31 Ways to boost your creativity - mark making exercises

During the month of October, I took part in an Instagram challenge where everyday we were given a prompt for a mark making exercise. The idea of the challenge being to have fun, to let your inner child out and play and to hopefully boost those creative juices in your drawing. It was also very different from what I do in my day to day job of creating Botanical Lino Prints and Metal Sculptures but it was nice to try something else for a little while

Whilst others on the challenge focused on the type of marks they could create I decided I wanted to create a recognisable picture too, not because I wanted to create a perfect picture, but I think it’s interesting how the same subject matter can be drawn and painted in different ways

I also decided to film them all whilst I was creating them and turn them into reels so you could see the progress from start to finish

Then I thought why not share my results in a lovely blog post and hopefully give you readers some creative ideas to follow too

Full disclosure, I did change some of the prompts, either because I just didn’t have the items available so adapted with something similar or as with one of the prompts, I’m allergic to it so I had to change it

You will see in the images that the challenge was called 30 days of mark making. I don’t know why it wasn’t 31 days. Strange? Yes. But let’s not focus on that too much shall we? and buckle up, get inspired and take a look at my 31 mark making images

Day 1 - Fingers

Well, this did bring back childhood memories and what a great way to start the challenge. Using just my fingertips and my thumb nail I used watercolour’s paint to create my 1st picture. It was quite freeing to just dip my fingers in paint and just get messy. I think I did a rather good job, on creating a recognisable image and getting messy

Day 2 - Pencil

The first few days I was mark making at home and believe it not I just couldn’t find my graphite pencil. My cat Maris has a habit of playing with pens and pencils, so I imagine it has been pawed and clawed and now hiding under some surface somewhere. Anyway, I do have a China graft, which is a waxy type of pencil which gifts lovely black lines and charcoal like marks, so used this instead

Day 3 - Tie long stick to paintbrush

Ooh this takes me back to drawing classes years ago where we would draw with charcoal and paintbrushes taped to metre long sticks. I didn’t have a stick that long this time, just a foot long, but gave the same result. It’s a brilliant method if you want to loosen up your drawing or painting, it makes you step back and have less control over your marks and can be very effective

Day 4 - Biro

I love drawing with a biro, I do it quite often. I like the fact you must make definite marks and not worry about making mistakes as you can’t rub them out. You just need to go with the flow. And just by changing the pressure you place on the pen you can get a wide range of tones

Day 5 – Splash

I think this didn’t go too well 😊 I used a paintbrush to splatter on some watered-down acrylic paint and moved it about by turning my sketchbook around. Though it didn’t turn out too well I can see how this technique could be used together with others

Day 6 – Straw

The only straws I have are some fancy pants reusable metal ones and I wasn’t going to start dipping them into paint. What else should I use? I do seem to have a never-ending biro supply and luckily one was just about to run out, so I used the pen casing as a straw instead. Using it like a stamp to create little circles, the edge to draw with and blowing down it to move the paint around. I really enjoyed creating this one

Day 7 - Twigs / Stick

Using a 30cm long stick I used it like a pencil, dipping it into acrylic paint. It’s a nice way to loosen up your drawing as you have less control over what’s going to happen

Day 8 - Credit / Store Card

Loved doing this one. Using an old credit card cut up and using it like you would a palette knife

Day 9 – Leaves

Well, I felt a bit dumb. Here I was thinking there’s no leaves outside when I have a house full of plants. Duh! So, after my dumbness I picked a leaf from one of my plants and used it to paint and print with

Day 10 – Vegetables

What I’ve noticed is I use a lot of the tools as printing blocks and todays prompt is no exception. Raiding my fridge, getting out the manky looking carrot, chopping it up and using it like a stamp and palette knife to create my image

Day 11 - Clothes Peg

Again, using this like a stamp and palette knife to create my image. It really is amazing that you can use pretty much anything to draw and paint with

Day 12 – String

I won’t lie, absolutely hated this one. Really hard to paint with string. Won’t be doing that again in a hurry

Day 13 - Toilet Roll

Really enjoyed creating this one. Cutting up a loo roll into rings and rectangles and using them like stamps to print with and palette knifes and brushes to paint with.

