I've been thinking a lot about what we think we like and what, in truth, we do. For example, I have a collection of images that are grouped because I liked the colors in them. It is quite large, and I find it fascinating to open it from time to time and see how my color interests change and where I am at the moment (or was a year ago). Or what colors I buy or mix all the time - and then see if they end up in actual projects. And also to see some complete outliers or examples of I would never have guessed was my pick - but that is a story for another time.
Recently, I noticed that the number of grays in the world around me has grown - there are more different types of gray cars on the highways, there are more grays in the house paint store and in designs that I see on paper and online. And in my sketchbook too! I am very interested in bringing textures and printmaking ideas into drawing on location, and I was tracking a particular texture in grays. It got exacerbated after I learned more about lithography and saw some amazing textures at the Ruth Asawa Retrospective this summer. So I ran a whole bunch of tiny experiments which involved lithographic crayons and tusche crayons, but also all sorts of grays that were lying around my studio. One of the things I was after was finding a solution that does not smudge, as graphite / liquid graphite does (think an alternative to tailor's art graph and possibly darker). I think I was able to reproduce the effect I was after, but it is probably too time-consuming for my preferred speed of working. Here are some of the experiments (click on the image to see it larger and read my notes):
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