Markmaking

Markmaking is the act of creating marks on a surface using tools and gestures. In art, marks can be lines, dots, shapes, textures, or patches of tone, and they may be expressive, representational, or decorative. The practice covers a wide range of media, including pencil and charcoal, ink, brush, and digital tools, and is central to drawing and painting, forming the visible record of technique, decision, and movement on the surface.

Historically, markmaking underpins much of human imagery, including cave paintings, sketches, and preparatory studies that reveal how lines and textures build form. In Western art, the development of drawing and mark-making paralleled shifts in style, from precise renderings to gestural and expressive approaches. The 20th century’s Abstract Expressionists, such as Pollock and de Kooning, emphasized spontaneous, large-scale marks as a primary expressive vehicle. In printmaking and engraving, marks are produced as repeated or layered impressions, while in modern and contemporary art, marks may be tactile, painterly, or digital.

Techniques include line work (contour, gesture), tonal marks (hatching, cross-hatching, stippling, wash), texture-building (scumbling, dry brush, scraping, splatter), and combinations thereof. The character of an artwork often derives from the qualities of the marks—sharp or soft, light or heavy, controlled or tentative—and from the rhythm, density, and variation of mark production. Tools range from graphite, charcoal, and ink to brushes, palette knives, and styluses; surfaces from paper and canvas to panel and digital canvases.

In education and practice, markmaking exercises train sensitivity to line, value, and texture, and support experimentation with materiality. Mark-making remains a foundational concept in drawing, painting, printmaking, and design, serving both technical rendering and expressive communication.