Most of you know I love to color. It is my way of relaxing. It is therapeutic in keeping me calm to lower my blood pressure, which in turn helps my heart. Last week, I decided to purchase a book which has intimidated me for some time. I’ve come a long way since I began my coloring journey. I chose to color this picture with oil pencils. After finishing the water and the bookshelves, I took a short break.
Tuesday I was looking through Amazon and saw a set of 120 pencils I’ve wanted to try for over a year. They were on sale at 25% off. So I ordered them and they arrived yesterday. They are oil based pencils and they are square in shape. I have another set that is wax based where the pencil barrels are hexagonal. They are my favorite pencils as far as comfort goes. Aging fingers do not grip round pencils without difficulty. So I wanted to see how the square pencils worked.
Wow! They feel fantastic and they are very pigment saturated. I loved swatching them. Today I am going to use them to color the books. I’m having a lot of fun coloring this picture. Kirby Rosannes is the illustrator. He has many fantastic books and all are different types of pictures filled with little objects. This book is called Worlds Within Worlds. I’m enjoying coloring something besides portraits.
Here is a picture of what I have completed so far and a picture of the pencils. I will share the final picture once it is complete.
I’ve settled back into my normal routine since waving goodby to my daughter on Thursday. She made it home safely and I’m so grateful she spent over 9 hours on the road to visit me for a week. We didn’t do anything outside the house except for grocery shopping and church. Our time was spent doing things we love to do. She had lots of uninterrupted time to do her crocheting and cross stitching, while I colored. We watched a series on television based on books she has read. Mostly we shared conversation which is something I lack most days. But summer is approaching and we’ve had some very nice days where I enjoyed sitting on the front porch and catching up on entering all the color swatches for new coloring tools in my color chart book. I love to sit there and enjoy all the beauty and sounds of nature, all created by God speaking them into existence!
Today is cloudy, but the temperature will be in the mid 60’s, so that’s okay with me since I need to run errands. I need to stock up on healthy foods. I’m back on track with WW after taking a week plus break. I hope to step up my exercise as I know it will help with the weight loss and ease the joint and back pain. As I type this the sparrows are doing their acrobatic flights catching their breakfast in the air. They are so fun to watch. They have a nest on top of the drainpipe outside my bedroom window. I am waiting for babies to come. I adore hearing them when their parents arrive to feed them. But that time is a few weeks away.
As for my coloring this week, I have two pages I began working on with varied coloring tools while my daughter was here. I worked on them for about an hour every morning before she woke. Still have a lot to color since these are busy introductory pages to one of my newer purchases. Hope to finish and show them soon. I completed one page in the book I received for Mother’s Day, Fantasy Fairy Portraits Grayscale by artist Derya A. Cakirsoy. I decided to venture out and color her skin green since the picture is titled “leaf fae.” It was fun to color outside the box and remember this is fantasy only! I colored her with markers, and used Distress Inks for the background. Also colored the outside border ring with glitter pen. Pardon the lighting which makes one eye look clouded.
The next picture I colored is in the Fairies book by Alena Lazareva. I wanted to color an entire picture with the Crayola pencils 120 set which I purchased for around $20. I just love all the vibrant colors in the set. I enhanced her makeup with Jane Davenport pastel pallette “Birthday Suit” and the background with Jane Davenport “Chilled” pastel pallette. I did spend five days working on this one, but I love the results. Her jewelry was colored using two different glitter pens by ColorIt.
And lastly, I pulled out my Chibi Girls and my markers and colored this page. I set a goal to color at least one picture a week in this book in order to complete it by year end. These pictures are fun and easy to color with markers. I used my 168 color set by Belieza (or Bellieza?). The set is cool since it includes a lot of pastel colors and grays.
So, friends, that is all I have to share this week. Thank you for being so faithful in following my blog. I post morning inspirations Tuesday through Sunday, and on Monday I post a weekly reflection. You can read more of each specific category by looking at the two categories in the right hand margin and click on the appropriate one. So may the good Lord bless you and yours during this coming week and may you find many opportunities to thank Him! If you need prayer, feel free to leave me a comment with your request. Until next time…
Carol Ann Erhardt, Author 