A snippet from my travel sketchbook* of a grey day on vacation. I "broke the rules" and painted almost entirely with BLACK gouache. In the one square on the page I finished up with a few swipes of color.
Why have black and grey pigments gotten such a bad rap? Okay, so I see where people could (and do) over use them and end up with flat blah paintings ... but here and there ought to be okay. And, hey. Sometimes the world IS flat and blah and grey. Except for one red fishing boat. Yeah. You know what I'm talking about.
(Here's the other 3/4 of the page. Undecipherable, unless you know in advance that it is of a foggy, rainy, grey day on a lake... ):-)
* my travel sketchbook is handmade from #140 hot press watercolor paper in a horizontal landscape format. We had to do all we could to avoid excess weight on this trip -- a good idea for any trip, actually -- so I chose to leave it unfinished with plans to do the covers after we returned home. I tried a new binding (to me) and feel like there are some technical issues with the construction of the book; therefore, I'm putting the covers on hold until I can talk to my friend, Bob Meadows (Book-Binding-Bob!) for HELP. I also have much more tweaking of hasty sketches before it is ready to be called done. And, of course, there will be some watercolor work from photos, as I sit at my table in the heat and humidity and think about the north... sigh. Oh Bother! I need to get over it!
:-D
9 comments:
Thanks for stopping by Linda and saying hello! To say that I love your sketches and watercolours would be a huge understatement! They have a beautiful and magical quality to them and really...you should be illustrating books (if you're not already). Really. They're very special.
I totally agree with you about black and white - I use them both, frequently.
I love these sketches, Linda - they do have a dreamlike quality to them - ethereal and lovely...
I think working in black and white forces you to really see the gradation of hue that your eye translates into line and form. I love it. I clearly read gray foggy day.
I think there is beauty in grey days too and you illustrate this perfectly! The three paler sketches just add to the beauty of the larger sketch - I love these!
Oh I agree, a good gray with personality makes a sketch at times, these are great gray studies. Very striking with that bit of bright red.
I love the look of your black gouache skethces. Looks like fog to me.
Black and White can be my friends too? These are lovely sketches Linda with just the right splash of color (red, my favorite). I did the take the pages on my Europe trip and bind later, sigh, I've yet to bind them! Had a great visit on your blog....so you like to fish :)
I love your grey day sketches! Breaking the rules is good-I still get a slight tinge of guilt when I get out the black paint-but if we were not meant to use it then why is it in the pack of paints?!
These are really good and very different. You've really caught the hazy rainy day with that beautiful grey wash. And I have certainly been gone for awhile.
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