ABOVE Towards the
Pumping Station,
charcoal on paper
TMagic
onochro e
Not everything is black and white, but it can be a lot simpler if it is.
HANNAH IVORY BAKER sings the praises of working without colour
to improve your drawing skills and ability to spot mistakesO
ver the past year or so I have found myself
working increasingly in black and white. I decided
that I needed to completely change things up as
I felt that my process of painting had become too formulaic
and my use of colour predictable. One day, instead of
painting, I rolled out a large section of paper and taped it
to my living room floor. I looked through my drawers of
materials and picked out various charcoals, includingwillow charcoal, compressed sticks and thick stumps.
I spent the next four hours creating a huge black and white
charcoal drawing measuring two metres in length.
Ever since then, I have incorporated an element of
black-and-white drawing and painting into my other work
and it is now a regular part of my practice. Aside from the
liberating aspect of changing things up, what I found was
that using only black and white allowed me to focus on a