Black & White/
Chiaroscuro/
Brush & Ink
Works on Paper
*
Contact me  Go to home page

"Colour delights only salesmen and magazines" – Henri Cartier-Bresson

Lack of colour is so liberating – I have been using brush and Chinese ink for more than 20 years, occasionally as book illustration (as in my 2000 book Wise Acres and 2012 Vanishing Vancouver – see my book page). There are scattered examples of it elsewhere on this site, notably in the Australian campervan trip, the Australian painting page, and in a handful of the trips catalogued on the travel page.

There were also a number in my 2017 show, most of which sold.

Most of the pictures below, set in reverse chronological order, are true "chiaroscuro" i.e. light-dark with no intermediate tones; they are the most interesting as compositions because of the challenge of creating an image where only shadows enclose space and create form, without any outlines, and where there is no atmospheric perspective at all – just geometric perspective. My arty friends tend to be more impressed by them. They definitely fit the polarized urban environment of rich-poor Vancouver.

However, I have begun to experiment with an ink stick and stone that I bought in Taiwan several years ago; in this more traditional way of painting, the space is modelled partly by tone and partly by composition.

These are all for sale, of course. Use the "Contact Me" link above for prices, etc.


Go to Chiaroscuro Drawings

INK STICK (TONE) DRAWINGS




Mayne Island Shoreline, 11 x 7 1/4 inches, in a frame, 2022



Old Growth/Second Growth 1, 11 x 7 1/4 inches, 2022



Old Growth/Second Growth 2, 11 x 7 1/4 inches, 2022



Coast Dock, 7 1/4 x 11 inches, 2022



Kits Beach Sunset, 11 1/4 x 7-1/2 inches, 2018, SOLD





Two scrolls of Finn Slough in late winter, 2019
(Ink stick and Chinese ink with brush, laminated onto mulberry paper)
The one on the right is SOLD.



Savary Island coastcard, 2018. SOLD



  Coastcards #2, 4 images in frames, about 33 x 26 inches.

Coastcards #1, 2018, SOLD




2018, Shore pines & two hammocks, SOLD

***

CHIAROSCURO DRAWINGS



2020, the old Ming Wo storefront on East Pender in Chinatown.


2018 Winter Back Lane



2018 Summer Back Yard



2018 Balmoral Hotel



2018 Bottle Lady



2018 Bus Stop



2018 Café



2018 Vancouver Church Steps



2018 Dan's House



2018 Dude Chilling



2018 Girl with Phone



2018 Nighttime Back Lane



2018 Old Store near Fraser Street



2018 Order Online



2018 Produce Store (Sunrise Market)



2018 Rooming House (1st and Clark Drive, Vancouver)



2018 Sleeper on Steps


2018 Sproat Lake Cottage SOLD


2014 Binner


2014 Beggar #1


2014 Homeless #1


2014 Bottle Lady



2013 Chinatown alley


2012 – Finn Slough SOLD

2012 Finn Slough #2 SOLD


2012 Wharf at Port Astoria


2012 VanDusen Forest Centre SOLD



2004 Crete



2004 Heidelberg



2009 Australia – one of the many that suited the harsh light.


Contact me  Go to home page