Black on White

Black and white imaging give use the freedom from color hues, and bring up value of line and visual texture. Compositions that created using only black on white ground are exciting because of the challenge they bring, and due to liberating discoveries of obvious restrain.

I work in hue-monochrome almost exclusively in sketch and uderpainting, and never yet had a monochromatic finished piece, except series in black on white and a few pieces in reverse. As for white on black, I dislike the loss of the reflected pure white from the background through the transparent layers, and rarely use this technique.

In color works, I usually avoid any shades of gray created with black. Instead, I use complementary hues in and textured layering in black.

Achromatic

Pure value, no color hue or saturation is presented in black and white images (B/W or B&W). In black-n-white artwork and graphics, monochrome pictures only grayscale achromatic colors are used. The represent value only.

Black-and-white images can combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of gray. Grayscale images - monochrome gray - are composed of various grey values, from black to white, usually including the extremes.

Monochrome

A black and white picture is a monochrome that represents achromatic scales (gray scale) only - black, gray or white colors.  A monochromic image in general is composed of values of any one color, not only black. Monochromatic pictures have colors in shades and tints of a single hue.