Dorothy Caldwell taught her 'Human Marks' workshop in Gloria Daly's Duncan studio. Many of us had registered for the workshop over 18 months ago, as soon as we heard Dorothy was coming to the island.
Dorothy is a gifted teacher and a great artist. Everyone was so eager to be coached by her for the week.
The first exercise was to make a quick spontaneous mark on paper with black ink. We put our efforts up on the wall and looked at them while Dorothy explained the notion of the human mark.
The next exercise was to make  repeated marks with only our hands, ink and a small felt pad. We worked on both sides of a long piece of soft paper.  I used all of my finger tips on my right hand to make my repeating marks.
We lay our papers end on the full length of the room and marvelled at the variety and different effects and feelings in each one.
Next exercise. This time we used a fine pen to make a small single motion repeated mark over and over. This exercise required more arm movement and produced quite a different kind of mark. One that looked different close-up and from a distance. The mark itself makes the drawing.
Throughout these exercises, we were thinking of the word Dorothy gave us -
Allow