Mark Making and Visual Texture Workshop

Saturday 10.10.15.

A small but perfectly formed session led by Reg Cooper and Phill Evans which forms the first element of an ongoing piece of work in which the artists of Participate are working cooperatively.  The finished pieces will be displayed in a public Shrewsbury building, details to follow, and will include 2D and sculptural elements.

After building an abstract image onto a large sheet of paper (disposable table cloths) by drawing around figures laying on it the sheet was then painted in two colours for positive and negative spaces.  The sheet was then quartered (when it dried...note: less dilution makes for quicker drying and the paper is less likely to rip...) and laid onto similar sized sheets to strengthen it.

We then spent a few minutes making textural marks, mostly on the positive space colour, using a variety of wet and dry media.  These included marker pens, brush pens, stamping using offcuts of wood, paint & brush, finger marks etc etc etc.  Whatever was to hand which was quite a lot being next to so many artist studios!

The sheets went from being striking but a bit flat abstract images.....

To incredibly involved and developed areas of visual texture.

I experimented with thickening the dividing line between positive & negative areas.  The jury is still out on this so it's only on this one....

The purpose of this workshop wasn't in fact to come up with some more or less pretty patterns.  It was the first of a series of sessions in which users of the building the artworks will be placed can contribute to it's development.

The brief for Participate is to produce a site specific artwork which will be in two parts.  Firstly a 2D element will be printed on vinyl to be installed onto windows in dividing walls, ostensibly to provide separation and privacy. The second element of the finished piece will be a permanent suspended sculptural work hung over the public are and visible both from both above and below.

This first workshop begins the process of collecting a body of elements which have been produced by the building's users that will form the resources which will be composited into the image which will be printed in vinyl.

At the end of the session we had made four large images, elements of which can be taken, digitised and used to develop the final, printed piece for the windows.  The next sessions will take these pieces and can (but doesn't have to) use them as a starting point to develop physical textures using fabric and other media.

Here are examples of close-ups of the finished pieces: