Experiments in Color

Whenever I feel like doodling, I typically pick up a piece of scrap paper and a mechanical pencil. Black and white suits me just fine, and I've found that sometimes color can end up taking away from the finish product instead of adding to it. These examples are my exceptions. 

Left: A watercolor/sharpie doodle that I was working on back in August. All of the pictures in this post were taken this evening with my little Fujifilm camera, not scanned in. Because of this, the white balance is *gasp* terrible, therefore, 99% of what appears to be an off-white yellow in actually just plain old white. That said, I think this particular picture looks better on screen then in real life. I just used one of those cheapy snap-open kindergarten watercolor sets that Crayola sells for 99 cents. With that in mind (and with the help of my handy dandy sharpie shading pen), it's really not a  bad little freehand job. 

I was only just realizing how suspiciously similar this drawing/painting is to the other butterflies-emerging-from-jar sketch that I completed (and is currently hosted on my sidebar --->>). 

Center: 

This is an why I sometimes avoid using much color. -_-

I drew this out two nights ago referencing a picture I had found on pinterest. It was a quick, just for fun piece---the kind I like to do before going to bed or when I have some extra time to chill. The weird (and rather repulsive) orange and green and pink that I chose to use could probably be justified when I tell you that all I had to work with was a handful of randomly selected colored pencils. I'm not a big fan or colored pencils. Mechanical pencils? ---yes. Colored pencils...not entirely so. Probably has to do with the fact that you can't erase properly with them. If that's the case, I'd rather use crayolas or sharpie pens. 

Nevertheless, I figured it was worth posting, even if only as a less-then-proud-of example.

 Right: 

Ooh, I'm rather proud of this one. 

It started out as a dingy freehand sketch of a butterfly with a green gel pen, and then morphed into a pen/watercolor/sharpie word art graphic. This was when I discovered that you can use water to blend really soppy gel pen ink. And that was exciting. Also worked a little more on the spatter and splash effect obtainable with watercolors (again, this was with one of those little fake, eight-color sets).

The words are, of course, borrowed from the Gungor song, Beautiful Things. 

I have a lot to learn when it comes to word art, hand lettering, and typography. I think it would be really cool to get better at that stuff...but it requires so much plotting out before putting pen to page. *cue wail of impatience*

 So waddya think?

But wait---I have one more. This one is a little different. 

Yes indeed, I was crazy enough to draw this particular masterpiece on what was once a roll of packing paper. Like the kind you might wrap up a package for the mail. Or, in my case, the kind this random thrift shop wrapped my new shirt in before bagging it. 

For most people, the crinkles might be a turn off.

And after attempting this, I totally understand that now. 

Nevertheless, I completed my crayola/sharpie masterpiece, and I suppose I can take pride in it's unique texture.

It was all freehand, and I had no references...or ideas about what I wanted the finished result to look like. I just started drawing flowers with a pink crayon, and then...*POOF* ---a fairy hiding from a fingerless gloved hand was born! 

Again, I'm usually squeamish about using so much color (especially such pastel pinks, purples, teals, and greens), but I shrugged down my hesitation and tried to slap as much on as I could stand. And I like it. Each mistake I made merely encouraged me to layer more and more color on it to cover it up. 

Unfortunately, the fairy dewd suffered especially hard in the layering of color phase. :/

---But it's alright, he made it. And with the help of my sharpie pen (again) the whole picture was brought into clearer definition. :)

 

 (Someday maybe I'll get my scanner to bend to my wishes so that I can have high-quality images of my work instead of silly looking photosnaps.)

 The end. 

Cheerio, 

K-Minty