Ha ha. History repeats itself – again! I love the look of shading in coloring pictures, and I’m comfortable with the techniques. But wow – when it comes to shading stamina it’s like I always run out of steam, and then run out of interest after shading just a few spaces.
I was actually prepared for it this time, though. When the shading urge struck I decided to shade just a few of the shapes in the picture. The background was all completed yesterday in solid shades of pink and orange, so how about just a few two toned sections today. First, a firm bit of pink outlining and then second layer – just a bit bigger and with lighter hand pressure.
Then a firm hand with orange in the very middle, lightening the pressure as the orange and pink overlap. OK, that’s not so bad. It’s a little slow but I think I’ll do another shape.
This time, orange on the outer bits, then pink – heavier pressure in the middle and much lighter as I color over the orange.
And all of a sudden it hits. The fun of shading has worn off and while I like the way it looks, I just don’t have it in me to fuss with shading any more little spaces. Once again I prove to myself that this is one area where my patience is lacking, and that’s OK. I’m actually quite pleased with myself for recognizing my limits, and using shading for little accents in the middle of a piece instead of starting out ambitiously shading everything and then coloring myself into a corner.
But I do have to admit that it felt good to pick up a pink pencil and go back to plain old solid coloring around the outer edge.
Sometimes I wish that I had the endless patience that I see some other colorists have as they shade each tiny space into uniquely shadowed beauty – but we all have our own favorite coloring rhythms. For me, I just love the pacing of coloring little shapes and moving right on to the next one. Any coloring techniques that involve layer or embellishing on top of previously colored areas break that rhythm and make me feel like I’m slogging along wearing lead boots. I’ll finish this coloring up in tomorrow’s post, and I have the feeling that we won’t be seeing a lot more shading in this piece, lol!
(Today’s coloring was from Balance For Crayons And Wide Tipped Markers, colored with Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils.)