The Art Lab

LAST DAY! Pink day!

Pink is a fairly new color only dating back to the seventeenth century. The word pink was used for many other things before it’s use for the color. The scissors that cut a frill or zigzag are called “Pinking shears” because the pattern was called pink. Also, pink has been a fairly controversial thing in the past. I highly recommend this book I’ve been reading this week called

“The Story of Colour: An Explanation of Hidden Messages of the Spectrum” by Gavin Evans. Each chapter isn’t really long and the book has been eye opening on how each color wove it’s way into history.

Supplies! Pencils, pens, and all supplies regarding pink!

Today’s tip is to draw things that aren’t normally pink. There’s a lot of really nice things that are pink but this is an challenge for me replacing a color for another color. I rely so much of my drawing on what I’m seeing.

A way to remedy this is to take your reference photo and editing it in a photo editing program. There is typically a “color replace” option. If you can’t find it, you can always google it. Also, sometimes you have better luck finding decent free photo editing apps for your phone than on your computer.

Pink is a beautiful color, because it is one of the colors that the sun makes at twilight and in the dawns.

-C. JoyBell C.

I’ve enjoyed this color challenge week and I hope you have as well. It’s been a work out for sure and the most drawing I’ve done in a week’s time. I recommend this challenge if you’re need a prompt or to maybe get out from an artblock. Something to get your ideas going. I hope the tips this week have helped and inspired you in a opening up your creativity.

Have a great rest of you Pink Sunday!

On to the next experiment!!
-Christy

Purple used to be a sign of royalty! The process to make purple use cost a lot to produce so it was deemed “a wealthy color.” But when it was first created it was pretty gross and smelly. I’m thankful Sir William Perkin for being one of the firsts in creating a color that is not stinky.

The supplies are the usual pencils, pens, and all supplies relating to Purple/Violet.

Tip for the day is to draw the negative space of and object or character. A website called Creative bloq states “Negative space is, quite simply, the space that surrounds an object in a image. Just as important as that object itself, negative space helps to define the boundaries of positive space and brings balance to a composition.”

I used to have to do a lot of these negative space drawings in school as a warm up exercise so I could get a good feeling for how an object sat in my pieces. I challenged myself by doing this in marker. 😅

There’s a girl named Kasey Golden on YouTube who does a lot of neat character designs based on food, prompts, and other things. And so I took  inspiration from her style on the piece above.

Also, I’ve been enjoying these block color doodles.

“I never meant to cause you any sorrow
I never meant to cause you any pain
I only wanted to one time to see you laughing
I only wanted to see you
Laughing in the purple rain”
-Prince

Have a purply filled day!!!

-Christy

ps Yesterday’s song was “Blue” by Eiffel 65

I’m blue da ba dee da ba daa

Name that tune 😂 so catchy. I apologize if it gets stuck in your head all day.

Supplies for the day are the usual pencils, pens, and blue art supplies!

Blue is my favorite color. Choosing one out of the bunch is hard. But I lean toward either midnight blue or teal. There are a ton of different varieties of blue. Some of these you may wonder why I included in this bunch instead of Green. When I did my test swatches, I found that they were closer to blue than green.

The tip for the day is to try different tints and shades of the blue. Watercolor is a great supply for doing this because you can get light and dark values fairly quick. If you use watercolors, remember to use paper at least 100lbs/270gsm or more.

“Whenever I gaze up at the moon, I feel like I’m on a time machine. I am back to that precious pinpoint of time, standing on the foreboding – yet beautiful – Sea of Tranquility. I could see our shining blue planet Earth poised in the darkness of space.” -Buzz Aldrin

Have a great day!!!

-Christy

Green! I feel like this is a pretty lucky color🍀. We are midweek of the 7 days of color! You would have thought Wednesday was the middle but we are going all the way until Sunday with this color challenge!

If you’ve fallen behind that is alright. Do what you can when you can. The whole thing is to enjoy creating during this challenge. As soon as it becomes something other than enjoyment, you’ll work yourself towards a block. And that is no bueno.

Supplies are pencils, pens, and green supplies!

The tip for today is (if you haven’t already) try just starting with color instead of using pencil first. Then adding pen. It’s nice exercise to help you be more spontaneous with your line and loosen up.

“Green is the prime color of the world, and that from which its loveliness arises.” -Pedro Calderon de la Barca

Have a happy Green Day!

-Christy

Looking back on 2017, I feel like I’ve accomplished a lot. I’ve met a ton of new people, been to many new places, and had some great new experiences.

Europe was amazing. I mean what can I say. The trip was a trip of a lifetime. I’m so glad we got to go see three cities in the span of 9 days. Yes they were just glimpses but I’m glad I got to go!

I went on two trips by myself for both work and fun. TwitchCon was a BLAST. I was a little apprehensive because I was by myself. Previously in July I went to the Letterworks Calligraphy conference in Utah and had some of my friends with me. But at TwitchCon I was alone. It was fun making new friends and having a great time nerding out. I barely had time to meet all the artists participating in the Artist alley(considering I was only there for two days). If I can, I’d go back just to meet up again with all my new peeps.

The first trip I went to by myself was the Letterworks calligraphy conference in Utah. That was seriously awesome. All the people that attended were exactly like my friends in my guild. So friendly and welcoming. Everyone was so patient and willing to help you out if you were new to calligraphy. I learned a ton and met some awesome people that I hope to keep in touch with.

This year was definitely the year of travel. Cancun at the start of the year, Denver, Ogden, Long Beach, Paris, London, Rome, Las Vegas, and Vancouver! So many fun places and memories! I’m so very thankful to have been able to travel as much as I have and with a great travel partner, my husband Charles. I love you!

This upcoming year my resolution is to keep a better schedule. My schedule was a little hairy at the end there but I hoping to keep it together more consistently this year.

I really can’t say how amazing this past year was. And I’m thankful for all the wonderful memories. Cheers to 2017 and onto 2018!