This is a Great Time for Coloring Books!

      Have you finished all the puzzles in the house? If you have a garden, it's time to get out and do the spring yard and garden work, but there are still long evenings and rainy days inside while Covid19 prevention distancing is in place. If you don't have a garden, and can't face re-doing all those puzzles again, maybe this is a good time to try something new. Coloring books re-appeared in the past few years, adults realizing they could have more fun with them than they had as children.

          Coloring books are, to me, art for those who think they are not artists. Coloring books give you the opportunity to play with one part of a picture-the colors, without having to think about design or drawing skills. There is no wrong way to color. Just look at children's work; each child's art is different. Look at art in a gallery or museum; the variety of art is endless, different people like one style or another and it is hard to say one type of art is 'better' than another. Each is good enough in its own way. 

      Once in a while someone has said to me, "I don't know how to color". That may  be true, and that is a good place to start. Many artists struggle to find the spontaneous, unconscious play with color that they had as a child. If you are in that state, with a coloring book in hand, you can consider yourself lucky! Picasso said, "It took me.....a lifetime to paint like a child." He was speaking of the sense of exploration and play a child has making 'art'.

Sandhill Cranes drawing from Nature's Colors

     Coloring books are for children, so when adults use them we are doing something child-like.

Coloring books free us from needing technical skills that take time and effort to develop, and give us the opportunity to play with color within a form we recognize.

Sandhill Cranes experiment with watercolor pencils and markers-unfinished

          In the above image, I've partially complete coloring the picture with watercolor pencils and fine point markers. Pick a color, any color! and start putting color on the page, anywhere. If you've put color on the grass, make at least half the grass that color. Then, pick another color and color the rest of the grass. Any color will do. Continue doing this until all the page is colored. That's one way to get the color on the page. Make no judgement until the page is completely colored. Then, the only question is: do I like this? If yes, or not sure, that's great! If you don't like it, start the next page by choosing all warm or all cool colors and use only those colors. Warm colors are red, yellow, orange, browns. Cool colors are blues and greens. Decide when the page is colored if you like the way it looks. The fun of it is, it is all learning and, as children know, it doesn't matter what happens with one picture, you are on to the next, just to see what happens.

   Here is something different to try in a coloring book; a pen and ink drawing.

     Do you doodle or scribble? That's really what this is. Follow the lines for each shape. Use one ink pen, any color ink.

The next page, ready to work on

Nature's Colors page done in pen and ink

     So remember, any colors are ok; markers, pencils, ink. Any combination of colors is ok too.

These coloring books are printed on heavy stock meant to be used for any medium that isn't too wet.

    Need a coloring book? Check out my etsy site for coloring books with hand drawn illustrations.

No computer generated image here! Scenes of plants, animals and scenery from the hills of the midwest, and some interesting information about each drawing. If you like horses, you'll love

A Day With the Horses, my coloring book illustrating some of the horses I have known, pictured in the places they live. This book has information about how horses live in a natural state, and what they do with their days and nights. And, coloring books are specially priced for social isolating times!

    Thanks for stopping by this blog. Please share with your friends.

      

Choosing Color Schemes For Your Coloring Book Pages

   Now that Kickapoo Colors (new edition is Nature's Colors) and A Day With the Horses have left home and are being enjoyed by so many people around the world (Australia, Germany, US, Canada!) I'm hearing from people with interesting questions I'd never thought of while making the drawings.

   One question several people have asked, in different ways, is how to choose colors. My illustrations are hand drawn from real life plants, animals and places, and maybe that leads the 'colorist' to think about coherent color combinations or planning color schemes rather than using any color anywhere on the picture. Which of course is just fine to do and often looks wonderful. But the question can lead to trying new ways to color and also learning how to use color for specific effects.

   Color schemes will influence mood. If you color to reduce tension or stress, think about how the colors you use may affect how you feel. This can be very subjective, so always trust your feelings but some general responses to colors are common to most of us. Bright, warm colors tend to bring energy up. Red, yellow, orange feel warm to look at and can increase anger or tension but also bring up energy if you need a boost from a low spot in life. Cool colors-the blues, greens, purples- tend to calm and cause cooler feelings. However, an interesting fact is that pink is the most calming color. It is used in prison and institutions on walls for this reason. I have personally seen this work. I was managing the renovation of a clinic and had the walls painted a soft pink, to the painter's consternation. However, over the two years I used the clinic, only one person noticed the color of the walls but many people, including executives who toured the facility, commented on how "relaxing and comfortable" the office felt. I repeated the experiment in a charter school for high school students. Again the construction workers and painters were shaking their heads about the color choices! But over the years the teachers felt the pink color did have an effect on the general mood in the rooms.

   I am especially fond of colored pencils for the variety of techniques they can produce and the detail possible. However some people use markers and other media very expressively. More on coloring materials later.

Try them all! Here are a few ideas about setting up color schemes for a coloring book picture. Try each one and see what ones work best for you.

   Dark colors lower any energy of a color. Too much dark is usually not inviting. Be aware that there is much more light in a night scene than we think. Remember Van Gogh's 'Starry Night' painting? http://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/vincent-van-gogh-the-starry-night-1889  Look at it again to see the colors he used to great effect. In 'A Day With the Horses' one picture is of the horses in a field under the starry sky. This can be very effectively colored with middle value colors if they are all similar. Use blues, grays, and gray-green, blue-green, etc. to give a night time feel to the picture.

   Now, here are a few specific ways to choose colors:

   Look at paintings you like for color combination ideas. It could be any subject and even any style of painting. Abstract or realistic, modern or a great master's work; the same type of flower or animal but maybe even a fantasy picture would do. What you're looking for are color combinations that make you happy to look at. Pinterest art boards, https://www.pinterest.com/asari1036/western-art/  or artists' websites, or best yet, go to the art museum or gallery and look at real paintings. 

   A note on the pictures on my pinterest link: each is of rock cliffs, out west. Yet notice how different each one looks and feels. Try to choose the colors each artist chose; this helps you learn to see the colors.

   Pay attention to the pictures that you like best. Use the colors you are going to color with and make the closest copy of the painting's colors that you can. Choose 3-6 colors from the painting, no more. Use them to color your picture. When you need more colors, use colors close to those already chosen. See what happens!

   Use real photos of the same subject in the coloring book page. Try to replicate the real life colors. Again, use the markers or pencils you will use in the coloring book to make close copies of the photo's colors. Follow the same procedure used above.

   Use a color wheel. This site has a very fun tool for choosing a range of colors that make a coherent combination in a picture; play with the color gamut tool to find your own color combinations.    http://www.livepaintinglessons.com/gamutmask.php  This gives a coherent combination of colors and it is infinitely adjustable.

   When you finish a page from A Day With the Horses or Nature's Colors, send it in and I'll post it. The diversity of styles and techniques is inspiring to see, and helps others try new ways to color. Thanks for sharing and have a happy day coloring!

Susan