Artistic Coloring: What Color is it? Your Brain Lies!

What color is an elephant?

I know what you’re going to say.

And you’re wrong.

Go look.

Google “elephant” and look at the photographs. Don’t just say “oh how cute!” I want you to really look at the color of the elephants on your screen.

Some of the photos show grayish elephants but by far, most wild elephants look to be a range of muted browns and dusty taupes. Some even have pink splotches on their face and ears.

But, but, but… but elephants are supposed to be gray.

I know. It’s a common mistake.

Most Copic colorers use gray markers to color elephants because the elephants stuck in your brain from childhood are gray. So you might grab a few N markers to get the job done, some would grab the C markers since the cool bluish grays are so pretty.

A rare few would have pulled out their W grays. Not because they’re thinking about brown elephants but because there’s some silly Copic rule floating around out there that says “If the object is alive, use a W gray”.

So all living things that are gray are warm gray?

Really?

Tell that to the koala, the gorilla, and my Russian Blue cat. I guess they’re all dead because they sure aren’t Ws.

Your brain lies 

It makes generalizations, it takes shortcuts, it believes the illustrations it sees in children’s picture books.

It tells you to follow stupid rules about warm and cool grays.

You can't trust your brain when it comes to color.

Which is why you’re going to be shocked when I tell you that pumpkins and school buses are basically the same exact color.

I know. That’s a hard one to wrap your brain around. Give it a moment.

We all make color assumptions

Chalk it up to faulty memory, general laziness, or the fact that we tend to believe everything our kindergarten teacher said.

Yep, that sweet lady lied to you too. She was the one who started a lot of this bunkum, that elephants are gray, that pumpkins are orange, and that clouds are white.

Clouds are not white?

Boy, this day is just full of revelations, isn't it?

One way to add artistry to your coloring...

... is to stop coloring stereotypes and start looking at the color things actually are.

Which means that you might want to rethink using that black marker to color hair.

Aww, geeze... my brain lied about hair too?

Yep.

The weird thing is that when you color things the color they actually are in real life, people get all excited about what you’ve done.

“Wow, that looks so real!”

“You’re so creative!”

“She’s such a talented artist!”

Uhm, yeah. As if it takes great talent and skill to use the eyeballs you were born with.

So I have an assignment for you

This is really simple. It won’t take more than a few minutes a day. No special tools, no travel required. In fact, you can do it on the sly at work and no one will even know you’re doing it.

I want you to start taking little color tours.

Look a the color of objects around you. I mean really look.

What kind of yellow is that pencil? 

What Copic marker matches your living room walls? Would you use the same marker in the corners of the room?

What color is ketchup and can you find two more things that are the exact same color?

Exercises like this will stretch your definition of color.

Most people have a very limited color vocabulary. They stop at “Robins have a red breast” and never define what kind of red.

When you start paying attention, you’re going to discover something interesting:

The more you look, the more you see. 

People wonder at my color choices

It's very rare that I don't throw some odd colors into the blend.

The geranium image here uses a bright blue underneath green and there’s a bold purple over the red.

I’m not a genius and I don’t have magical coloring powers. An angel didn’t descend from above and bop me over the head with his harp until I agreed to use dark purple on red.

I got it from looking at an actual, real life geranium long enough to understand the colors I was seeing.

I was color touring.

It may look like I'm day dreaming, or (if I remember to close my mouth while thinking) it will look as if I’m meditating. But actually, I’m exercising my sense of color.

The more you look at color, the more color you see

You’ll see hidden blues and violets everywhere. You’ll see hints of pink or yellow in things that are sitting in sunshine. There are skies and tree trunks that will move you to tears.

The more color you see, the more color you can add to your projects.

This skill is not going to hit you all at once. It takes time to develop a sensitivity to color.

And the number one thing standing in your way?

 An over-reliance on the standard Copic blending trios.

Because nothing in this world is R29 - 27 - 24.

The R20 series is not a combination found in nature and you’re fooling yourself if you use it to color fire trucks, ketchup, bricks, strawberries, stop signs, and geraniums.

When you expand your color vocabulary and start paying attention to the subtle differences in the reds around you, you’re naturally going to start using color more intelligently in your projects.

