Journey Mark Making Experiments

 Journey Experiments - Mental Health

In this experiment, i decided to create a mono print. I used red paint because i like the fact that it can give so many different connotations, for example danger, blood, trauma, etc. I used the mark making technique of scribbles to create a brain-like shape as they are the main focus when it comes to mental health. The colour red with the shape of a brain creates the idea that the danger or trauma is found within the brain, possibly as memories or thoughts. I reprinted the colour red to other parts of the page to show that these bad thoughts can spread outside of the brain into real life. This may be through actions towards other people or your general attitude. The scribbles represent the many thoughts inside the brain, positive and negative. In this case though, most of the thoughts are negative due to the addition of the colour red. Red is commonly seen as a bad/negative colour because it is often the colour associated with anger. This relates to mental health as uncontrollable anger/a short temper is a general sign of an anger issue. The disorderly pattern of the scribbles also shows the confusion often found in a troubled mind.




For this experiment, I included layers as I have not used them before. I used layers to create depth in my art because it shows a tunnel type shape. I stuck long strips of newspaper around in a circular motion to create a hole. The words on the newspaper represent the words spoken by people in the past, however the words are not specific. I layered small pieces of white paper in the centre to create a 'light', representing the light people supposedly 'walk towards' when their life is ending. I drew a red figure on the white paper and covered it slightly with tiny pieces of paper. This was to create the effect that the figure is slowly disappearing. The black paper in a circle surrounding the figure shows the dark/bad thoughts in their head. I chose black because it often gives connotations of emptiness or darkness/fear, which thoughts found in a mentally ill mind are often based on/around.