At various points in my drawing life, I’ve had a yen to dial the world back to black and white.

I watch old movies on the Criterion channel and TCM — I'm sated by the sumptuous black-and-white of the recent production of Ripley. I fill my pages with black line drawings, cross-hatching, and stipples. Occasionally, I’ll allow myself a lick of Sumi ink or a grey brush marker to add some tone.

And then one day, I wake up, ravenous for color.

My sketchbook becomes a fruit salad of pomegranates and bananas, limes and tangerines. I want to see the world through vermillion glasses. I look to Matisse, van Gogh, Hockney.

It’s a transitional process. I began the pandemic with ink line drawings of my garden. Four years later, my sketchbook is in full tempera Technicolor.

I escalate from the delicacy of watercolors to the chalkiness of colored pencils to the saturation of Ph. Martin’s liquid watercolors.

Then I reach for the neon brashness of Ecoline and Posca markers, the bold opacity of gouache, and finally stand transfixed and agog before the Tiffany window of my iPad.

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Looking back through my shelves of sketchbooks, I see that my hunger for color appears to be seasonal.

In Spring, as vibrant roses crowd our beds, my palette grows softer, diluted washes of earthy tone. In summer, the colors leach away. I move to a limited palette and finally to just black line. In autumn, the trend reverses, and by the depth of winter, my fingers are stiff, cold, and pigment-stained once again.

Color brings comfort and joy. It makes the world warm and glorious, even when snow turns the view out the window into an endless page of white.

We all need a little color in our lives from time to time. Why not now?

Your pal,

Danny
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P.S. This past week has sucked on a number of levels. Until further notice, you’ll find me neck-deep in the creamy comfort of my tempera sticks.