I love to make line drawings. There’s something about following the edges of things around me with a ball point pen that I find very satisfying.

Sometime last year a friend asked me why my drawings look so different from my paintings. I said that the tip of a pen or pencil lends itself so well to line and not so much to spots of value. She suggested I try Prismacolor NuPastels in grayscale on BFK Rives printingmaking paper in combination with charcoal and pencils.

I gave it a try. I wanted to make a painting with drawing materials. I found myself using Hawthorne’s color spot theory to find color/value relationships and a stable value structure.

I made this piece at my local library. The library is in a valley surrounded by hills and mountains. I set up near the staff entrance and looked up the hill at the houses lit up by the afternoon sun. It was late winter and most of the trees were bare.

I’m looking forward to more painting with charcoal and pastels.