Experimenting with expressive lines and marks - Reflection on the exercise

In terms of portraying expression and emotions in the marks I was making, I felt that Calm was the most successful experiment, and can only presume that it was because it was the product of a genuine feeling, fully inhabiting the emotion. While the emotion of Calm Joy and Anger experiments were also genuine, I had to force myself into those emotions and I’m not sure that I managed to fully inhabit them.

So, what I learned from this experiment is that, to be able to portray and express emotion successfully in your work you need to fully inhabit the emotion you want to portray. In the same way, when dancer or singers are preparing to perform, we often hear coaches telling them ‘It has to come from your heart” to produce a successful performance, and for painters, dancer, singer, actors or any other form of art you can only perform successfully when you are able to fully inhabit the emotion needed for the performance.