Color

If I had to name the one thing that’s lifted my spirit the most in these past two Mexican weeks, it would be color.

I don’t really understand how so many of us northerners manage to live for nearly six months of the year in a monochromatic world. I’ve done it all my life. It was easier when I was downhill skiing every winter, from the time the first snow fell in November to the last gasp, usually in mid-March. Being in the mountains in winter was exhilarating, and beautiful. But after my knees rebelled, around age 50, and as I’ve gotten older and turned into a city-dweller, I haven’t been fully successful in replacing those year-round experiences in nature. I’m less affected by the lack of light in winter than by the greyness - which, these past few years, has been made even darker by current events. I try to have color and light in my home, and to share meals and music and art with friends — but by March, everyone’s patience is literally on thin ice.

The contrast is almost shocking when you land in a place like Mexico City. The foliage is not only verdant but rampant, flowers are blooming, and color is everywhere, from bright signage and pink taxicabs to the colors of the buildings.

As most readers here already know, I love painting and drawing plants, so this place is pretty much heaven. My biggest challenge in my sketchbook this year has been to capture the complexity of scenes where the plants are tangled and overlapping. One solution is to isolate particular blooms, as in the watercolor at the top of the post. (That is the spectacular bright red flower of the Erythrina americana tree.) Another is to try to depict the feeling of a scene without reverting to detail, such as this view from my window of a wall covered by vines, with tree trunks and branches and a bougainvillea further away:

Yet another approach is to draw a plant or a scene in pen (in the three examples below I’m using my fude-nib pen, loaded with an olive green ink) and either leave that as the finished drawing, or add color.

Above, a banana flower and fruit, at the botanical garden.

Cacti and palms, at the botanical garden.

Plants in the courtyard of our building, with an added ink wash.

I don’t really have a preference among these techniques; I’m just experimenting and seeing what works. Oddly enough, even when I’m drawing in monochrome, the color feels implied because I see it in my imagination. It’s more a matter of time - doing the watercolors takes longer, and when I’m on location, sometimes drawing is the only feasible option.

Still, I know that when I look back through the sketchbook in the months or years to come, it’s the pages with color that will bring me back here most vividly. I hope these images have cheered you, too!