Black & White

At the 26thAnnual International Colored Pencil Show in Chicago (2018) there were six black and white pictures accepted. Two of these won prizes. This really bothers me. I tried to get our local chapter to discuss this at our September meeting but it never really went anywhere. Most members seemed to be of the mind that I should get over it and that the ‘colors’ black and white (and grays, too) were all included “in the box” with all of the other colored pencils so they should be accepted. However, something about their presence in the International Show kinda bugs me.

Mind you, I am not in any way questioning the talent of any of the artists who chose to do black and white. If I had been the judge of the last International Show, I would have chosen a large black and white picture by Jeff George (The Hard Way) that was of cobblestones, railway tracks, and puddles as my top prize. It had an excellent, eerie, Jack-the-Ripper’s England feel to it (yes, I love horror movies).

According to the Meriam Webster On-Line Dictionary (coz I wasn’t about to lay down $100 for the OED!!):

color: a phenomenon of light (such as red, brown, pink, or gray) or visual perception that enables one to differentiate otherwise identical objects

(1): the aspect of the appearance of objects and light sources that may be described in terms of hue, lightness, and saturation for objects and hue, brightness, and saturation for light sources

//the changing color of the sky

also : a specific combination of hue, saturation, and lightness or brightness

//comes in six colors

(2): a color other than and as contrasted with black, white, or gray

So, if black, white and gray aren’t colors, then why should they be embraced by the COLORED Pencil Society? My bet is that everyone in the group started in black and white with regular graphite pencils. I know I certainly did. The hues are what makes colored pencil a challenge.

What’s more….WHY?

I don’t understand why you would want to use colored pencils to work in black and white. Although I admire the talent it takes, I don’t understand why Mike Pease (a colored pencil artist based in Eugene, Oregon) uses only three colors (yellow, red, blue). All the colors are the fun part!! I can’ tell you how many times I have gone into an art store, looked over the colored pencils, and simply fell in love with and bought some pencil just because I liked the color. Even though I knew would probably never use it…

maybe it’s just me.