Island Park in Black and White

Recently I've been thinking a lot about color, vibrant and saturated.  Here is something I made with black and white paint only. When the light and dark value relationships are right, a sense of "color" appears, because of the light that seems to emanate from the painting itself. 

In 2014 on a Thursday morning I went out to paint the landscape, with a student. I suggested we start with a black and white painting and though I don't do these black and white sketches very often, it's what we did because it was appropriate at the time.

What always surprises me is the feeling of light and how it appears (to glow, almost) with the black and white, absent of chromatic color. I can almost sense the "color" in it, because of the relationships. I used ivory black and titanium white.  Ivory black is a cool black and it's cool enough so that in the correct color relationship in a painting it can appear to be blue. I've even used it for the sky in some paintings.  Here's the painting, below. 

A while later I returned to paint a similar view in full color, and that's below too. 

Lucy Barber, Island Park, oil/linen, 12" x 12" 

below: Lucy Barber, Bayfront Park, oil/canvas, 8" x 10"