Reading Notes: My Current Favorite Book on Gray

I continue my Ode to Gray by sharing a a fascinating book about the history of London, which I think is actually a book about grays! 

It is called London: A History by a wonderful illustrator and ceramist, Laura Carlin. There were many fascinating facts in this book, but all I could think of while reading it was "another gray, and here is yet another". If you are interested in London, illustration, history, color in general, gray or grey in particular, texture, or tracing choices artists make through pieces of art - look up this book!

Another thought that was running through my mind while I looked at these drawings was how different is the gray of Hammershoi! 

An Ode to Gray

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):