Thursday, January 16, 2014

Relearning to color


After a year of drawing almost nothing but black and white line drawings for the Liturgical Calendar Coloring Book, I sat down to color my latest Blue Beetle fanart, and found I was drawing a blank, rather literally. What colored pictures I have done lately, I used Stabilo pen ink applied with a waterbrush, which yields a light, airy watercolor look, and for this I wanted something more deep and dramatic. But I had forgotten how!

Sadly, real life skills aren't like in an RPG; when you gain enough experience to get to a high level, you don't just sit there at that level. If you don't keep gaining EXP by practicing the skill regularly, you start backsliding. (Although, I imagine an RPG could be made like that; might be a neat touch of realism.) So, I've been doing some simple, sloppy exercises to get reacquainted with my Copic and Prismacolour markers. Just baby steps for now, but I'm realizing that I never actually approached these colors in a systematic way, like I did with crayons. So now's a chance to do that.

2 comments:

Christie said...

Sounds neat. I shudder to think what my drawing skills are like after all these years. I haven't really drawn anything since I was pregnant--that's over four years ago!

Charlotte (MotherOwl) said...

Yes I actyallu have suggested that skills in WoW should do just that, backsliding if not used. It's kind of demoralising when you find out real life is not like that ;) I also am practising my drawing skills again after a longish break - not good, I tell you. It's a push in the rigth direction to see your endeavours. Thanks for sharing, and your willingnes to help.