.
Since the end of this fourth round, I have accidentally taken a break. Accidentally, because I didn't actually decide to do so in advance. The immediate cause was first, that I went away for a few days; second, that I hadn't prepared either paper or sketchbook for the next round, which just proves how important it is to do this if I want to keep going, in my case at least. The secondary cause is that I'm in two minds what to do next with this. I do feel that my mark-making is becoming a little too repetitive for my taste. I could just carry on and work with that, keep pushing things on until there's a breakthrough. But I'm also thinking it might be valuable to spend some time on more observational drawing to train myself to make new marks / combinations of marks. But then that would be a decisive shift towards drawing rather than mark-making ...
So, while I'm working on finishing the final pieces for exhibition, I'm allowing myself a break to figure out which approach would serve me best. ... And if I fail to make up my mind, I shall just start anyway and see what happens ... once this exhibition is up and running that is.
Forty days of mark-making, round three. Although in fact I am on day 43, because I have several pages left in the sketchbook and want to fill it. This time I have focused on ways of changing the surface. Rounds one and two were dominated by drawn marks - additive marks. I wanted to make myself think about the surface itself more and experiment with subtractive marks and texture. Scratching, creasing, rubbing, crumpling, piercing, sanding, combinations of different media ... any way of creating visual or actual texture.
There have been some really bad pages - experiments that didn't work ... and couldn't be rescued. When I was tired sometimes all I could manage was a wash of ink over some wax crayon. But there have also been plenty of good or interesting pages. Some are impossible to photograph - all the camera can see is a plain, dark page, not the subtle texture or fragile marks. So the pages pictured here are just the ones that do photograph well.
I got excited about the possibilities of gluing different kinds of paper to the surface and painting over it. Different papers take the ink in different ways, just as different fibres react differently to dye. There were lots of ways to make interesting edges. I gathered up tissue papers, rice paper, pattern paper, packing paper, tracing paper, handmade papers, book pages and played around. I also played with masking tape and double-sided tape, applying tissue paper or rubbing graphite or crayon over the top.
The sketchbook is another handmade one with different kinds of paper in it. So every now and then I would turn the page to be faced with something challenging. Tracing paper. Or thin photocopy paper. I eventually learned to exploit their tendency to cockle and shrink when wet rather than fight it. But there were other types of paper I started to look forward to, such as a fine lokta paper that could be rubbed into holes when it was wet.
Dealing with the restrictions of working in a book has been part of the practice. Although I think it will be interesting to repeat this with loose sheets of paper. That would increase the range of things I could try too. I also still like the restriction of forty days. It is useful to have a focus. Whenever I find myself reverting to my default marks, I bring myself back to the idea of changing the surface in some way.
Although I consider this a mark-making practice, many pages are effectively drawings. I've wondered whether I should stop myself, concentrate more upon just making the marks. It is plain, looking back, that I have little interest in pattern making or repeating marks. In fact I am more often looking for ways to disrupt patterns or create interesting negative space. I also notice that I'm as interested in the surface and the impact this has on the look and feel of the marks. I think the important thing is to keep this exercise open and exploratory. Which means allowing myself to experiment with other design elements, if that is what draws my attention.
So immediately after I finished the first forty days of mark-making, I started a second. And since by the end of the first I was working almost exclusively with conté crayon, I decided to switch to ink - my favourite wet medium. I chose another home-made sketchbook - a larger one this time (8 inches square) but, like the first, filled with a mixture of different types of paper. Same principle as before - a minimum of one page a day, any mark. And so I began again.
Then ... frustration! Nothing I did seemed to work out. After becoming really comfortable with the conté crayon all I seemed to get now were ugly, splodgy marks and puddles of ink on the page. And there was another problem. I had to wait for the ink to dry before I could turn the page! So not only did I not like what was happening but I couldn't move on and try something else straightaway.
One of my favourite studio rules is that whatever it is I'm doing - dyeing, drawing, collage - I set out to do at least 10 variations of it. This is because I often find that it's the 7th, 8th and 9th variations that are actually the best - the things I hadn't even thought of when I started. I like to work quickly and encourage the ideas to keep flowing from one sample or drawing to the next. And that's how I had been working during the first forty days ... and now I couldn't.
By the evening of day two (note the extent of my patience!) I was on the verge of running down to the studio and cutting a pile of loose sheets of paper to work on instead of using a book. I talked myself out of it. Partly because it was late and I was tired. But mainly because I reflected that if this was how it was to be, that was going to be part of the practice and I needed to adjust to that. It would mean slowing down and being more deliberate. Taking more time to consider what was happening before moving on.
The first week was painful. I was interested in bleed effects but kept using too much ink or too much water. So my marks would start out looking gorgeous and then degenerate into a splodgy mess. Oh yes, and the wet pages took ages to dry. I had to change my approach. Below are the most acceptable results from that week.
In week two I was placated by some good results from combining Indian ink or Sumi ink (both water-resistant) with the fountain pen inks I favour. There were some pleasing resist effects and contrasts in texture.
