GOAL

To understand how marks and lines are fundamental elements of graphic art. To gain experience in working with various tools, mediums, gestures, and styles in order to extend one's expressive vocabulary.

 

DISCUSSION

If you distill the graphic arts (e.g., painting, drawing, printmaking, computer graphics, etc.) down to their most fundamental element, you find the mark. Marks are like building blocks in that they are individual and discrete, but can be used in a repetitive manner to render almost any visual effect. Marks can be highly gestural and expressive, or controlled and mechanical. The degree to which artists can achieve certain desired effects is determined by their choice of tool, the nature of the medium used, and the quality of the gestures employed. Marks can be descriptive, expressive, conceptual, and symbolic in nature.

A mark extended in time becomes a line. Consider the tip of your pencil. The tip--a single point--will describe a line when it is moved across the picture plane. Marks clustered together can define shapes. Consider the eraser end of your pencil. Using a stamp pad, you could create a cloud of marks that suggested solid shapes or three-dimensional forms.

The way in which we make marks in large measure determines our personal style. Think of your own signature. The way in which you form the letters which comprise your name is a unique set of marks with legal and psychological significance. Artists can refine their personal vocabulary of marks to develop deeply individual methods of working and new styles. Many cultures value highly developed techniques in calligraphy where one's skill with brush or pen is a mark of breeding, education, and distinction.

 

ARTISTS / CULTURES

Australian Aboriginal art; Graffiti art; Keith Haring; Japanese Sumi-e; Wassily Kandinsky; A.R. Penke; Agnes Martin; Georges Seurat; Mark Tobey; Vincent Van Gogh;

 

FURTHER EXPLORATION

CONCEPTS and PROJECTS

A.

Personal Identity

1. Signature Style

2. Grafitti

 

B.

Protest and Persuasion

 

C.

Art and Technology

 

D.

Collaboration

 

E.

Other Voices

 

F.

Art for Hire

 

G.

Fantasy

 

H.

The Natural World

 

I.

Spirit Worlds

1. Shroud of Turin

 

J.

Mining for Ideas

1. The Evolution of Language (letter study)

 

ASSESSMENT

 


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