Aim

Materials and the way they are applied can be very expressive and can imply a narrative without using words. Take time to experiment with the expressive potential of a range of materials and then make a selection to create a piece where the materials contribute significantly to the way the piece is read

Method

Think of a person for whom you have strong feelings or hold a strong opinion. Find an object or item of clothing that reminds you of that person. Make a piece of artwork that uses the object to provide the imagery but uses materials to give the viewer a sense of the person.

Experiment widely and produce as many pieces as you need to until you arrive at something which you think fits.

Planning

My immediate thoughts turn to Mum who we lost nearly 6 years ago. Mum was a very classy, well dressed lady and she had a love of jewellery and clothes. She passed special pieces of jewellery to my sister and I and, from the day she died I have worn three of her special rings, her engagement and eternity ring and a ring my Dad had specially made for her for her 60th birthday. This ring in particular holds a special place as my husband's uncle was heavily involved in helping us design and produce the ring and again we sadly lost him, shortly after, far, far too young.

Another item she gave to me is a navy blue cocktail dress. I have to confess, I haven't worn it as it has long sleeves and I find it too hot, but I could never give it away. It has some delicate lace panels down the sides and a draped front. I am wondering if there is any way of incorporating these two thin

Mum, herself was a great amateur artist and she loved painting with watercolour. I do wonder if using watercolour is too easy a cop-out.

I would describe her as fiercely loyal and protective of her family. Kind, caring, funny but feisty. Always perfectly turned out with amazing hair and nails. How on earth am I going to be able to capture all this in one painting? Can I manipulate materials to get this description over?

I began by making a few notes of ideas in my sketchbook although at the moment it just seems like an incoherent list of ideas. The lace particularly intrigued me and I began to draw it with a ballpoint pen. Whilst this is working quite well it is incredibly time consuming and not something I want to labour over for this exercise.

After the previous exercise I brought a small linocut kit and ink and decided to have a play. I drew a design, transferring it onto the lino, remembering the design would print out in reverse, and printed it in my sketchbook.

Not bad for a first attempt but it does feel a little 'junior school' for me. I then thought about using words in linocut to describe Mum. I am not sure if this misses the point of the exercise as it is the materials that should be doing the describing but, after a recent 'Text in Art' workshop I am going to let myself go with this idea.

Trying to get the textures of the lace I did some rubbings of the material with oil pastel. Initially blue to reflect the dress itself but, I then remembered that green was Mum's favourite colour which I want to include in the drawing.

I have decided to go with the green colour scheme. I like the idea of the words showing through the lace pattern on the tracing paper as a backdrop.

Working in my A3 Sketchbook I printed overlapping words onto the page. I felt the pattern of the lace got a little lost over the top and so worked into the pattern with a little green pencil.

Next I decided to focus on a part of Mum's engagement ring, referring back to my earlier compositional sketches. I am intending to cut this out and use it as a collaged piece within the work but, once finished I liked the drawing on it's own.

I did however cut it out and position it on top of the tracing paper.

Reflecting on this, I feel the ring and lace pieces work better individually. I think the ring gets lost within the text. The ring is so symbolic of Mum and the green of the background and the descriptive text is very personal to her. I really felt her presence in my mind when doing this. I do not know if the use of materials has represented her to strangers the way I feel her when looking at this drawing.

From an aesthetic point of view, I feel the drawing works much better cropped into a square. I feel the composition becomes more balanced.

I find it very difficult to think about the expressive qualities of materials as I have a preference for representational, 'tight' drawings which lend themselves to pencil and pen. I have tried something new in this exercise with broadly satisfying results and will explore printing within drawing a little more moving forward.

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