Day 14 - Strews & Nails

Used these like the sticks, dipping the pointy bit into paint and drawing with them. Then using the head of the screws like a stamp and they picked up the pattern really well I feel

Day 15 - Bubble Wrap

This will not be surprising but I printed with the bubble wrap. Very messy and fun to do. Plus you get the added joy of popping all the bubbles afterwards

Day 16 - Plastic from Recycling Box

I was in my studio when I created this one so raided the communal recycling bin and got out a bottle top and used all sides of it to print, draw and paint with to great effect

Day 17 – Fork

This one came out surprising well I thought. Dipping the prongs into paint and drawing with them which worked well on the leaves, and using the side of the fork like a palette knife

Day 18 - Old Toothbrush

Before making my image, I had a little peek at what other people were doing and there was a lot of splashes and splats going on. I thought I can do better than that so used all of the toothbrush. So, the handle was used like the stick to draw with, the side of the head like a palette knife, the brushes to paint with and to add some splashes as you can’t use a toothbrush and not have a splash somewhere, right? I also used my favourite colour combo of hot pink and orange. Lovely

Day 19 - Cat Whiskers

This should have been Feathers but with living in the Centre of Bristol the only feathers I’m likely to encounter are those from manky pigeons. No thank you. Now you may or may not know but I do have a fluffy cat and quite often I will see one of her fallen out whiskers on the carpet. So picked it up and used that. I worked surprisingly well. The floppy bit didn’t work so great, so I used the root end bit and that’s when it improved and worked very well and I ended up with a delicate drawing. Just goes to show that you really can use anything to draw/paint with 

Day 20 - Oil Pastels or Candle

Not the most successful one. I used a clear candle to draw with and then used watercolour paint and went over it to reveal the drawing. To be honest I was feeling very tired on this day so didn’t put much effort into it and I think it shows. I think using oil pastels with watercolour paints would work well.

Day 21 - Magazine Cut Outs

Out of all the prompts this one I spent the longest on. About an hour and a half going through old Vogue magazines and picking out my colours and then about 30 to 40 minutes creating my image.

Day 22 – Cardboard

I used some corrugated card for this one and printed with it to show its lovely texture and patterns

Day 23 - Texture Rubbings from Outside 

It was chucking it outside so too wet to go rubbing surfaces so used textures found in my studio. I used a clear candle then did a watercolour wash over them then made a collage. Not the most successful one but can give you an idea of what could be done if you had highly textured rubbings to use

24 - Rubber Band

I’m actually allergic to rubber/latex so used an old hairband instead and mixed results. A bit like using the string, I found it quite hard (and very messy) to use, but unlike the string picture I think this one came out better

25 – Fruit

I went raiding in my fridge again. This time took out two juicy looking plum tomatoes.  I sliced them in half, one length ways and one the other way, short side is it called? Who knows? Anyway, once again my printing background kicked in and I used them like little stamps, I especially like the little love heart patterns it made. Plus, I’m sure I could plant this picture as there’s quite a few seeds stuck to it

26 - Continuous Line Drawing

Using my beloved Biro for this one and as the prompt suggest you just continue drawing without lifting your pen/pencil off the page. I just changed pressure to get different shades.

27 - Sponge

I went raiding again but this time in my bedroom drawers and found an old make up sponge to use to paint, dab and wipe paint on to the page

Day 28 - Old Mascara Wand

My one is still being used for my lashes, so I used a little brush that came with my aluminium straw. Close enough I thought and was surprisingly very effective

Day 29 - Skewer

I don’t own any but seem to have collected a load of wooden take-out Chop Sticks so used them instead.

Day 30 - Masking Tape

This one I lightly drew an image with pencil then just tore up bits of tape and stuck it down. Then did a watercolour wash to reveal the texture of the tape

Day 31 - Any Tool from your Decorating Box

This didn’t inspire me at all and to be honest I really didn’t want to ruin my tools, so I decided to use two of the mark making techniques from previous days. My least favourite together with my favourite.

My least favourite was Splash. Why use this again then I hear you ask? Well, I thought it would be good to revisit and use a various number of tools to create the splashes rather than just the one I did before. So, my splash tools were a toothbrush, a paintbrush, and pipette.

My favourite was used quite recently and that was the chop sticks.

So, I began with various splash marks and used the chopsticks to define the image

The Reels

I had planned to combine all my reels into one video and show it here. BUT I only went and dropped my phone down the bloody toilet and lost my videos. Lessons learnt are

1 – put toilet seat down and

2 – save videos on my Google Drive

Any ways you can still see my reels by heading over to my Instagram page and watching from there

And Finally….

So, there you have it all 31 days of mark making exercises in my sketchbook. Some worked better than others but I did have fun creating them. And it was surprising how much my printmaking background was used. And lastly you really can draw or paint with literally anything if you put your mind to it. Just be willing to experiment and give it a try. If it doesn’t work then who cares, it’s in your sketchbook so totally up to you if you want to share or not

It’s a little bit different from my Botanical Lino Prints and Sculptures but I enjoyed the challenge and would recommend you to give it a go too