Week #17, Winsor Wirebound Sketch Book IV

Dusti Bongé, Winsor Wirebound Sketch Book, p.4, c. 1980, pastel on paper, 8 ¾” x 6”.

This week's sketch from Dusti Bongé’s Winsor Wirebound sketch book is a bit different from the previous ones for various reasons. For starters, she mixed her media in this work, combining watercolor and pastel. Secondly, this is a composition with very clearly defined solid figures, against a pale watercolor ground. The other three compositions may have had several more or less defined elements, or fields of color with an identifiable form, but they also presented us just enough ambiguity to allow for open-ended interpretations.

Here we have a clear main figure defined by two trapezoidal forms, outlined in heavy black, linked by a solid black bridge. The trapezoids are sitting one above the other, both wider than they are tall, with the top one being the widest and least tall. Yet, despite their weighted presence in the whole, they seem to be floating above a heavy horizontal band.

Dusti’s use of color here is sparse, with shades of black and red, and just barely a trace of yellow at the margins. Yet the range of color density she achieves through the different application of her chosen media nonetheless creates a rich array. Thus, we get the pale red wash, the heavily outlined shapes, and the solid black stroke at the bottom accented by a bright red pastel line and sandwiched between watery grays. The trapezoids themselves have fairly dense interiors. The top one is filled almost solid dark gray, and the bottom one is packed with a compact pattern of red dots and black exes. This all adds to the sense that there is a very clear figure ground set up in this piece.

And the tiny hint of yellow, I guess it brings a bit of brightness...