BLACK & WHITE PLUS part 1

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from the picture file

I have always loved black and white art, especially pen and ink line drawings.  Back in the 1970s when I began experiencing the first faint calls of art my attention was focused on the delightful small pen and ink drawings scattered throughout the pages of the New Yorker magazine.  So much so that I still have an album I created with dozens of those drawings.  My favorite artist at the time was the contemporary British illustrator, Paul Hogarth.  I bought all of his art books and tracked down as many of the books and magazines that he illustrated.  (This was long before the Internet, and the classified ads in the NY Times book section was filled with companies that did book searches.)

Why all this history?  Because several days ago, looking about for something to do while waiting for a phone call (I wait very poorly) I picked up that album and began looking at these wonderful drawings, remembering the excitement I felt those many years ago.  And in an instant, I knew exactly what I was going to do; my next “project” would be a series of pen and ink drawings of various sizes and complexity, black and white with an occasional touch of color or gray.

from the picture file

The artwork in the Paducah Portfolio, which is almost completed, borrowed heavily from my past. This new project, Black & White Plus, takes me back even farther, to the earliest days of my art, when I was head over heels for the simple, but incredibly expressive line drawings.  Although I was not aware of it that was the beginning of what would be an incredible journey that turned my life upside down.