There was a sort of breakthrough around Day 16. I changed some of the tools I was using and tried new ways of applying the ink to the page and good things happened. I started to see some unexpected effects that I could get excited about. I also settled into a series of variations on horizontals cut by verticals, playing with different densities and line qualities. I recognise the inspiration of wetlands and reed beds and sometimes I emphasise it. The line between mark-making and drawing is a very thin one - at least in my case.
I had been using pieces of scrap paper as a mask - brushing or sponging ink off the edge - and around day 25 discovered I could mono print the dried ink from these scraps onto a damp page - gorgeous! I also experimented with adding torn pieces of masking tape, which takes the ink differently.
Today is Day 33. There are still "bad" pages - experiments that don't work out or where I have been careless or heavy-handed - but they don't bother me so much. Of course the whole experience has been entirely consistent with the underlying principle of my "rule of 10" - the value of pushing yourself beyond your initial idea in order to discover the thing you hadn't imagined. And the need to pay attention to what is happening and respond to it - change tools, change my approach.
With seven days to go I notice that I'm repeating myself more - recreating marks or effects that I like. Not a bad thing but I think one advantage of doing this practice in forty day blocks is the opportunity to change something each time, to stop it becoming habitual and keep it fresh. I have several ideas for the next 40 days ...
Karen Thiessen - who was one of those who inspired me to do this in the first place - wrote an update on her own mark-making practice and I was also interested in this.
Last week I was in Norfolk, celebrating my birthday. We spent most of the time walking on the marshes and coast around Cley and Blakeney. On the day itself, we walked along Blakeney Point. Not all the way, owing to the cold and shortness of the winter day. Blakeney Point is a four mile long shingle spit that acts as a barrier between the North Sea and the coastal marshes. It is thought to be at least 4,000 years old at its core. And it is moving - very slowly - by about 1 metre per year towards the shore, so that the creeks and the salt marsh that have developed over thousands of years in its shelter are being gradually squeezed between the Point and the Cromer Ridge to the south. Old maps reveal how much the coastline has changed. Harbours have vanished, channels and creeks move and change shape.
When I walk here, I'm very aware of edges. The edge of the sea, the marsh, the creeks, the channel, the ridge. "Edge" suggests there's a point where one thing stops and another starts - each part separate, distinct. But it isn't like that here. Most of the edges here are dynamic - different when the tide is in to when it is out. And they are highly contested. What looks like a definite edge often isn't. When you look closer, water is encroaching into the marsh and cutting its way through the mud. Marsh plants creep out into the mud and the shingle, knitting soft, shifting ground into something firmer. Most of these edges are places of change, transition, succession. They are places where things are not settled. Not decided. Small changes in the local environment - tides, time of year, weather - and one side gains ground over the other.
The daily mark-making practice passed the "can-it-be-done-away-from-home" test. And many of the marks became about edge qualities.
Often when I spend time on something that doesn't directly contribute to making work - reading, drawing, mark-making - my mind starts running on all the things I think I should be doing instead. Which pulls my attention away from what I'm doing and creates a conflict between what the experience could be and what it actually is. I think part of the value of a regular practice lies in assigning time for something and giving it your full attention. Giving yourself a chance to notice something you didn't already know. I'm not always particularly good at doing this.
So, at New Year I started a daily mark-making practice. The aim being just to explore my own marks and give myself a chance to experiment. To avoid the New Year Resolution thing, I started the day I went back to work instead. And I committed to 40 days - long enough to see the impact yet short enough to feel achievable. I knew that to be sustainable it also had to be easy - so that on the worst day there would be no excuse for not maintaining it. So there was only one rule - one page a day, any mark, any medium. A single line would count.
I'm using a homemade sketchbook, about 5" (13cm) square, which is filled with different types of paper (a good way to use up offcuts). I've been using whatever tools and media are on my drawing table, which at the moment is conté crayon, fountain pen ink, sumi ink, some white paint. Most days I manage more than one page - the record is twelve. On some days, I have rapidly made some marks five minutes before bedtime. It's amazing how often those aren't the least interesting pages.
A happy side-effect has been handling my drawing materials every single day, which helps to get past any mental block about drawing. Indeed sometimes the mark-making has transitioned seamlessly into drawing - I've tried something out and then pushed my mark-making book to one side and used the same ideas in a more considered drawing.
Somewhere around the 25 day mark I looked back through what I had done. I noticed how often I had defaulted to two or three "formulae" - the habitual marks I make when I am not working from a source. My natural handwriting in a sense. This was interesting in itself but I started to look for ways I could disrupt these patterns. Not change the marks themselves necessarily but force myself to use them differently. In my case this was partly about my use of space and varying the line quality. I'm experimenting with masking parts of the page, erasing, rubbing or scratching back, drawing over wet paint - looking at what effects this has on the marks and how it changes what I do.
I have seven days to go. I think I will start another forty days after that - same rules, same principles, perhaps with a different technique or medium - but I think the main thing is just to keep going.
Some others who have experimented with a daily practice:
Fiona Wilson - 365 days - a print a day
Leslie Morgan - a collage a day
Karen Thiessen Lent - 15 minutes mark-making a day for 40 days
