Just Adding Colour...

Time to catch up on some colouring pages...I always a few books by my side so that even a few minutes can be translated into a refreshing colourful little jaunt!

These pages are from 'Tally Ho!' by  Lizzie Mary Cullen. I really like her drawing style and liked the idea of English/British images in the book. I enjoy it when colouring pages have little items to find or identify on the pages and this one has little items tucked into the drawing that relate to the quote. I enjoy looking for those!

There's a few books in the series, but I thought this one would give me plenty to colour.

I was particularly keen to do these 'Canterbury Tales' pages. I took my time and enjoyed the journey. No pun intended!

This was the first page to colour as we had  visited the Isle of Wight and Osborne House, just prior to me getting this book. It seemed the 'right' place to start in a book about the UK.

I don't agree with the sentiment of the 'saying' or quote on this one, but I did want to colour the picture....

Tally Ho by Lizzie Mary Cullen  The current price on Amazon Canada is insane, but this is what the book looks like. The price on ABE Books is much better.

Colouring - Tropical World - Millie Marotta

I did this page for a colour challenge on a group on Facebook. The challenge was to use greens and a maximum of two more colours.

I'm pleased with how it turned out even if looks like nothing particularly impressive here. Being a double page spread, it makes quite the impact in real life.

It was an enjoyable colouring - the shapes being large and open and the limited palette is always fun (to me)

I enjoy colouring the art work by Millie, the lines are clean, I like all the line work inside the shapes with the option to colour each small area or simply colour over top of the lines, treating it like a large shape.

Millie Marotta - Tropical World

Common Blackbird - Colouring

This one was a quick and fun colouring page. It is the Common Blackbird. Such a pretty bird with the bright beak, eye rings and legs that contrast so well with it's pitch black feathers. I added lighter areas of black to help define the bird better.

 It is from Millie Marotta's 'Beautiful Birds and Treetop Treasures'

Colouring - Catching Up

I'm so far behind with posting here it isn't even 'funny'!

But here goes...maybe I can manage a few entries this month.

Let's start with colouring pages - This is from Millie Marotta's 'Beautiful Birds and Treetop Treasures'

These little dormice are so adorable. Sadly I messed up on the 'title' but will find a way to fix that.

And a couple of close-up's

I used a variety of pencils. Mostly of the harder variety. I like the way it works with the paper in this book.

Colouring - Curious Creatures

Went shopping at the Book Outlet.

Wonderful place if you like books as much as I do, but can be dangerous. Good opportunity to exercise restraint though!

I was delighted to find Millie Marotta's ' Curious Creatures' Colouring Book there. For an absolute STEAL.

I joined a Facebook group for a colour-by-numbers challenge. You choose the numbers and random colours that match the numbers are assigned. I was allowed to add one darker shade of either the purple or the pink as well. It was a very enjoyable picture to colour and I like how it turned out! I used Ohuhu pencils that I bought off Amazon for this. The pencils are hard, but the smooth white paper took it very well.

While I had this book out I decided to colour another critter. I love chameleons, we used to play with them when we were kids. They are adorable and those little feet tickle when the crawl on your finger. I also like that Millie gives some information about the critters in the book, it is so interesting to learn more about the creatures in creation this way.

A close-up of the flowers and the little bits of gold marker added to the flower stamens. Just because.

Colouring - Magical Jungle

Another one of Johanna Bashford's books - Magical Jungle is a great collection of images to colour.

The paper takes wet media well so I've been using the Inktense pencils, Derwent WC pencils and NeoColors quite extensively. 

Some areas in the double spread have pencil layered over the water media. I was concerned that the paper is too saturated to take more water media

This beautiful pattern is done with only pencils. I had thought of adding a background colour when I first started, but I think in the end the white is the best colour for that.

I like the paper in this book. It was the first one to be published using the paper developed specifically for her books. I like the weight of it, the way it takes the media I enjoy using and also the white that is not quite a bright white. It works well as a background colour.

