The paper surface as a taut drum

Awareness of ‘where’ marks lay in terms of the perception of the white space within a drawing or painting was another important area of visual language skills development. This session was designed to sharpen perceptual visual awareness and was usually hosted by Patrick Oliver.

Taking a clean sheet of A1 cartridge students were asked to stare at it carefully. Patrick would ask, “Where was the surface? Did it seem to open out into a deep space, or did you become more aware of the paper itself as an object?”

After a moment for reflection students were asked to make a mark.  Patrick would go on, “Make a mark that sits exactly one inch below the surface of the paper. Adjust it until it does this. Once you are satisfied that has been done, now make another mark. Does this sit in front of or behind the first mark? Adjust this mark so that it sits exactly on the surface”.

Once this had been achieved students could make a third mark, this could be in a position determined by themselves, but had to be decided upon carefully and then adjusted towards this very accurately. Of course what happened was that all the marks would then need to be readjusted, as any new mark, either sent the others backwards or forwards. Then a period of staring again, students being asked to make small further adjustments as Patrick moved around between them and pointed out that a particular mark was too far forward or back.

About an hour was spent on this activity. Sometimes just using black (charcoal, pencil and chalk, with erasure) and white, at other times using colour as well.

This was very hard to do and I was aware that some students who had already got the idea of adjustment, started to rub marks out and put them back in again, the faint haze of rubbing out, settling a mark into the surface much more easily than the unadjusted first try. However it was a very useful thing to do and did get students looking much more closely at what was happening on the paper. In my own mind, I tended to link this to a particular personal understanding of atmospheric perspective. Sharp energetic dark marks move forward when compared to less energetic soft light marks, especially if the soft light marks are smaller than the sharp dark marks. Therefore the four qualities of mark energy, softness/sharpness, lightness/darkness, together with size constancy, could be adjusted to create a controlled space. Patrick would tell me that this was too ‘illustrative’ a reading and that it wasn’t as simple as this, you just had to ‘look’. 

Patrick 1974 Foundation party