GMU:Drawing: the natural-scientific gaze/Maria

Mark Making

During the first class of the module we all had a discussion about what the word 'drawing' meant to us. We decided that drawing was a way of creating a subtle line of any description, with any material. This line can be a performance, a representation of something, or an abstract creation using artistic concepts. It does not simply mean picking up a pencil and creating a lifelike representation of an existing image.

However I found the term 'drawing' to be too reminiscent of strictly traditional non-abstract media and also to be limiting creatively. To change this mindset I prefer to call drawing 'mark making' as I find that referring to it as this to have far greater potential to make a piece of work that I find both interesting and visually stimulating. This also gives me a much wider range of materials to work with, both mixed and traditional media. This helps me greatly as I prefer to create rather abstract and concept based artwork.

Early Works

Early on in the class we started the mark making process by recreating some images of different types of cells from the human body, taken with an electron microscope. I decided that I would try to represent these as accurately as possible, culminating in the below image. We then had to re-arrange the image aesthetically and as my mark making was 'accurate', this did not create a piece of work that I consider to be successful. From this I learned that an abstract approach to the details is best for this module and thus any mark makings will look much more intriguing visually.

Other Mark Makings

I became inspired by the work of Paul Klee and his insect-like drawings. I found his abstract and experimental approach to drawing to be very interesting so I tried to add some element of his experimentation into my work.

Soon after this I had a strange dream which I documented in my mark making work. I dreamt that I was in my bedroom, which was a large white room. I was staring at the wall opposite my bed and on the floor I could see a winding trail of swarming ants. The ants were carrying matches, some in boxes and some lit, all walking in a long line into a small, dark hole in the skirting board. Some of the ants were wearing crowns. I did not know why the ants were there, but the image was so strong in my mind that I created several pieces of work that were inspired by my dream.

I also tried several new techniques of mark making. I found it hard to draw abstract shapes so I resorted to closing my eyes while drawing. This produced some intriguing results. I also tried using duct tape as a type of non-traditional media and I think the effect it creates is visually interesting.

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  The dream

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  Pen drawing

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  Mark making with duct tape

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  The 'King Ant'

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  Sewing

Drawing the Scientific

As I was also taking the DIY Microscopy class, I decided to draw some of the objects I had been looking at under my homemade microscope. I continued using different types of tape to represent the shapes of these magnified items.

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  Dust particles

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  Thread

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  Sugar grains

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  Mouth tissue and saliva

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  Mouth tissue

Drawing the Scientific- Final Work

For my final work I have decided that I would like to carry on with the mark makings that I have been creating using different types of tape. I will use the limited colour palate I have from the duct and electrical tape, using four colours- silver, brown, yellow and black. I will showcase these mark makings in a hand-made sketchbook. I am concerned that I may get bored of the limited colour palette, but at least the images will look consistent in the sketchbook.

However I have decided that I would like the sketchbook to be a concertina-style, whereby all the pages are attached together and folded. I have created a few samples of what I would like this to look like. The sketchbook will be constructed with tape as this will be the easiest way to construct the concertina pages, and also because I find it appropriate as I will be mark making with the same material.

I made some samples to test the different types of tape. Some were unsuccessful.

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  Sample using brown parcel tape

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  Sample using masking tape

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  Sample using duct tape

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Though making my samples I have found that masking tape makes the most structurally sound sketchbook, so I will use it to create my concertina sketchbook.

I want to continue with mark making images from the natural world underneath the microscope. I have decided that to create these images I will use a home-made microscope I have prefabricated for another class- I feel that this will tie in nicely with the home-made sketchbook. It will mean that the images I am drawing from will not be as high resolution as they would be if I was using a professional microscope, but as my mark makings will be quite abstract, I do not mind this.

Collecting Samples

It took me a few weeks to obtain the samples that I used in my work as I had to wait until the snow melted. This gave me less time to create the mark makings that I would have liked.