drawing

The Silence of the Line

by
Drawing of a man.

Silence of the line

Sometimes, drawing is not about representing — it’s about presence.
A form that doesn’t tell a story, but poses a question.
That’s how this male figure emerges: captured in minutes, but born from years of quiet observation.

His face is serious, yet not severe.
There’s restraint, introspection — as if he’s looking outward without revealing himself.
The grays do the work of flesh, shadow, and thought.
The light, empty background allows him to breathe within his own isolation.

No superfluous details. No decorative lines. Just enough for the figure to be.

Drawing like this is like hearing the echo of a voice that doesn’t shout.
A voice barely whispered — but one that stays.

This monochromatic digital drawing is part of a personal search: to move away from the literal and toward the essential.
It’s not about portraying someone. It’s about suggesting a human condition.
In this case: the man who holds back, who waits, who remains silent.

The process

Showing the stages of a drawing can be a powerful way to invite the viewer into the artist’s studio.
Each step —the first line, the structure, the shadows, the final adjustments— reveals decisions, doubts, and exploration.
We don’t just see the result; we witness the path.

This comes with clear advantages:
It allows us to share the reasoning behind the image. It humanizes the act of drawing. It demystifies it.
It can even generate more empathy: the viewer no longer faces a closed image, but a living construction.
Seeing step-by-step progress can also be instructive for other artists or students.

But there’s a risk.
Sometimes, showing too much of the process can break the spell.
The artwork stops being an autonomous object and becomes a kind of tutorial.
Some gestures are more powerful when they are only guessed at, not fully explained.
And not every drawing needs to be understood step by step —some are meant to be simply felt.

That’s why, when I choose to reveal the process behind a piece, I do it carefully.
Not to teach how it’s done, but to suggest that drawing is also a form of thought.
And sometimes, that thinking can be shared in images.

No color

by
No color painting

What is a no color painting? Drawing is a hidden art. Or perhaps it’s more like a magic trick.

When you dispense with color, you lose a very important part. I’d say it takes away 70 or 80 percent of the tools you have to create visual art. It’s like stripping the clothes and jewelry off the mannequin and being left with only that bare wooden waist. What can you do in these circumstances?

Of course, you can draw with color, but that’s a branch of painting, not drawing.

It takes a lot of courage to, in these diminished conditions, insist on making art or something resembling it. Tools are scarce. Skill becomes essential. As long as we know what the necessary skill is.

We’re left with only monochrome tracers like pencil, ink, charcoal, shadows, highlights, and little else. Now the how becomes central. We have to decide.

Shadows and half-shadows must be invented in the appropriate place. Appropriate appropriation. In the past, a color or a duo of colors in dialogue could save your canvas. Now you only have the shadow from zero to one hundred.

Even the composition is threatened with death when color has stopped helping, balancing. Of distracting, why not? Without color, the composition is different. Shadows weigh more than volumes. Light is purer, and the scarcer it is, the purer.

With all these limitations, you have to be a magician. It’s crucial to create art from a few strokes. These strokes must attract people. And worse yet, to manage to provoke something in them. An emotion, a smile.