Blue Ridge Sonnet #16- AnaMarie Liddell

Graphite on Paper
37" x 22"
 
The act of making marks is meditative and, like tending a zen garden, it allows me to contemplate and be at one with the world. Drawing allows me to pay attention and to gain insight and understanding into nature’s structures and its encompassing light. By eliminating all references to color the black and white drawings become, in essence, an abstraction of reality and a more vivid interpretation of the scene before me in a simple and direct way without exaggeration or adornment. Working monochromatically by manipulating and emphasizing darks and lights through mediating tonal contrasts and densities that go from the deepest black to the palest gray requires careful thought but also offers many opportunities to go beyond reality and into my imagination. I render a scene using many grades of graphite pencils, building layer upon layer with delicate strokes and nuances, developing graduated tones to create an ethereal, serene image of simplicity and timelessness.