A clan crest from the realm of fantasy

Another picture from my Johanna Basford Enchanted Forest book. I'm not moving through the book in order, but picking pictures that I want to do.

I went for this because of the sword, thinking it would be an exercise in coloring metal. From my readings here and there, metal, being highly reflective, is rendered by highly contrasting shades, say black (or dark grey) and white, sitting starkly next to each other. And any other color that appears on the surface would come from reflection of objects nearby.

But this sword is pretty small, and so gives little opportunity to introduce any other color.  I decided to stick with black and white.

It. Didn't. Quite. Work. Did it?

The rest of the picture... well, it was a matter of sticking to a palette of greens and not straying too far from that. Nearer the bottom, warm greens, orange, beige, brown. Nearer the top, a cool, silvery green sits below the two birds, done in blue/green/red.

Peacock

I'm on a roll.

Still on my Harmony of Colours book (Book 4), I went to the page with the peacock, treating this as another exercise in playing with color.

Plan: To use blues/greens/teal and deep purples/pinks on the bird, and, in order for it to pop out from the rather busy background, I wanted the background to be in muted earth tones.

Result:  I think the plan worked?

 

A color-corrected lion

My (mis)adventures in playing with color continue.

I went back to my Harmony of Colours book (Book 4) over the weekend and picked out the lion to work on with my Prismacolor set. In my head, I envisioned a pair of flashing eyes in a strong color, the face in shades of warm browns, and the mane, also in shades of warm brown, but lighter.

It didn't quite turn out like that. I mean, I got the flashing eyes all right. And even did a commendable job (Ithink!) on the "emerald" jewels on the lion's forehead. But the choice of color for the face and the mane didn't quite work so well.

In fact, it was a disaster in need of correction at a subsequent coloring session. The face was at first done in browns that were too reddish and to clayey for a lion. Then I compounded the mistake by doing the mane in ... yes, lighter, colors, but the wrong lighter colors.

When I was done, the lion didn't look anything like a majestic beast of the Serengeti. Its mane came out in streaks of Canary Yellow and Pumpkin Orange. Definitely a ginger lion, haha. And then the yellows and orange clashed with the warm reddish browns near the face.

On my next slot of two hours of free time available, I set about doing a color correct. Added Sepia (a deep brown) and 70% French grey to tone down and deepen the too-raw orange and yellow respectively, and then added Golden Rod to tone down/add yellow to the too-red browns and too-grey French greys.

The following was the result:

The yellows are still arguably too yellow.
but you should see the original.
This was supposed to have been a dignified, tawny
colored beast, ruler of the African plains.
Sigh. Sorry. 

Hipster hippo

I was halfway through coloring this hippo when I found those color palettes online (see previous post), and realised I should have probably used a more limited palette.

This picture uses gradation of Tuscan red/pink/light brown,  purple/pink and blue/green, along with vermillion and a couple other shades of brown.

Still too many colors? 

I wouldn't say it's a disaster. After I checked out the online color palettes, I decided to use the Tuscan red/pink/light brown combo on more areas in the body of the hippo (as opposed to going with still other colors). As a result, the combo still shines through, instead of being overwhelmed by the strong green bands.

I have to work at using fewer colors in my next few outings. The other day, I saw an online work of an owl that used only three or four shades of grey, black, white and a deep orange for the eyes. The effect was understated, sophisticated, and the eyes really popped in the monochromatic palette.

Discovering online color palettes

In my previous post, I moaned about not seeming to be able to find groups of colors that "go" together. Yes, over time, I have come to realise - rather organically - that I ought not mix warm and cool colors together within a picture.

For example, I may use oranges, warm pinks, peach and even deep warm reds on a fish (see picture in the previous post), but in a picture with more than one fish, I might render another fish in a cool palette - icy blue, deep blue and even teal and cool grey (never warm or French grey).

But, as I lamented in my last post, I have a beautiful set of 150 Prismacolor pencils, and yet sometimes struggle to find colors that "sing' together in proximity. Yes, I'm aware of the color wheel, one rule of which is that complementary colors - those facing each other on the wheel - go together. Hence, yellow-purple, red-green, blue-orange and so on.

Two nights ago, I searched "color palettes" on my Pinterest feed and lo and behold, was shown several feeds, including the websites Design Seeds and Color Collective.  Both are beautifully designed, navigable websites set up principally for designers and "those who love color". They offer bold new palettes of color drawn from the colors appearing in color-balanced photographs (ranging from landscapes to cupcakes).

As an aside, many palettes draw inspiration from nature. Crashing waves on a seashore offer a palette of teals, blues, greens, yellow (from the incandescent light) and dove greys. A photo of succulent cactuses creates a palette of dusty pink, lilac, dull greens and frosty light greys.

When I am taken by a color pencil work, it is almost always as much about the choice of color as it is about technique in rendering those colors to show texture. One can't just fill in a picture with colors chosen at random. All you will get is a picture that looks wrong, out of whack.

Exhibit A: I don't know what I was thinking with this

disappointing work. Red and cool blues,

together with browns and warm pinks?? The

wrong colors were the very reason this work was abandoned.

One picture that I saved to my Pinterest board titled "Learn Color Pencil Art" is this one below. It had not yet been completed when it was uploaded by the artist to Pinterest, but I can tell it is going to be a winner.

It's all in the choice of color, baby.