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If drawing is a language, we can consider mark making is vocabulary of that language. Contributing to mark making library helps me to build a diverse library of vocabulary in pictorial version. I will have more choices and materials to tell in my drawings. It expands my limit to unlimited. Possessing various mark makings is like I have many beautiful words. I can pick an appropriate word in a proper way to show effectively what I want to tell. I develop abundance of my mark making dictionary by listening to music and using any tools and materials I have such as watercolor, ink, oil pastel, stick, brush, rope, smudge or even macaroni to create systems of lines, shapes, dots,…
While I am practicing this exercise, I am completely relax and dive into the process. I use many materials and tools and change the way I hold them to describe the song I am listening. Music has the variety of rhythms, melodies and instruments. Maybe a strong dot with oil pastel for a loud and short sound of a drum, a sharp zigzag line for a shrill rhythm or a watercolor stoke for tender harmony. I also experiment on different types of papers. Rough paper and smooth paper will show us different textures. That is the way I experience to invent my own drawing language. After that, I apply those marks to my drawings to make it deepen and more interesting.
I have studied from Wassily Kandinsky, an Russian artist about relation of image and sound. Kandinsky suffered synesthesia syndrome. It is a neurological disease where the brain processes data and information with many senses at the same time. Therefore, people with this syndrome can both hear sounds and see corresponding colors, or they can taste flavors when looking at different shapes. Because of this syndrome, Kandinsky had the ability to link sounds and images together, which he called "color hearing”.
If the relation of images and sounds in Kandinsky’s case is a synesthesia syndrome, the whole process of making marks with music, for me, is a method of meditation. Because I don’t judge myself if my mark-making is good or bad, if I am right or wrong. I am just in flow. Mihaly Robert Csikszentmihalyi, a Hungarian - American Psychologist outlined his theory that people are happiest when they are in a state of flow - a state of concentration or complete absorption with the activity at hand and the situation. It is an optimal state of intrinsic motivation, where the people is fully immersed in what they are doing. Therefore, I believe that practice of making mark and music not only contribute to my drawing library but also helps me to be creative. No other state for being creative is better than feeling of great absorption, engagement, and fulfillment with what we are doing.
I produce mark making evoked from my feeling for music and apply to my drawing, in this case, still life. Why is it a still life? If I stand at a beach, I will hear sound of ocean wave. If I stand in a crowded city, I will hear sound of traffic and people. But when I stand in front of a flower pot, what will I hear? I hear sound of my soul and memories. That experience requires me dig deeper into my thoughts and feelings. Observing a flower petals flittering may remind me of sound of a wind blowing a grass field, or a thorny branch will remind me of a sound of my anger. A lot of random things can happen at that moment. This method make me always remember that I should observe everything around me and myself all the time. It’s like living in the present moment. Because art is always for myself, my own feeling. The way I look deeper into myself to make art is the way I build my world view. My art is my world view.
Overall, mark-making is important because it makes my drawings more interesting and evokes emotion from viewers. I do not speak for my art, my mark-making speaks. Try out more methods to make marks besides sound and we can see how drawings can upgrade.
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