…when life decided to show who was boss. But I’m still with it, still working in black and white. Some days ideas come to me while I’m at work, but then by the time I get home, they are gone. I’m trying to be open to ideas as I sit down to the art table, but also trying to bring some ideas with me – and I’m not sure that either always works. Should I have separated out some of my collage materials so I would only have a few things to choose from to make it work? Or, is my mess of all things black white and gray what prompts the ideas? Not sure that I know the answer yet. But some good things are still happening!
This one was fun because it took advantage of my two newest obsessions – working with deli paper and working on crossword puzzles! The puzzles are perfect black and white fare, and I admit that I’ve gotten a bit obsessed with solving them lately. Don’t know why – I’ve avoided them for a LONG time. My Mom was VERY good and loved puzzles, and my husband sits down and does the New York Times puzzles in pen so I have been surrounded by puzzle success. I’ve always been drawn to their graphics and I don’t know why now I decided to start working them. Anyway, I have a hard time getting through them, but also a hard time putting them down!
My other obsession is deli paper. Again, thanks to Pam Carriker, I discovered the big boxes of this stuff at Costco. Also called dry wax paper, it is tissue like on one side and a little shiny on the other, but on collages it works like tissue paper. I’ve taken to “cleaning” my letter stamps on a piece of that paper when I’m using them, so get varying strengths of the letters laid down as I get the ink off the stamps – and I’ve enjoyed using those left over cleaning sheets to put in my journal.
I’m almost finished with a couple more pages, but am more behind than I wanted to be. I’m trying to get through the black and white and shades of gray journal before I play with color again. It’s been a bit hard, but also good to impose some discipline.
I travel for work next week, so not sure what I might do. I’ve not drawn much at ALL these past few weeks, so maybe time to take the pencils out and do some drawing….after all the work, I don’t want to lose those muscles!
I think your simple palette is lovely. It seems that if we can create in shades of gray that our color artwork is just that much better. It trains the eye to see values and they are such an important part of what we do as artists. Lovely work.
Thank you so much for your comment! That is the hope, that a simple palette helps with light direction and shading…..