Just experimenting with 'colouring' my art with a single layer of grey. This piece is a 'medaillon'-shape introductory thing (like the elaborate initials in medieval manuscripts) to one of the saint's stories that I have been doing the last few months. For me, this is a local saint. Of course I have been spicing up the classic stories. The wolf was entirely my idea.
Anyway, I used to be quite addicted to working with zip-a-tone in the analogue era as I would have liked to have my stuff published in full colour, but could not. Too damn expensive. So that became an alternative to colour. Now anything is possible, but I'd like to try a minimal approach for clarity's sake.
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4 comments:
Hey!
I understand your frustration, but at least greys are good way of 'colouring', I often use that way on my own because colours ain't no good for everything... and this remind me 'grisaille'... it's the best way to get volumes (so scholars uses this techniques to copy old paintings, then they use 'glacis' colors onto the grey volumes)
Here at the Garage we thought about a small book/zine of your drawings made for colouring (like for children)... maybe a way to make a 'coloured book' !!?
Hmm, I would have to tone down the blood and medieval cruelty to make a childrens' colouring book.
But hey, wasn't grisaille born out of scarcity of colouring materials, or was there another reason? Not sure about this. I am asking because often the outside panels of triptychs were done in greys.
We had a visit to Anwerp Cathedral in 2009 & we saw a very impressive exhibition of all paintings which were originally into the Cathedral, and we saw this grisaille closed panels... The explanation of this is not about scarcity of materials, they are rare but not enough to prevent painting, a tryptic is a choice, if they don't have money they do a simple open panel. So the reason of this seems to be more into the power given by this techniques (open-close) to the corporation. It was like a special event when they do open the tryptic, for some important occasion like religious days... Historians compare this to a theatrical show, and you can imagine the effect of a ceremony, opening of this big paintings, revealing full colors & mystic scenes... like in a cinema when it start with no light, begining of the film until first colors & so on... so grisaille is not a economical way of painting (it is not because they used a sepia color which is expensive too), but probably more like a new artistic invention that give a special enlightment onto mystical scene. Grisaille manuscript are often very special books made for very special peoples...
I sort of suspected that scarcity might not be the final reason for the use of grisaille, but it takes some digging into history to be sure. Thank you!
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