Rainbow Shading

There is absolutely no doubt that this has been a difficult year for almost everyone we know. I look back at the pictures I made this year and see, without much surprise, that although I produced a great amount of work and taught some amazing classes, the majority was in black and white, reflecting a year of extremes.

As we near the end of 2020, the muse is tentatively starting to try to use color again, and it turned out to be quite surprising.

Instead of adding color in a distinct and clean way, you can see how color was applied almost as if it were a rainbow tinted shading. The colors are not very clear or individual. Purple blends to orange blends to yellow blends to blue. It’s almost mimicking the way that our lives are all interconnected more than ever.

What I absolutely love about the result is that, although this type of coloring lacks clear and clean conviction, it creates a rich variation in the shading itself. The picture is almost monochrome, but not really. The coloring is diffuse, blended, varied. I guess it’s just my way of saying that perhaps color is still undefined (as are our lives), still waiting, waiting.

Here is a close-up:

Tangles used were Arukas and Rixty (Zentangle), Joki (Kim Aarts) and Faux Viking Knot (tangleation of Yah - Emily Classon and Jaysix - Eni Oken). I used only colored pencils over brown and black inking. No blending tool.

Feel free to pin or share these pictures if you like.

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