Why do I do monochromes? Most people think I am depressed. Some people think I am in a dark mood. But actually, not quite near those two reasons.

I started painting with watercolors in 2015, and my first artwork was a sepia-colored monochrome.

I love doing monochromes! And I am answering your questions about why you should love it too.

Top Reasons Why Paint in Monochromes

Here are some of the reasons that we can all enjoy and learn from monochromes:

Improve your Tonal Values

Painting with one color is like drawing with a pencil. It helps you focus on the tonal values in your piece: light, mid, and dark.

Concentrate on your Composition

With one color, as a painter, you can concentrate on your composition and plan how to execute it. You can draw attention by directing it with patterns, lines, and shapes.

Practice the Subjects you REALLY Want to Paint

In monochromes, you can execute what you have in your mind’s eye. Like me, I have always wanted to paint trees.

So I did a LOT of them to practice this subject. Well, these are just some of my tree paintings.

Master your Medium

Whether you use a pencil, watercolors, gouache, markers, or even sculpture, you can practice mastering the medium that you are using with repeated use.

I also paint studies in monochromes for linocut carving.

You can also try it on photography. This I got with my iPhone while travelling to Negros, my home island.

When I first started with watercolors in 2015, I painted every day for at least an hour for a year. In this period, I made hundreds of monochromes to practice how to handle watercolors (since most see watercolors as the most difficult medium to use).

You can only learn a medium by using it every day and learning from each mistake and triumph. Just keep using your pencil or paint on your monochromes so you can also learn its lightfastness, viscosity, how fast it dries up, or whatever characteristics you still need to discover.

Less is More

Simplicity is never to be underestimated. This, we should always remember. By using just one color, you strengthen your piece’s narrative with the rawness of this limited palette.

More about Monochromes

I learned all these things from working on monochromes for the past seven years.

The best reason why I did them? Because I ENJOY doing monochromes. The process of doing artwork from a blank sheet of paper to painting what you have in mind makes it all enjoyable.

Now, look at these monochromes which I have painted over the years.

I also paint with coffee. Cheap and somewhat easy to find around the house.

And finally, for you, my dear reader, you can enjoy these monochromes just the way we want them to be seen.

And maybe feel something about it? It’s art anyway. Enjoy the patterns, the shapes, and just… just this COLOR.

If you want to check the updated catalogue of available artworks, click here.