Fearless Drawing

63

use things that you don’t mind recycling after making

the prints. Here are a few ideas:

O

Bubble wrap

O

Marshmallows or candy

O

Pasta

O

Wine corks, bottle tops, and caps

O

Leaves, twigs, flowers, acorns, pinecones, and feathers

O

Drinking straws

O

Cotton swabs or cotton balls

O

Lace or doilies

O

Old toy cars (try rolling the wheels into the ink and

then along the page)

O

String

O

Cards

Okay, time to get a bit messy! Cover your worktable

and put on some old clothes. As in Adventure 4:

Drawing as Frottage, we will be using the textures

of real objects to create our drawings. We’re going

to explore the wide range of marks that can be

obtained from printing with objects. Throughout this

adventure, I used India ink (and wore rubber gloves!)

to create my prints, but you could also consider

printing with the following.

O

Watercolors

O

Writing ink

O

Kids’ poster paints

O

A cold cup of VERY strong black coffee

Begin by collecting textural objects to use for

printing. These items are going to get messy, so only

Drawing as

Print

PRINTING IDEAS

Here you can see the range of marks I created after a quick

rummage in cupboards, the recycling box, and a walk outside.

Bubble wrap Bottle caps

Cork Leaf

64 > Fearless Drawing

Drinking straw

String

Card

Toy car wheels

Drawing as Print > 65

66 > Fearless Drawing

PRINTING IDEAS: YOUR TURN

Pour a little ink (or whatever you are using as ink) onto an old or disposable plate. Press

your object into the ink and see what marks can be achieved by pressing that object

to paper to create a print. There are endless possibilities for creating marks in this way.

Glue your printing experiments to these pages.

Whether used on its own or in conjunction with hand drawing, printing with objects

offers a creative, inventive, and beautiful way to make drawings. There is also something

very pleasurable and rewarding about working in this way. It’s likely many of us haven’t

created prints in this way since childhood. Take time now to enjoy the process of

making prints—the joy of selecting our materials, the physicality of the liquid ink, and

the pressure on paper before the exciting print is revealed.

TIPS

 Notice how the amount of

ink you use alters the effect.

 Be sure to label each print

with the object you used

to make it so that you can

easily replicate these marks

in the future.

Drawing as Print > 67