For this exercise I chose to draw a small ceramic Troika pot - a beautiful handcrafted object with a highly textured surface.
My intention was to try to convey the essence of the object - the artisan nature of its creation and aesthetic.
I started tentatively, using familiar materials - pencils and crayons on various papers. This was OK, but didn't really communicate the true nature of the pot.
I moved on to collage with mixed results.I selected coloured papers from magazines and ripped them into strips to give a rough texture - it just looked terrible! I tried again, selecting the papers carefully so that they had both the correct colour and textural appearance. This was better.
I went on to prepare my own papers by making rubbings of brickwork on tissue paper with a wax crayon and then painting them with watercolour. This provided a good rough texture and it seemed right to be creating the materials myself - part of the artisan message.
I experimented with pens, pencils and crayons, making marks of different sizes, pressures and densities. It was quite fun, but I didn't think that it was effective for what I was trying to achieve.
Next I experimented with watercolour. The messy watercolour has a looseness that, I feel, conveys the ideas of handcraft and texture. Although I think the surface textural quality would have been improved by using salt in the wet paint to give a roughness to the pot.
Of course, this isn't the end of exploring mark making - it's really just the start. For every illustration an appropriate technique needs to be used to effectively communicate the message - and this may only be achieved by experimentation.
