Using the words anger, calm, happy and sad and using expressive marks to express my feelings. I listening to particular music to ‘get into the mood’ of the chosen emotion before I started. I used the same four mediums for each emotion, so that I could compare their differences in use of mark making.

Number guide: 1 = top left 2 = top right 3 = bottom left 4 = bottom right

Music – I listened to some of my fast, angrier rock music.

Once in an angrier state of mind, I felt I wanted to work to the music to get my feelings out. I wanted to work fast and hard without thinking about what I was doing – ‘grrrrrr!’.

1- Ink with pipette

• I chose red as an angry colour.
• I worked with long, fast back and forth strokes.
• I took the pipette off the page and squeezed random ink blobs that I then scraped through, using the pipette as a drawing stick through the wet ink.

2 – Conte

• I used it on it’s side and rubbed back and forth quickly
• I used it on its edge to create spikey patterns and zig zags

3 – Oil Pastel

• I used back and forth scribbles and lines
• Sometimes I really wanted to push down hard to get it as dense and as dark as I could get it.

4 – Charcoal

• I used it on its long side – hard and fast and black, black, black!
• Then over this with sharp zig zags.
• Then some more fast, but rounded, squiggles.

Reflection

I really felt that I got out my angry feelings. The result was fast, spikey and dark imagry.

Music – I listened to calming, relaxation music. I wanted to work slowly and flow with the music.

1- Charcoal

• I used it lightly so that it was soft and flowed over the paper in smooth figure of eights, using my whole arm.
• I finger smudged and swirled the charcoal into soft, cloud like forms.
• I then wanted to press slightly harder, to create soft round circles.

2 – Conte

• The conte was hard, but as I wanted to keep calm, I only used it lightly on it’s side to create curves with my forearm.
• no pressure and no back and forth movements, as I felt that this would interupt the calm feeling.
• I then used the tip to flow over the curves with a thinner line
• Working slowly, and flowing to the music

3 – Ink

• I chose blue ink as a calming colour
• I used long, flowing, curved lines that tappered off and met up with other lines at the end
• I gently placed dots along the lines and gently dragged though some of the wet ink with the pipette – flowing across the paper
• I left lots of white space between the lines, as this felt calming

2 – Oil Pastel

• I wanted to work slow, with soft continuous marks, not wanting to lift my hand off the page with a flowing, gentle movement of my arm.
• Using circles and rounded lines
• Using a light touch and leaving white space between the lines…no dark areas.

Reflection

I drew slowly and lightly, flowing with the calm music. However, looking at these images at a later date, the swirly lines do not look calm to me? They could be interpreted as an erratic and messy mind!

Music – what music to make you feel happy…Disneys’ Beauty and The Beast! I had a medium pace while singing along…

1 – Charcoal

• Soft and harder marks
• In my happy and joyful state, I felt I wanted to make shapes and paterns – squiggles and curved shapes and circles.
• Creating shapes felt joyful to me, so I found myself fitting the shapes around each other
• Leaving open white spaces

2 – Oil Pastel

• Curved and straight lines
• I still felt I wanted to make shapes and paterns – squiggles, triangles ad circles.
• I stopped when I felt the marks said ‘joy’ and it neeed the white space to appreciate the ‘happy’ marks.

3 – Ink

• I chose yellow ink for a happy colour
• I used the pipette to create happy swirls and curls
• I added playful dots and dragged the pipette through the wet ink
• I then used a hairdryer to free up the ink marks and just playfully see where they flowed…

4- Conte

• Lots of short and long playful lines
• Not so continuous – lifting off regularly to create different strokes
• I wanted to use a harder pressure with this medium and colour in areas

Reflection

I noticed I had taken the chosen media on and off the paper quite frequently while creating my shapes and patterns…alomost ‘skipping’ along with the music.

Music – I chose the song ‘wires’ by Athlete, as I felt this to be quite a somber song to work to. I worked very slowly, almost to the point of stopping.

1- Charcoal

• I started off with lots of short lines. Wanting to lift off as soon as I started. My sad mood felt almost depressing.
• Then I got ‘angry sad’ and wanted to cover up all the short lines and hide the harshness of them all with dark rubbings.

2 – Oil Pastel

• Short marks, lifting up frequently.
• Straight lines, short and close together.
• Curves are downturned – I only realised this after…like sad downturned mouths…
• Lots of white space

3 – Ink

• I chose black ink for sadness.
• I felt like only moving the pipette in a horizontal line.
• A broken line, made up of individual marks as I did not make contact with the paper all the way along
• Very small, thin lines – hardly any movement from my arm, just left to right.

4 – Conte

• As this medium was harder, I made very tiny marks made up of short, hard lines – I felt small in my sadness – I wanted to curl up and hide away.
• Lots of white space.

Reflection

My marks were made with very little movement from my arm and hand. There were no big gestures involved, no back and forth movements, no continuous lines and no overlapping. Lots of white space made the marks appear small and seperated, just how I felt.

Overall reflection

I was surprised by how my feelings and emotional state could effect the type of marks I made. It really did make a difference to the movement I made with my body, how soft or hard I used the media and if I chose what to draw or went with the flow. This is something I need to consider when drawing in the future. Whether that is because I want to intentionally create a more sad or happy image, or whether I just need to be aware of my current state of mind when working on a drawing. Could feeling sad affect what is meant to portray a joyful image? Could being in an angry mood affect what is meant to be a calm image?