Summer 2016 b

Maureen Nathan: “Chopstinking”
Mark Making with Chopsticks & Ink
Tulips, ink, chopstick and watercolour
Colmers Hill, ink, chopstick and chalk in sketchbook
I’m a painter/printmaker who works
figuratively. Drawing is key to all my
work and I love lines and marks.
About five years ago I felt that my drawings were
tight and stale and it worried me. How was I going to
loosen up and free up my mark making? I tried various
exercises that suggested new ways to engage with
drawing. Nothing really seemed to work for me until
one day I was looking at some chopsticks I’d brought
home from my daughter’s birthday at a Japanese restaurant.
I took one of them and stuck it in a bowl of
Indian ink and started drawing.
The chopstick isn’t made to hold ink so it was a
case of constantly dipping it in the ink and drawing
and holding it sideways or straight on to stop
it from dripping down the paper or into my hand.
No time to think, just get those marks on the paper.
Hold the chopstick sideways to fill in large areas
and using various pressures get thin or thick lines.
Use the ‘wrong’ paper and the lines swell up thickly
– if it looks good, then do it on purpose!
I want to make drawings that capture something of
the sitter or motif and at the same time acknowledge
that it is 2D and show the workings of it, even
the ‘mistakes’. They show my part in it and I think
give an energy and emotion to the image.
I have a diploma in portrait painting from the
Heatherley School of Fine Art but seldom paint
portraits traditionally now, instead I draw them
with ink and chopstick and use pastel, paint or
watercolour in addition to that.
I teach drawing using ink and chopstick with
the aim being to freely make marks, looking
and drawing, and looking again. Participants
loosen up, ‘feel’ their drawings and realise at
the end of the sessions that whether a likeness
of a sitter or replica of the motif is achieved
they have created a pleasing set of marks.
They have also learned a new way of approaching
drawing which they can incorporate into
their own way of working.
As a note to anyone who wants to try this, use a
wooden chopstick. The plastic ones don’t hold
any ink and result in huge frustration!
Maureen Nathan
www.maureennathan.com
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