Why not color postcards to give away?

My mother-in-law put me at a loss for words once when she saw me working on my coloring book. What do you do with these pictures after you are done coloring them - do you frame them or sell them, she asked.

I never thought of doing anything with them. The process is an end in itself. I enjoy putting my own color scheme in for a drawing done by someone else. Do I frame them? Er, no. I don't think them good enough. Besides, the picture must have meaning for everyone else who lives under the same roof, right? Ok, so I'm pleased with how my Anubis turned out, but I can't willy-nilly punch a hole in the wall and just put the picture in a frame and hang it up there, right? It's everyone's home as well, and nobody is a fan of the dog who takes care of Egyptian afterlife, near as I can tell!

As for selling them, oh, surely they aren't good enough? Who would want my Anubis? Hahahaha.

While browsing in Amazon one day, I came across packs of postcard-sized drawings, which I immediately ordered, for the novelty of the size of these drawings (which would make them quick work), and also because I thought I could do them up and give them away. The recipients could use them as bookmarkers or, yes, frame them (if they think them good enough). This set is rather pretty, with gold foil highlights in some parts of the drawings.

And with these being postcards, I can write a personal message on the back.

My first post-card sized work:

The gold foil highlights don't show up in this photo. 

I had my long-time friend in mind when I colored this in, so I chose a palette I knew to be mostly red, her favorite color. To make the red pop, the other colors were muted - the pale greens and yellows, and an unassuming cool grey as the background.

I'm already working on my next one, predominantly in purple, with bright green (her other favorite color), for my MIL.

I texted another good friend who has been under stress lately (from playing care giver to her ageing mum) to ask her to list her favorite colors. Turns out: raspberry pink, aquamarine, mint green, baby blue and midnight blue. When I told her what I was going to do with them, she replied apologetically: Oh but the colors don't even match. No matter. I see them working together somehow. The pastels, alongside the pops of raspberry pink and midnight blue.

And I could write her an encouraging message on the back.

Green man

I'm fast running out of pictures in my Mythomorphia book that I want to spend time coloring. I picked this one to do next, a green man, which I didn't know was a "thing" until I Googled it.

I colored the oak leaves brown using my Derwent pencils, making them look like what they look like in the fall, because of a memory I had that day of helping the Jacob family sweep up their garden in Columbia, Missouri, years ago. Mrs Carolyn Jacob, then already in her 60s, made sloppy Joes for me and the couple of Korean students, and we sat down to the meal in her garden. The air was already crisp, and I remember wearing a sleeveless cashmere pullover that mum knitted for me over my shirt.

Me, the girl from a tropical country, right, so what did I know about their trees? Carolyn pointed out the leaves to me - oak, hickory, maple. So this is for you, Carolyn.

By now, layering colors is the norm for me. No other way to achieve depth and realism. I did the oak leaves still with a tinge of green in their spines. Each leaf had four colors in it - mid brown, deep brown, Lincoln green and that lovely color, pimento.

The strong greens: am not sure if that's ivy or not, but now, looking back, i think the green is too raw.

After a while, this drawing was starting to test my endurance, so I pretty much finished it to get it over and done with. Maybe there's too much brown in it. This is, after all, green man, right? I didn't want to add more brown by coloring the woody branches in that shade, so I used my Derwent grey green (and a couple of brownish shades) instead, which I think has hewed the color palette for the piece back to the green side.

Ogre from Mythomorphia

I'm fast running out of pictures from Mythomorphia that I want to work on. Does anyone out there know of any other artist or illustrator putting out awesome works to color in? Or shall I go back to drawing my own pictures?

The ogre was my choice for my next piece because of its single subject of focus. I have skipped coloring in Kerby Rosanes' pictures that I think are too fiddly - three thousand objects in a panorama, like the woodland one with an assortment of squirrels, mushrooms, hills and wood nymphs. 

I picked this for its single subject of focus. 

I decided early on that I would render the ogre's battle gear in a mix of rich earthy red-browns using my Prismacolor set. Anything that struck me as bone or ivory, I colored in using a cream/ivory shade. Stuck for a contrasting color for the trim on his suit, I went with a strong teal. The color combo fairly pops. 

Once again, the background was my Archilles' heel. I was losing focus by then, and wanted it done quickly, so I pulled out my Derwent aqua color pencils, and proceeded to fill in a wash of pale blue, lilac and peach.

Trying out color shapers

Color shapers?

I read in the January 2018 issue of Colored Pencil Mag - I just got an annual subscription to this monthly -  about these paint-brush like tools which do the work of moving the color pencil pigment around, thus smoothening color transitions and getting rid of color pencil stroke marks. They work like blenders, in other words.

At the end of each paint-brush type handle is a silicon tip which has quite a bit of give as it is run across paper, so it moves color around without adding additional color. These silicon tips come in several sizes and shapes and are good for blending tricky corners, applying masking fluid, defining pastel lines and fixing painting mistakes.

