1. Mark Making
Every artist has a distinctive way of applying paint. As Henri Matisse once said, “Every painter with real talent has his own matière, a way of laying on the paint with relish, with a certain voluptuous feel”. Think of the thick striations of Van Gogh versus the thin stains of Mark Rothko.
This series of articles is based upon my online course, The Painted Surface. I want to show you that you can develop your own range of marks by examining and emulating the surfaces of the paintings you admire. Some artists settle on fairly uniform marks, such as Paul Cézanne’s short diagonal brushstrokes, while others, such as his friend Camille Pissarro, use a great variety of applications.
Artists may vary their application of paint from one painting to another or even across the surface of a single painting. The possibilities are