That’s artistry.

Expand your awareness of color and your unique color style will emerge.

Color like an artist. Not like a kindergartener.    

You can do this!

Yes, I want Beans!

Copic Markers: Is Abundance Killing Your Art?

We are extremely fortunate

It’s rare in human history for people to have enough free time to practice hobbies. It’s also unusual for so many people to have the financial means to invest in good quality art products for those hobbies.

Heck, it’s only in the modern era that good quality art products even exist.

So yes, you were born at the right time and under a lucky star.

But is this abundance a good thing?

Now I’m not suggesting that we go back to the days of painting with mud paste on cave walls. But let me explain a bit of what I’m seeing recently…

I’ve got students who own more good quality art supplies than I do.

And they don’t know how to use most of it.

Before you jump to the conclusion that I’m jealous or that I’m some sort of art dictator, banish that thought entirely! I love the fact that artist grade products are easy to acquire and I’m thrilled that good information is  readily available on the internet, in shops, and in classes.

Viva la freedom!

But here’s the thing- a lot of people are emotionally invested in owning ALL the best items.

It’s the owning that rocks their socks, not the using.

They’re obsessed about a medium just long enough to collect all the materials and then something fresh starts trending and they’re off to collect everything that’s new in that aisle of the craft store.

People have thousands of dollars of art and craft supplies and yet most aren’t producing anything of worth.

Owning all the Copic markers will not make you a great Copic artist

Owning all the colored pencils in the world doesn’t tell you what to do with them.

Collecting every color ever made doesn’t improve the look of your projects.

Abundance hampers growth.

Yep. I’m serious. I think owing all the Copics or all the Prismacolors stunts your ability to learn and to improve your artistry.

For a long time, I had 24 Prismacolor pencils

Yep. I went through art school with just two dozen pencil colors.

Now granted, I didn’t have a lot of opportunity to use my pencils because they kinda frown on using colored pencils in an Oil Portraiture class.

But looking back, I only had a few tubes of watercolors and fewer tubes of gouache. Same with oils and acrylics. And sure, part of the reason was that art school is darned expensive but I wasn’t the only student working with a very limited palette.

Necessity is the mother of artistry?

That’s not too far off. 

When you work with a limited number of colors, you get to know the product really, really, REALLY well. You learn how to manipulate and manage your colors to get the values and saturations that are needed. 

To go all zen master on you, you become one with the medium.

That doesn’t happen when you own 358 colors.

If you had 358 kids, you’d barely know their names much less how they behave under normal and abnormal conditions.

You also don’t get to know your products when you spend only two weeks using them before you bounce off to the next crafty medium.

And I’ll also extend this thought to cover to those of you buying multiple brands of colored pencils or every kind of marker ever made. You can’t learn a product’s ins and outs if you’re also using four other products at the same time.

Yes, I want Beans!

Owning everything gets you nothing

A lot of people are using some amazing products on a regular basis and not learning anything in the process.

Remember when I said that art school required very few colors? I wasn’t kidding. One class used only four colors- Titanium White, Ivory Black, Cadmium Red, and Yellow Ochre- and we were painting human figures with realism! I learned a ton of things in that class and 22 years later, I still use that information every day.

Why am I telling you all of this?

Well, there are a lot of people wasting money buying more supplies than they need.

And there are a bunch of people having pity parties because they don’t own enough supplies to “make anything good.”

The swan image shown here, I taught as a local class in Macomb, Michigan and is now available in the Vanilla Stamp Shop. I used 12 markers. Four of those markers were used on the background, they’re not on the swan.

So that’s 8 markers for a swan and I could have easily dropped another three without you noticing. 

And those eight markers are the same markers I’ve used on tons of previous images. They’re not swan colors, they’re colors I use on many other things.

You do not need tons of supplies to color well

What you need is a good understanding of the supplies you own.

There are giant holes in my Copic collection because I haven’t purchased the colors which I know I’ll never use.

And while I own the entire line of several brands of colored pencil, the vast majority of those pencils sit untouched because I rarely have a need for some colors.

