Seek a Sunset

 I have been asked by a number of folks - including some of you here on the Wall - how I decide what colors go where on my drawings. Well, first you go to a good bookstore or an art supply store, or even on the Internet - though color accuracy and purity can be suspect online. Anyway secure a good color wheel - those graphics that show you what colors go with what other colors. Then I make a mark on the drawing - starting with red, and I hold the color wheel over the red mark and slowly rotate it to find the next color that goes best with it and .  .  .  .

No, not really. That is all a load of BS. If you recognize the structure of the paragraph, I just realized I stole it from one of the early scenes in Robin Williams’ Dead Poets Society where an English teacher is showing his students how to evaluate a poem with a ruler by physically measuring the length of lines, stanzas, etc. Excrement. 

I feel much the same about color wheels and coloring inside the lines. The obvious exception being the lines I have drawn, which I feel free to change whenever I choose. You should not be surprised to learn that I am guided by, but by no means constrained by, a palette quite different from those suggested by color wheels. I call it SAS. Not to be confused with the huge corporate entity back in Cary, NC, my SAS stands for Seek a Sunset.

Think about it. Or better yet do it. Find a place where you have an unobstructed view of the horizon. I suppose you can see a good sunset in the city, but my own experience indicates that the truly world class sunsets are best seen over wide expanses of oceans, big lakes, deserts, etc. However, in the name of full artistic disclosure I need to admit that some of the best sunsets I have ever seen were viewed from the beach of Lake Michigan watching the sun sink into the hazy - oh, say it, polluted - skies over Chicago on the opposite shore. Just awesome!

And what was it that made these “sunsetscapes” so incredible? Obviously it was the awesome variety of colors. No rhyme, no reason, no color wheels. It was as if God had bumped into her art table and every hue, shade and color imaginable - and some that weren’t - spilled out and ran down her sky canvas. Yes, these were the sixties, but glorious, truly glorious colors. There could be no talk of “Oh, do those colors “belong together?” “Is that shade a bit too harsh?” 

Poppycock! In a sunset everything works. So how do I try to bring the colors of SAS into my drawings? Mostly by not trying. I know that sounds glib, but let me try to explain. I work with pens and “markers” on paper. The designs are the product of either freehand drawings or images that started as my photographs which I reduce to line drawings through Photoshop. But the end result is always black lines on white paper that I color with markers. Markers are a single discrete color. I am aware that one can blend markers to obtain gradations of color, but that is a process I have not explored, so my drawings are constrained by the markers arrayed before me on my drawing table. Hence my maxim: you can never have too many markers!

So the array of markers on my table becomes the “sunset” from which I choose the colors for the various portions of my drawings. And here it does become a bit mystical. I look at the portion of the drawing I wish to color and run my eyes and hands over my array of markers until something says “That one.” I pick up the marker and place a blank note card next to the portion of the drawing I am working on, and make a mark on the card. This lets me see if the color indicated on the marker cap is an accurate representation of the color of the ink. If so, great and I proceed to color that portion of the drawing with that marker. If the color on the card is not right, I put the marker back and start again. This process obviously gets more complicated if I have been working on the drawing and the new place I am working on is surrounded by colors I have already employed. 

But the process is always the same. Observe the area to be colored. Observe the marker dictated palette. Run your hand/eye/mind over the available markers. Select the one that speaks to you. Make a mark on the test card and then either approve and use, or reject and begin again. This obviously results in a workspace littered with markers and multicolored test cards, but it is the best way, for me anyhow, to bring the unrestricted palette of a sunset to my drawings. Which leads to the inescapable conclusion that the only way to get better is to buy more markers!