Course manual: “Aim: This project is in some ways the antithesis of the previous one. Last time, you used an object to draw ‘for’ you; this time you’ll allow your own emotional responses to direct your physical mark-making.
Method: Take 10 pieces of card and give them to friends. Ask them to write down a characteristic of someone in a novel or newspaper article in the first person. Ask them to choose something which might engender an emotional or physical response. Examples might be ‘I killed 15 women’ or ‘I won the lottery’ or ‘I feel nervous at parties’.Ask someone to sit for you as a model. Every 10 minutes ask them to read from one of the cards. As they read the statement out, try to change the way you use your materials to respond to the statement. Make angry, scared, joyful marks as prompted.
I used this project as a quarantine game for the family again, so all agree to write some of the cards containing statements engendering an emotional response.
I start by trying out different marks as a response to different emotions in my A4 sketchbook. I am not using the cards yet- I do not want to spoil my first reaction to them by having read them before drawing the model.
These are marks in answer to sad, angry, happy, dreamy, elated, furious, scared, claustrophobic etc:
I have decided to stay monochrome and only use grey or black materials, to really let the marks be the focus, not any colours.
Today Tom has agreed to sit for me (while listening to a podcast). I prepare an A2 sheet of paper on a board and graphite pencils in different grades, charcoal sticks, some Indian ink and different brushes and an array of black markers.
The first 10 minute card that he pulls out reads: “I sometimes wish I had never been born at all”.
I can feel tears here and decide to start with ink and water that I can let run down over the face like tears, using a rather small brush, like a not so loud voice. So this is how the drawing starts:
I think the defeated and teary look caught the emotion of the statement.
Next card reads: ” I am wood”.
For this card, I use a 7B pencil, wanting to touch the wood of the pencil and letting my marks be both soft and hard as if feeling the surface of wood. My pencil is moving as if sanding the surface.
Close- ups:
Third card: “I like to eat the birds” (What??) I do not know what I am feeling here, it is very confusing. There is a strange spiraling of thoughts here, so I decide to capture that spiraling motion. I choose a black 01 marker.
A closer look:
Fourth card: “I wish someone would love me”. For this statement, I feel deep sadness again, and it is a quiet voice. I choose a thinner black marker and make very tight, tense, small marks:
Fifth card: “It is time for me to revolt”
It is time to take a thick charcoal stick and move in strong, revolting, angular, decisive marks:
I let the figure raise the arms and straighten up the shoulders from the slumped position, also there is a new decisive trait over the eyes.
Having arrived here, I decide that this drawing is complete and decide to start on a new A2 paper for the next 5 cards with statements.
Card number 1: “I say- hey fuckface- this ebook will change your life in like 5 minutes or something” (Seriously, family?)
This statement feels very arrogant. I respond by grabbing a nr 1 black marker and make bold, big, sweeping marks with my nose held high.
This looks rather terrible and has no likeness at all to my sitter.
Card nr 2: “I am stuck in mental traffic”
This is definitely a subtler, swirling, spiraling mark. I use a 0,5 technical graphite pencil for very intricate swirling, repetitive marks, leaving the figure and spinning around the head.
This is the drawing at this stage:
Third card: “I will shoot anyone who breaks quarantine” (actually said by Philippine President Duterte).
I am relieved at finding such a strong, hard statement that I can respond to with a thick brush loaded with Indian ink in strong, hard strokes- just what this drawing needs.
This arranged the shape of the figure and brought back a certain slight likeness.
Fourth card: “I think everything will be ok.”
For this soothing and calming feeling, I go back to a graphite pencil, in 9B for a darker mark. I use more classical cross hatching as my marks, for a certain feeling of familiarity.
The fifth and last card: “I lost myself between your legs.” I almost feel like I should grab some flesh-coloured pastels here, but decide to stay with my monochrome idea and instead add water with a thin brush, letting very diluted ink flow down the background and figure.
This is the final drawing:
This was a really interesting exercise in pushing my mark-making further and especially in translating an emotional response into a physical one. It depended quite strongly on the statements how accurately it felt that I could translate them. The clearer the emotional response, the easier it was to turn the feeling into physical mark making.
I think both drawings show a wide range of emotional responses and different marks, but I think the second one feels more coherent as a portrait of the sitter AND as a translation of the statements.
Clara's Drawing 2 