Another Paleo-Umi augmented with Prismacolor pencils.
I have a number of unsatisfying prints while trying to get a good multi-color print. So I have plenty to play with with my colored pencils. Soon I'll be brave enough to pull out the watercolor and see what I can do with that.
I finally finished Paleo-Umi, a block my son inspired me to make for his roll-playing character. He challenged me to make it in the style of my Paleo-Mythos series of improbable cave art creatures. So my mythical ancestral cave artist must have seen a primordial umi in the sky and painted it on her cave wall.
I was never completely satisfied with any of the prints tho. Umi is blue with silver fringe, but I didn't want a monochrome print, and none of the multi-colored ones quite did it. So Umi lanquished unfinished to my mind.
In the meantime I discovered an interesting coloring technique that uses secondary colors -- orange, green and purple. You can get some of the most interesting color mixes that way, like pinks and blues and yellows. The eye creates them. In weaving this is called color & weave.
So I picked a print that was mostly orangey, with a greenish dragon, and started from there. I used prismacolor pencils and some pastel and slowly began adding color over color. I shifted Umi into a blue, with silver tips to his fringe, horns and claws, and the background became multicolored, giving it depth. The block I had chosen had a distinct oval in the woodgrain and I had incorporated it into the design as a rippling pool. I distinguished it from the rest of the "rock wall" with darker passes of greens and blues and purples to make it stand out.
When I was done, the only part that remained untouched with new color was my ancestral artist's hand print with which she signed her work.
I gave it to Will for his 25th birthday. I hope he finds it a suitable representation of his Umi.
I've been working on my web page design. I don't have the Print Shop program at home, but I've been able to create static pages on PageMaker. I've been putting the screenshots on this blog: http://crusaderkathy.blogspot.com/
I'll have pages for Artwork, which will take the viewer to Painting and Printmaking pages, and Fiberart, which will take you to Weaving, Spinning, Tapestry and Sprang. There may be others as it develops.
Then an About page will have my bio and resume(s), and Contact will take the viewer to e-mail, blogs, and other contact info.
Links will go to favorite sites, and other interests, etc.
What a lot of work. And I haven't even begun to impliment any of it yet!
Ink is a grapey mix of what I had on hand. Another in my Yggdrasil, the World Tree series. I think the hills are still getting lost. I'll experiment with a darker color on the top half next time and see what that looks like. Or maybe carve away more of the sky.
Going darker overall may just have to be the solution. Every time I play with a color I seem to like the b&w image best. ;-\ How am I ever going to learn color?