Part One: Project 1 - Stage 3: Exercise 2

Wednesday 8th September - Using marks to create surface textures: Working from objects.

The next objects I looked at were a cheese grater, bristles of a brush and a granite worktop.

Grater: An everyday object, shiny, sharp, metallic, reflective.


Cheese Gater

Soft pencil: Although I tried charcoal first - it was too difficult to achieve the surface texture of the grater.
I then covered the surface of the paper with thick layers of dark, soft pencil. Using an eraser and a stencil - I removed areas of the pencil.
I didn't like the results achieved using this technique, for this object.

Surface texture of the grater

 Bristles of a paint brush: Like hair, rough, course, 'bristley'!

Paint brushes

 2H pencil: flicked in one direction repeatedly. Afterwards a darker,softer pencil was overlaid.
A good likeness to the texture.


Texture of brush in pencil

Painting with hessian: After soaking the rough edges of the hessian fabric with a watery paint, it was used to brush the surface of the paper.
Thick and thin lines were created which overlapped.
Both the movements used and the finished effect were freer than that created in pencil.

Texture of brush in paint

Granite worktop: Solid, smooth, shiny, heavy, patterned, dotty.

Granite worktop

I experimented with wax resist for this object.
Wax resist 1: Wax was 'dotted' onto the paper to act as a resist. A watercolour wash was added, as that was drying, watercolour was splattered over the top.

Wax resist 1

Wax resist 2: This time, the wax was scribbled onto the surface paper. The watercolour added after as a wash and as a splatter.


Wax resist 2

I didn't like the way either of these 2 samples worked out. They do not show enough colour changes and the white stands out too much.

Wax resist 3: Using the cheese grater under the paper, I did a rubbing with the wax. First using white, then using black. Finally a grey watercolour wash added on top.

Wax resist 3

This was my favourite - an even amount of colour showing for the white, black and grey. Also the amount of wax used help to give the finished effect a 'shiny' look.

The finished sheet of these techniques:


Texture sheet for the grater, brush and worktop.