Here are all fifty plates, finished. Tap one to see it large and compare it with yours.
Colors may vary a little with your pencils: what matters is that the photograph appears.
THE 27 COLORS IN THE BOOK
Numbered as in The Pencil Box, from dark to light.
- 1Blackpure black
- 2Charcoalwarm black, almost brown
- 3Chocolatevery dark brown
- 4Night Bluealmost-black blue
- 5Dark Olivevery dark olive green
- 6Anthracitevery dark neutral gray
- 7Maroondark wine red
- 8Brownwarm medium brown
- 9Dark Greenbottle green
- 10Petrol Bluemuted blue-green
- 11Taupedark brownish gray
- 12Earth Browngrayish brown
- 13Rustdark burnt orange
- 14Lighthouse Redbright brick red
- 15Greengrass green
- 16Blue Graymedium gray with a blue tint
- 17Stone Graywarm medium gray
- 18Caramelgolden brown
- 19Aquaturquoise blue
- 20Fog Graylight bluish gray
- 21Khakigrayish beige
- 22Silver Grayvery light cool gray
- 23Golden Ochremustard yellow
- 24Sagepale grayish green
- 25Pearl Graycool, almost-white gray
- 26Lamp Yellowpale cream yellow
- 27Whitedon't color it: it's the paper
THE 50 PLATES
It never rains in Archive 7.
You don't reach Archive 7. You go down to it.
Someone switched off the light by hand.
The light was meant to turn all night.
The sea doesn't give back what it takes.
Nobody comes here for the cormorants.
The road climbed the headland in tight bends.
The fog swallowed it whole.
Stone walls all the way down to the harbor.
Nets hung out to dry between the crates.
Someone's shape still pressed into the cushion.
The fire warmed a yard around it and gave up on the rest.
The last train waited for no one.
Nobody got off at the last stop.
The line disappeared into the fog.
Every seat had a story.
The countryside went by in the dark.
Red, then green. Then nothing.
The river ran under the line without looking up.
A station too small for its own clock.
All the doors were shut but one.
The key was still in the door.
The elevator went up on its own.
There were rooms free. There always are.
The lobby kept its lights on all night.
Nobody came back for the suitcase.
Breakfast for one, untouched.
A good place to wait for someone.
Every clock in the room told a different time.
Small hands, smaller screws.
Everything turns on something else.
It struck the hour as if nothing had happened.
Going once. Going twice.
The closer you look, the less it adds up.
The shop was closed. The clocks were not.
Up in the hills, every house kept its own time.
Serena House had seen better summers.
The water held the sky still.
Eight miles of nothing, then the gates.
The gate was never locked. Nobody needed to.
The fountain ran all night, as always.
Summer chairs, nobody sitting.
The house kept its windows closed.
The lights went off one by one.
Blackwater Lake doesn't give much away.
The trees came right down to the edge.
A jetty to nowhere.
Nobody had taken the boat out in years.
The reeds kept whispering, but not to anyone.
The file is still open.