Connecting With Your Own Mark

Most people freak out when asked to draw as an adult but do you remember these?

Remember how it took practice and a guide to show us how to write? 

Well drawing is the same as writing.

Writing is just making dots, lines and shapes and that is all drawing is too!

So, let's look at linear mark making which is one of the 7 elements of design in art.

 We can make a line or a row of dots. We can make a thick line or a dashed line.

We can curve our lines or our line can intercept with itself and become a shape.

A teardrop shape with a line up the middle becomes a leaf or a many tear dropped shape becomes a

lotus flower.

We can make patterns of lines or dots. Lines can be vertical, horizontal or at an angle. Then we cangroup lines together to form patterns.

Line in art can be appear to be 'smooth' by being gently curving or they can appear 'rough or jagged' by being zigzagged or crosshatched.

This kind of texture is called visual or 'implied texture'.

Other simple geometric shapes that we can all make are a circle, square, a triangle or a star or organic shapes like a spiral, heart, doodle or a loose 'organic' shape.

If we look at this row of houses, we'll see that their shapes are made up of repeating triangles and squares. Just stare at the roofs for a while. Do you see the black triangles? If you separate the houses into small geometric shapes and stop seeing 'house' it will make it easier for you to draw.

Remember, to make your own marks by simple repeating lines, patterns and shapes.

Find the simple shapes in everything that you want to draw.

In the ArtStart class, 'Making the Journal Cover and Mark Making on the Journal Cover', we explore connecting with our own marks and using it to apply visual texture to our journal covers.

ArtStart, hours of simple, easy to understand artist classes online, gets your art started, for a limited time at a great discount!

There is no need to worry, you don't need to know how to draw to do the course, you are supplied with all the motifs as digital downloads.

Click here for your free artist art classes and to find out more about ArtStart.