Gray Matters

Hard-working grays

In clothing, home décor, accessories and other products, gray is one of my least favorite colors (though I just bought a gray T-shirt, so there are always exceptions). I rarely choose gray if other color choices are available. In sketches, however, gray is supremely handy for many tasks, and I have used it for years, especially in markers. With watercolor pencils, I’ve used gray markers as a grisaille. With Uglybooks and my comics look, gray markers have again proven their utility.

Although the strong color of the Uglybooks paper itself usually serves as the midtone (between white and black), I often use gray as a fourth value between the paper’s hue and black.

Other times, I use gray to imply background or other elements that I don’t want to detract from the focal point. In these cases, I’m not necessarily emulating the values I see. The areas I draw in gray might be much darker in reality, but I downplay them to reduce the contrast (and therefore avoid attracting the eye).

My current favorite gray marker is the Faber-Castell Pitt Dual Tip Marker, which I recently mentioned in my post about favorite comics media. It’s handy to have two tip sizes, and the ink is the same waterproof, non-bleedy, non-smelly ink I’ve always enjoyed in Pitt Artist markers. I especially appreciate how the ink can be layered, appearing subtly darker as I apply more. (Details taken from sketches previously shown are below.)

The yellow paper is too high key to be a midtone, so gray serves that role here.

Gray used in the background implies the context without drawing the eye in that direction.

Same with this one -- grayed-out background elements imply the context.

Here the gray ink serves as a fourth value.

More implied background and shadows indicated with gray.

Again, shadows and implied background elements.

Cold Gray III has long been a favorite, but just lately I’ve been using Warm Gray III, which is significantly lighter than Cold III (I’ve always been annoyed about the inconsistency in Faber-Castell’s grayscale values between the Warms and Colds and even within each). It pairs nicely with the tan Uglybook I’ve been using lately (below).

8/7/24 Ravenna and Green Lake neighborhoods. I like Warm Gray III as a fourth value with tan paper.