I realised that drawing with fine lines on white paper implied caucasian skin. I wanted a choice about that. So I started experimenting with different coloured grounds. As I was thinking through solutions I inverted some images in Photoshop (which changes each colour pixel to the colour at the opposite end of the spectrum).
I find it interesting how I read black lines on white paper. There's such familiarity around that combination. A bit like reading from left to right (as opposed to up and down for Japanese characters, or right to left for Arabic text).
Why do we have mostly white paper available? Obviously we have coloured paper but it's much less common. Perhaps because black mark making tools are easier to read on a white background, than white on black. The white is not opaque enough to have clarity. Desktop printers don't even have white ink.
White chalk on a blackboard was the mode, but even blackboards have been replaced by white boards now (in my world).
My drawings are a long way from photo-realistic. So it's not that I need to make them colour match like some kind of hot-trending makeup foundation, but I want to be intentional about what I'm doing.
Also, in terms of drawing portraits at the street market I felt a necessity to honour a person's looks. Drawing a brown skinned person in an outline on white paper feels like a bit of a let down.
I'm interested to see Lisa Brice's paintings which express female figures in blue and white.