And that’s not unusual for artists. Yes, you’ll meet some color hoarders who own absolutely everything but most artists use the same colors over and over in everything they do. In fact, the majority of us are a little OCD about using just our favorite red and no other red will do. So you could buy out Dick Blick for us and we wouldn’t appreciate it much.

I want you to take a good look at your color collection

This isn't for inventory purposes. I don’t want you to count your colors like Scrooge McDuck.

Instead, I want you to take a good hard look at what you own and ask yourself “do I really understand how to use all this?”

Rather than running out to buy more green pencils because you want to color botanicals and you don’t yet own the magic combination…

Maybe consider the fact that it’s not the supplies you’re missing, it’s the product knowledge.

There’s a big difference between owning everything and understanding everything you own.

Which category are you in?

Blue Swan is Now Available in The Vanilla Stamp Shop!

Add Life to Your Whites

Blue Swan

Learn the universally adaptable technique for coloring folds and waves.

Soft fluffy frosting and tasty cake, perfect for any birthday celebration. We’re coloring gentle waves of frosting and crisply folded pleats but you can use it on skirts, shirts, curtains, or anything else with folds.

Livestream Broadcast: Saturday April 10th 2021 at 11:00 am EST

Recording available immediately after broadcast. Watch at your convenience, as many times as you wish. No expiration.

Class Kit includes: digital stamp, photo references, supply list, value reference, color map, plus helpful tips and work-in-progress photos

Scarlet Geranium: Learn the Color Kissing Technique

Floral Fireworks!

"Scarlet Geranium" an Intermediate Marker Painting Workshop

A lesson on push & pull florals.

Amy shows you how to see the hidden blues and violets. Build fences to increase your coloring accuracy.

Want to color Scarlet Geranium?

Join me for a fun Copic Marker + Colored Pencil lesson in the Vanilla Workshop

Scarlet Geranium was recorded live, now it’s an anytime access class.

Edited classes with perfect narration tend to make the coloring process look faster, easier, and smoother than it really is.

Stop comparing yourself to the supermodel version of an artist!

Real time coloring with real mistakes and real fixes.

Class Printable Pack Includes: 

• Class syllabus with detailed recipe guide

• Full color project sample

• Guide to Copic base

• Detailed color map

• Project inspiration references

Yes, I want Beans!

Happy coloring!

Perfect Alcohol Marker Blends - At What Price?

Remember that feeling you had when you first learned to ride a bicycle? The speed, the wind in your face, the feeling that you’d fly to the moon if you could just pedal fast enough. You probably spent the entire summer riding up and down the street. That first burst of freedom is pure joy.

Copic colorers experience the same thing when they finally pin down the mechanics of smooth blending. And once we get a taste of it, we’re hooked. We will blend and blend and blend… just for the sheer happiness of it.

I’ll admit it, even after years of marker experience, I still love it when a satin smooth blend appears. It’s a special kind of satisfaction.

But at what price?

Yes, there’s a price to be paid when you blend.

Most colorers don’t even realize they’re paying for blends. They’ll blend all day long- smoothing and re-blending their projects repeatedly without recognizing the damage they’re doing to the overall image.

Your quest for the perfect blend sacrifices color value

Yep. Every time you blend, you loose some of the deep dark color that is essential to realism.

The more you blend, the more value you loose.

What is value?

Value is a measurement of the strength of a color. You can’t say “light” or “dark” because light and dark are relative terms. Lighter than what? Darker than what? Is dark yellow darker than light blue? 

Lighter or darker is an opinion.

Not value though. Value is a exact way of measuring the strength or visual potency of a color. Now I’m not talking theoretical art terminology here. You use color value measurements all the time; you just don’t realize it. 

In Copics, the last number on the marker cap indicates the value of the ink color. Copic has computer measured the strength of that color and they’ve told you where it rates on their value scale.

That last number is consistent across all the color families and it sets up a relationship between colors that you might think are completely unrelated. A Y38 is the same value as a BG78 because they both rate an 8 on the value scale. R17 measures the same value as E77 even though they’re from completely different color families.

Value is important because capturing accurate values are one key to realism. In order to make something look rounded and three dimensional, you don’t just need shade, you need shade that’s deep enough and potent enough to simulate depth. If you skimp on the values, your shaded areas aren’t strong enough, and that flattens out your coloring.

