Carving: A Mark Making Primer

One of the real joys of doing my carved paintings is the wide variety of marks that I am able to make with my carving tools. In the course of my life, I have observed that people have a deep need to leave a mark of some sort on their world. An example of this would be Grafitti, and an earler series of mine from a few years ago discussed that. Grafitti is found everywhere, from walls to bathrooms to tree trunks, and is certainly abundant in San Francisco. The genesis for that series was a stay in Barcelona, where I had visited Roman ruins on which could be seen names and words left by people from 2000 years ago. Soon after, I started to use the wood panels that I use now, since they provided a firm and stable base for the plasters that I began to coat them with, subsequent to scratching marks on them. That series led directly to my carved  paintings, since the wood  began to seduce me with its beauty, and I came to feel that there was  no need to cover it with plaster prior to making marks.
Below are some images of marks that I have made with carving tools. Since all of these are derived from nature, I hope to explore many more in their infinite variety.