Bigger isn’t necessarily better.
I’ve frequently gone off on one at students who think that development of a piece of work means doing it bigger. The same, just bigger. Why? What does this achieve? What does bigger say that smaller can’t? I challenge the urge to go big just for the sake of it.
But it is tempting isn’t it?
Yes, I agree that mark making feels different if instead of making small wrist movements you start taking wide side-steps and large arm sweeps… It can become choreography…
And going very small can make the process seem very personal and internal, I get that… But once explored, I would always ask why is scale important? What do you want to feel when you’re making it?
(Let’s forget about the viewer for the moment)
About 50 drawings in, I feel the urge to go big. There. I said it.
But I don’t want to make the shapes and marks bigger, I just want to do more of them. I want to get up close to the paper with my pen and ink out these shapes so that they fill my field of vision. I want connections, small explosions, mutations…in all directions…. I might even make them smaller so I can fit more in… So I’m going simultaneously bigger and smaller…
Maybe.
