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They are also called clay shapers, and were originally made for sculptors...until color pencil artists appropriated them!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