There is really nothing that you can do while coloring that is going to be that awful. The nature of the art form is that it exists as pages, and at any moment you can always turn the page and go on to the next. Still, you can occasionally blast yourself out of your comfortable coloring zone.
I was happily continuing with my coloring from yesterday…
adding happy yellow bands between the stripy stripes…
framing the design with funky teal and black…
and then I came upon this shape – a dot with a hairdo and a crown on top. It made this section of my picture look a lot like an aqua teddy bear wearing a princess crown. I thought about coloring the dot black and the puff aqua, and about coloring the dot aqua and the puff black. A black dot would work nicely with all of the other black dots scattered throughout the design, so I decided to get creative and make the dot aqua instead just to keep things interesting.
And there it is. Ugh. My visions of creativity vanished and all I could see when I looked at this was how the black puff looked like a really messy dot. Looking at it now, it just looks like another colored shape – but as I was working on this page that lumpy black shape represented the screeching derailment of my cozy and relaxed coloring progress. I was out of the coloring zone faster than a kid can fall off a bicycle.
I started going into damage control mode…
adding a yellow crown on top. By this point I’m making faces at my picture and shaking my head, so my husband asks what’s wrong. I told him “I just colored a big mess” so he came over to take a look at it.
This is what he saw, and he didn’t see a mess at all. So I carefully pointed out the lumpy black shapes and explained why I didn’t like them. The more I looked at them, the less I liked them, and the more I remembered that I planned on showing everyone this coloring and I still don’t like. I could have just thrown it out, but I rarely do that. Usually I just tough it out and finish a picture if I feel like I messed up and the next day it looks just fine.
Me: “I have no idea what to do with this picture next.”
Hubby: “Might as well add some bright pink and go out in a blaze of glory!”
His comment was so ridiculous that I ended up laughing until my sides hurt. I dug out my very brightest pink marker and continued coloring.
This is kind of fun! I feel like I’m overcoming adversity. No blobby black shapes are going to keep me from finishing this picture.
And finished. Ugh. It was fun adding the pink, but you know what? If I had just colored those shapes yellow instead of pink this coloring might actually have turned out OK. Time to regret using pink. But maybe…
How about this? Look at the aqua teddy bears wearing princess crowns and holding little hearts. Maybe that will help me like this coloring more.
Nope. It’s not working.
Then all of a sudden it occurred to me that I might as well totally pink out and see what happens.
Ha ha! I actually like it. It’s weird. It’s wonderful. It’s almost impossible to go hunting for the black blobby shapes because that pink will grab your eye and drag you back to fluorescent pink land. It makes me laugh every time I look at it. And I hope it does the same for you! (Today’s coloring was from Balance For Crayons And Wide Tipped Markers.)
(Colored with these Copic markers. Thank you fluorescent pink FRV1!)