And as I said before, blending robs your project of value.

Why?

Because we blend with our middle and lighter Copic markers.

In Copics, a low last number indicates a higher level of colorless blender in the ink. Colorless blender destroys value. E33 has far more colorless blender in it than E37. So when I hit that E37 with a low value brown marker to blend it out, I’m moving some of that level 7 color around to make the entire area feel lighter and less potent. The more you blend, the more that E37 starts to look like E36 or E35.

That’s important!

You may have used a dark marker but it no longer carries the original value after you complete the blending process. Once you’ve blended it, it’s no longer as dark as it once was. You have removed some of its value.

This is a serious problem for a lot of intermediate level colorers who tend to be obsessed with blending. They’ll blend and reblend their areas, chasing the thrill of a perfect blend…

...and then they wonder why all their projects look flat.

Blending kills value.

Blending also kills contrast

Contrast?

Contrast is the difference between two values. There is very little contrast between E33 and E34, the colors are too similar. Conversely, there’s a lot of contrast between E33 and E39.

Artists care about contrast. The most pleasing images feature contrast AND a good range of values within that contrast range. 

The Iced Coffee illustration shown here uses markers that end in 9, 7, 5, 4, 3, 1, and 0. That’s almost a full range of Copic values from the darkest parts of the coffee to the palest gray of the glass mug. Realism relies on value and a balanced contrast range.

But think about what would happen if I started obsessing about my blends. 

If I hit my coffee browns (E89 and E59) with lots of E35 to improve the blend, that lighter marker will eat away at my level 9 browns, lowering their values to maybe 7s and 6s. Even though I used E89, it won’t look like E89 anymore. 

And it won’t look like black coffee anymore, it’ll look like chocolate milk.

Middle value washouts happen when you blend so darned much that you equalize the values between your lightest areas and your darkest. 

You chase away the value and you ruin the contrast in the attempt to create a perfect blend.

Blending flattens your projects because it decreases values and equalizes contrast. And I hate to put you in a box, but 90% of the time when someone comes to me with the old “why does my coloring look flat?” question, it’s a case of an intermediate level colorer who blends the heck out of every project. 

Your new skill is also your downfall.

You can’t keep blending without paying a price

Some amount of reblending is good!

But when you overwork your coloring in the quest for the perfect blend, you waste all the dark ink that you originally applied. “One more try” can be the kiss of death for depth and dimension.

Here’s the other problem: 

When you over-lighten the color of an object in the blending process, it not only flattens out, but sometimes people can no longer identify what the object is anymore. 

I can’t tell you the number of coffee projects I’ve seen where the coffee was peanut butter brown. I’ve also seen a lot of pink apples and yellow pumpkins. The colorer may have started with coffee brown, apple red, and pumpkin orange but when they blended the project to death, they killed off the color identity. Mis-colored food is confusing, unappetizing, and unrealistic.

Now I’m not saying that you should never blend a second time.

Instead, I want you to be aware that additional reblending passes will eat away at your value and contrast.

Knowing is half the battle. 

If you’re aware of the damage your’e doing, you’re less likely to keep doing it. Mindfullness helps curb your tendency to reblend and smooth an area for the third, fourth, or fifth time.

In the long run, that perfect blend means nothing if you’ve lost your values.

Swirls of Coffee Color

Learn to color realistic food and beverages with Amy’s mixed media techniques

Ready to try challenge level coloring?

Iced Coffee an Intermediate Challenge level Marker Painting Workshop

Learn how to read photo references to capture the most important details while simplifying the minor details. This concept will help you move beyond tedious coloring, relaxing into an artistic style that’s more intuitive and less exacting.

Real time coloring, recorded live

Live Workshops are unscripted demonstrations which provide students with a real look into the authentic coloring process. You’ll see mistakes being made and corrected. It’s just like visiting Amy in her home studio.

Log in and color with Amy at your convenience. Anytime access, no expiration dates.

Class was recorded in October 2021 and featured a live student audience. Amy answers questions from the students and offers many tips for better colored pencil art.