Kathryn Kerr

11 July, 2018
(Click for a larger image)

Reflection

The amazing variety of marks possible with the humble toothbrush!

Soft
Soft marks leave dark blobs with a dry brush and neat paint, but once water is added, a faint, sustained line is achieved, akin to a paintbrush mark.

Sharp
Sharp movements, like ‘ticks’ give marks with a rounded front edge, as the brushes splay, and fine trailing lines at the end of the stroke. Pouncing with the brush yielded splotches with fine radiating lines.

Heavy
Heavy pressure gives a dark, continuous line.

Flowing
These are some of my favourite marks, so far. Dry brush gives intense coverage mixed with unpredictable white space. Pressure one one curve of the bend gives a stronger mark, interceded by trailing, stop/start marks in the tail. When the same movement was repeated with a wet brush and diluted paint, the full, solid coverage I expected didn’t occur, instead white space emerged and darker/lighter areas.

Fast
Fast lines produce wide stripes, trailing off,

Slow
The slow lines were quite similar to the fast ones, with the added feature of ‘globs’ of paint being released randomly and dragged along to yield a pleasing group of lines of variable thickness.

Fluid

Wet
As mentioned in the flowing experiments, variable line marks were achieved. The other interesting occurrence were lovely round drip marks with fine, furry edges and internal rings, made by the pools as the paper dried.

Scrubbing
The most natural movement in the world to make with a toothbrush is scrubbing. Hard pressure in wide circular movements produced variable bushy lines, with the circular movement pull through them.

Flicking
Flicking the loaded toothbrush gave spots and lines ranging from tiny to a few millimetres in diameter, giving a pleasing ‘shaded’ effect.