Marie WheelerThe selected prompts for this week on Journal 52 was ‘monochromatic’ or ‘psychedelic’. I chose monochromatic as despite my love for color, I do love the muted tones and matte finishes.
I took a cruise through my photo library for some inspiration and came across a photo of the Manhattan Bridge from DUMBO taken a week or so before Thanksgiving 2015. We had met up with some friends in Brooklyn and made a night of photography, food, and fun. Also, it was cold. So. Damn. Cold.
My frozen britches aside, it was a wonderful trip and the memory of the sunset that night will stay with me for years. A.D. and I sat patiently in the late autumn waiting to see if we would be blessed with color in the sky or whether it would be a disappointing dud. We sat and watched and sat and watched, all the while looking at the Brooklyn Bridge as the sun was setting behind it.
And then I turned to my right, stretching my back and being generally 
fidgety, when I saw the most amazing thing. The Manhattan Bridge was lit up with orange and pinks. It was magnificent!
When we returned home from that trip, I attempted an acrylic abstract of the scene. It was a massive failure and that canvas board is now a palette. Bleh. My obsession with capturing the photo didn’t change. It was just delayed.
So after getting the prompt this week to move toward monochromatic, I recalled a tidbit I learned from MaryDoodles or some other fantastic art video place, that when one is struggling with getting a scene in color, sometimes it helps to just knock it down to black and white. So that was my goal.
I used a pencil to put in the grid lines for my thirds and then found my vanishing point. I am never sure if it is the right one, but I found one and stuck with it! I then sketched in all of my main areas and went over it with my 005 Micron. I think my example is out of focus 🙁
I had started to think about some of the values and laid those out roughly in pencil too. I still wasn’t sure if I was going to use all pen and ink or where I might head with it, but I knew I needed to get the shading started. I finished putting all the lines in for the basic shapes and then went wild with some details in the water and really getting the shading down. I used my 08 Micron pen to make areas really blacked out and my 01 and 03 to do details that were closer in the frame.
As a final touch, I went back to my Inktense Pencils and picked a couple of colors and really used by grays and blacks. I can’t share how competent the pencils make me feel. It was nice.
Hope you enjoyed and see you next time!
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