They are also called clay shapers, and were originally made for sculptors...until color pencil artists appropriated them!

The magazine article recommended the shapers from ZXUY, which I found on Amazon (at this link). I ordered them and they came in a set of five, each with a differently shaped tip. They cost me under S$20, including shipping.

How have they worked out? Well, I like that they have fine tips, but am finding them a bit too soft - too much give. And where I have laid down more than a few layers of color, probably where I have killed the tooth of the paper, they don't seem to blend so well.

I would say the jury is still out on this. I'll keep them in my box of tools with my pencils. At least they didn't cost a bomb.

A phoenix rises ... from flowers

We have all read about the mythical phoenix, which when it dies, resurrects itself from a funeral pyre of its own making, so that it rises from its own ashes, as it were. Bizarre though this sounds, phoenixes are associated with rebirth, everlasting life, starting over.

In Chinese cultures, phoenixes are used to depict brides. Grooms are represented by dragons. So the coming together of two - it is assumed, majestic - mythical creatures heralds a good union.

In Chinese cuisine, chicken claws (braised or prepared in whatever way) are euphemistically referred to as "phoenix claws". No amount of sugar coating is going to make me like eating the stuff. The scaliness of the chicken claws put me off.

Anyhow, the next pic I colored in was from my Kerby Rosanes Mythomorphia book - one of a phoenix rising, not from ashes, but from a bush of what looks to be hibiscus flowers.

I went with a red/orange/yellow palette for the bird, the wing tips of which Rosanes rendered to look like flames. His twist to the myth comes in the flowers.

My interpretation here is that the phoenix is resurrecting itself by drawing on the life force (that is, the colors) of the plants, instead of a bonfire, hence the greyness of the flowers nearest the bird. I used brighter pinks and greens in the plants at the foot of the page.

A mermaid

The mermaid from Kerby Rosanes' Mythomorphia book, you're up next.

I didn't want to overthink things in picking the colors for this drawing. I went with apple green for her lower body and brilliant yellow/orange for her fins.

Should I make her a blonde? No, this would be a brunette, with hair so glossy that the highlights are pale, pale pink. An unlikely combo, perhaps? It doesn't look wrong though! She looks like she just stepped out of a shampoo commercial.

I haven't done too much in skin tones, since most of Rosanes' drawings are of other-worldly beings and therefore not in human skin tones. I laid down some seashell beige or some such for her arms and back, but found this mermaid too white, so I deepened the skin tone with sepia, especially in the shadows.

The other critters on the page were quickly done... while under the influence of a bunch of flu medications. Haha.
  

Back to Egypt

The focus returns to Egypt for my next piece, following the one I did last October on Anubis, also from my Kerby Rosanes' Mythomorphia book.

One can't get more Egyptian than the Sphinx, the mythological creature often depicted as guarding pyramids and pharaohs' tombs. This animal has variously been depicted as male or female, but often with the body of a lion, a human head and the wings of a bird.

With this drawing, I worked on her headgear, arm band and cuff first, using bronze, pale yellow and a deep brown to give a bronze/copper finish. It was another exercise in rendering the high-contrast finish typical of metal. I find myself getting more confident with this, having done gold and silver in previous works.

I knew early on that tawny browns would dominate this picture, given that it would be a lion's body,  and it being a desert setting and all. I was therefore not too sure about making the blanket on her body brown as well; to take the monotone out of this, I gave the hem a pop of color with one of my favorite jewel-color combos - scarlet, bright blue and teal, and picked up this trio of colors also for the tassels. I was fairly pleased with it when done.

With no strong push one way or other on the color of the wings, I picked a stronger brown. It was only after the wings were done that I felt that this whole thing was becoming too brown - which is far from one of my favorite colors.

Then again, maybe it isn't "too brown". I'd rather a picture be monotone than one with colors that sock you between the eye. I see some online coloring works that are totally raw in color. In my Sec 4 art teacher's view, that's anathema. No color in nature is like that - straight from your tube of paint, she would say. (RIP, Mrs Woon.)

The Sphinx done, I took the chance to play around with color in the other objects in the background. I went with warm grey (70%) for the columns, grading it to violet for the parts facing the sun. The pyramids were in cool grey (50%) and deco peach. I was aiming for the colors one might "see" in the golden hour of day, amid the brown-ness.

Out of playfulness, I made the cat blue and the two birds a combo of rust red and pink. With all the browns in play, there was some sort of palette there, I guess!

The sun to the far right presented a chance to lay down rich layers of vermillion, Spanish orange and pale yellow. Carmine red was added to the rim for depth.

The sky: The parts nearest the sun were a lavender, graduating to a lilac, then light cerulean and then cerulean furthest from the sun. I used a tissue paper to smooth out the gradations and obscure the pencil lines.

Right half of the picture

The left half, close-up.