Whenever I think of line- in the design sense- I think of the word mark-making.
Mark-making is one of those art terms that you hear in art school as an artist, but it doesn’t really mean much to anyone outside the arts. (Frankly, it doesn’t always mean much to artists!) However, it is a term that encompasses what creating with line means: the primal instinct to leave one’s mark somewhere. It is this very human urge that compels one to “art”- to use art as a verb- to create, build, make, craft- to say with the hands, rather than the voice, “I was here.”
Texture goes with line. Rough, smooth, silky or crisp, texture is the design element that relates most to the physical world- often coming from it, with the materials reacting to the surface on which they are used.
The piece above, Relic, was created by layering watercolor on paper. While the paper was still wet, I drew into the work, activating the charcoal and deepening the black, giving the marks depth as they melted into the paper. While the paper dried, I sprinkled salt and old paint granules on the paper, so that when it dried there was a mottled look, like stone or rock. The marks in this piece are primitive, simplistic, inspired by seed pods I’ve been collecting from my garden. The title of the work refers to history in the geological sense.
The Lovely View 