Instruments for Mark-Making#
Week 1 — The single brushstroke
一画者，众有之本，万象之根
The single stroke is the root of all things, the origin of every image.
— Shitao, Recorded Sayings on Painting (画语录), c. 1700
What this course is not#
- not a features checklist: brush size, colour, undo, export
- not “learn ten techniques and combine them”
- not software that makes a picture for you
Instrument, not artwork#
An artwork is a fixed thing you show someone.
An instrument is something you hand to someone — and it behaves differently every time, because a different hand is now involved.
Everything this course marks is an instrument#
- First Instrument (week 6): one build, one constraint, handed to a stranger
- Exhibition Piece (week 12): running unattended, for anyone to walk up to
- Critique Practice: how you used every studio in between
The shape of a studio#
- short demo of last week’s build
- feedback aimed at your least-certain decision
- one new constraint or capability for next week
Repeats for eleven more weeks.
Before next week#
Nothing more than:
- a canvas
- a line that follows the pointer
No brush width, no colour, no meaning yet. Just the one continuous gesture everything else complicates.
无法而法，乃为至法#
The method of no method is the perfect method.
We’ll come back to this in week 12 — it will mean something different by then.
Read before week 2#
Nothing formal. Bring the build from week 1, running, and the one decision about it you’re least sure of.