Black Landscape. Ink and tape on card. Powys

Honoring the Melancholy.

Did you know that skilled painters never use pure black — straight from the tube?

Instead, they harness the alchemy of a mix of prussian blue, paynes grey — and a smear of crimson

because this way, black acquires depth, sings and seems alive?

Pure black pigment is dense — dead — made as it is from the crushed bones of the long buried.

Soulages and Lee Miller knew the power of the black screech mark.

Chinese watercolour is a symphony of meditative greys -

Black is the colour of my true loves hair

and also the basis of Malevitchs square…

Black envelopes, crushes and pulls you in -

The night sky — deep shaddow — holes…

So, I will paint over my colours today.

There is something I need to do — urgent — that requires this negation of the past.

But I will mix my black — not use it “right”.

That way, I can always come back to the light.