Colouring - Dr Seuss

I enjoy colouring in all the books I have, but this is the only one that has me chuckling while doing so. It is a delight to study all these goofy characters up close as the pencil colours the shapes and details. One simply sees so much more than when you are just reading a story book.

We found this one at our local Costco, and decided to pick it up just because it is so goofy and it makes for cheap enough giggles.

This was the first page I tried, and soon enough realised that wet media and this paper and not good friends ... but the Crayola pencils play very nicely with the smooth white paper.

This took a really long time to do and the night sky was not quite what I had planned, but many chuckles later and it is still a fun, bright page.

Instead of just adding a load of colour on Horton's page, I decided to spill just a small amount of green onto the left page, with all the attention on Horton.

A landscape of quirky houses...

More pages to come sometime soon...

Colouring - Escape To Shakespeare's World

One more colouring book I treated myself to last year was 'Escape To Shakespeare's World' by Good Wives and Warriors.  

I really like the smaller size of these books and the paper takes wet media and softer pencils well.

I really notice more and more that I have a serious colour problem : unless I preselect and physically remove a selection of colours, I will end up using every colour in the box.

Guaranteed.

I used Inktense, Derwent Water Colour pencils, Neocolor pencils (water soluble), and Crayola pencils for all the images here. Crayolas work really well on this paper

I thought it would be nice to have the ROMEO look like it was carved stone, so I drew in some extra lines to get dimension and added cracks and dots for a stoney surface. I also added black ink in the background. I like how the black background makes the colours pop.

A seascape, especially if it has a boat/ship in...well that is always one of the first pictures I will colour. This is such a great drawing!

Now for the unicorn I had thought I would add greens, blues and purples in the background all gently flowing into one another. This is the basic base coat done...and then I liked it so much like this that I decided to leave it. I may still come back and add more colour if I feel like it at a later stage, but for now it's staying like this.

As with all the other books that I have, I have multiple pages on the go at all times it seems. I'll have more to post another time!

Colouring - Escape To Wonderland

I'm still colouring in 'Escape to Wonderland' by Goodwives and Warriors. I posted the first batch of pages HERE.

Here's a few more pages - I've used a combination of water soluble pencils (Derwent & Inktense) and Crayolas for most of them. I find the paper takes water well, it buckles but not so much as to make the reverse hard to colour. I also find that I prefer the more waxy pencils for this paper. They seem to lay down better than the harder leads do.

This double page spread was quick to do with all the black ready printed. I will add a bit of glitter glue later on when the bumpiness of the glitter will no longer interfere with the colouring of subsequent pages. This stars will need some sparkle, but I would actually like to get my hands on some glow-in-the-dark paint for those.

A riot of colour. The only way I can work in a limited palette is to choose colours and then hide the rest of the box. For this one I just reached for whatever colour I fancied most at the time! I did doodle a frame around the text. Just because.

Tiny areas to colour, so I did a quicky with water colours rather than spend lots of time sharpening pencils

For this Cheshire cat one I was considering giving it a solid black background to make the colours pop. I still think a deep purple or indigo blue background could look really nice with this, but for now I'm leaving it as is. I doodled a basic banner around the text. 

With great effort I kept this 'coin' within a limited palette...

This one was fun to colour! Such a goofy image for a goofy concept - I mean do fish walk on their tails or do they hop?

I intended to lay down a wash of colours and then added pencil over top of that 'snakey Alice' but then I liked it well enough as is and decided to leave it. A sky behind might look nice though and it will hide the faint shadow shining through from the other page next to her head.

A great page for colouring. I like the perspective and the large shapes. Reading that line in a normal voice is almost impossible...

 I hauled out my ink filled waterbrush yet again for the background on this page. Love how it turned out. The black makes all those colours shine. And I used every colour in the box for this one. And then some. Including gold.

And so the fun journey continues in this and other books...