technique – Claire Smyth’s blog

Claire Smyth AAD009 Drawing in Practice: Alt. Means – Handmade Mark Making Tools and Collated Patterns

Various creative and crafty aspects where in fact required for the appropriate completion of this particular alternative means task / workshop, due to being assigned to create, design and make 12 handmade mark making tools / instruments out of various random natural and manmade items, objects and materials. As a result, throughout my 12 handmade mark making tools, I was able to include materials such as the likes of: sticks, string, leaves, flowers, toothbrush, nails / screws, stationary, bottle caps, cardboard, sponges, wire, bamboo, clips, plastics and cotton buds etc.

As a whole, creating the mark making tools was in which very intriguing and fascinating, as you had you had to especially think, take note and consider what type and kind of marks it may make or create on paper once dipped into paint / ink. In relevance to this, I feel that I was overly successful in making / creating a wide array and range of different / varied mark making tools using multiple type of materials both household and natural. Surprisingly, my tools ended up creating some very vibrant and bold marks and patterns as a result of using different shapes and sizes throughout to produce multiple experimental and expressionistic pieces and compositions as pictured below.

(Scale of patterns / marks: A4. Date work / task was completed: 29/09/2020).

Claire Smyth AAD009 Drawing in Practice: Environment Workshop (mixed media drawings of surroundings / concertina project)

Over four working days, to complete this unit / task of work, I have in which created a variety of drawings / sketches from real life and the views of / around my surroundings using a wide varied range of mixed media, drawing materials and techniques, whilst creating art with materials and ways that I am familiar with and enjoy, along with pushing myself to draw outside of my comfort zone or with different materials / art styles or certain things that I have not experienced using and drawing with as much.

As a result, I created multiple drawings in various sizing scales of different areas, surroundings, buildings and places which included: The outside of the Belfast School of Art building, its surroundings, the MAC, skateparks, St Annes Square / Cathedral, nature, local forests, apartment buildings cars, signs, trees (nature), my back garden / the view outside of my window from my house etc.

The materials that I commonly used throughout this environment workshop, where in fact materials such as: charcoal, watercolour paints, pencil, pen, fine liners, wax crayons, coloured markers, oils pastels, soft pastels, sharpies and collage materials such as newspaper etc.

As pictured, within my drawings, I used various drawing / marking making techniques, some of these included: mark making, abstract, expressive, shadows, tone, depth, colour, detail, structured, aligned, playful, experimental, bold marks, subtle details, block shapes and patterns etc.

*To complete the concertina project, I based myself around St Annes Square in which I folded an A2 sketchbook page to create various panels to where I picked out different viewpoints for each when looking round the area, where then using a combination of different materials and drawing techniques, I was then successful in creating a concertina composition on the one page, viewing different areas of St Annes Square.

Overall, most aspects of this environment workshop was in fact highly enjoyable and fascinating as it was kind of a new way of created various / multiple pieces of art (drawings) with the main aim and end goal of using and experiencing a wider range of media to display my surroundings in various different ways: capturing sky scapes, closeup details, architecture, fences, buildings (both modern and ancient), natural and manmade, high / low viewpoints.