Fish

I returned to my Harmony of Colours book this week and found a drawing of a few large fish, and decided that I would colour them like the light was coming from the top, the surface of the water, so the tops of their bodies would be lighter than their lower halves. 

I admit I devoted more attention to the blue fish, the first one I did on this page. The rest were done cursorily, which explains why the (attempt at) iridescence isn't as apparent in the others. 

I find it ironic that, with my box of 150 Prismacolor pencils, I find myself bemoaning that I don't have "enough" color options. That shouldn't be the case. I'm just not thinking hard enough about how colors can "go" together, even the colors that one doesn't normally reach for from the get-go. 

Looking at others' coloring book works, I see some getting really creative about using various shades of one color, producing largely monochromatic pieces, or putting contrasting colors that I didn't think to mash together. 

A tentative first brush with watercolor pencils

This was done with my Derwent watercolor pencil set of 24. I decided to be disciplined about my choice of colors and keep to a palette of earth tones - mostly three shades of browns, oranges, warm pink, yellows and some greens. I wanted the eyes to pop, so picked the strongest green there.

The process of wetting the paper didn't go so well. I used the second finest brush I have (of my four), and applied it only to those parts of the drawing that had clear gradations of color, such as the tiger-stripe part on the sides of the nose, the irises and eye lids. I left the rest of the color pencil parts pretty much intact because the areas of color were mostly too small for the water color effect to show anyway.

The gradation from brown through orange to yellow on the bridge of the nose are mostly gone in the above "after" version - and i don't think that's a good thing. Did I apply too much water?

More research into handling watercolor pencils needed, and definitely, more practice.