Tuesday, December 29, 2015

The Vietnamese Lady of Moon Blossoms


It's been awhile since my last post, holidays have not only been a rush it's been a whirlwind! Before you know it kids are already preparing their stuff for school and I'm now on to counting days till the next big break - summer!

Anway, this blog will be quite short, just to share a bit about my last project this year - the Vietnamese lady with the lotus and lanterns in the background from Moon Blossoms by Katrina Pallon. I finished it after four days but not because it was hard to do or that I was more meticulous, it took awhile because I was chatting online all the time. So there! Haha! I've been so 'madaldal' (talkative) with my kolorista friends lately. Also because we're busy with and excited to plan our events this year. That and our usual 'kulitan' make our convo threads something to look forward to every day.

When I work on an art project I usually start with the most interesting subject for me. It could be a face, a glowing object, or the background. Something that will help me proceed by giving me enough satisfaction after I've done it. Backgrounds usually already set the mood of the entire picture for me but for this one I found myself attracted to the face so I started with that. 

I also determined that the light source of this would be from all over. It's like she's walking through a tunnel full of lanterns. I wanted light shining on her face. So with just a second of hesitation (that wasn't entirely gone during ☺️) I put the light's color on her facial features, yellow and beige. I used Prismacolor Premier colored pencils for the entire project by the way. When I stepped back and thought it would work I proceeded to color the lanterns in the background.

Initially her blouse, an Áo dài (Vietnamese traditional costume), was supposed to be red, but when an ink accident made me change the color to this turquoise shade. I shook a glitter pen and it's cap came off and many blots fell smack in the middle of her left arm sleeve. Fate has decided. 


For the lanterns I developed a technique after the first two. Would you like to know the secret of the glow? I'm sure there are many ways to do it out there, for me it's with much help from that jolly ol'e Koh I Noor pencil eraser (that works as a blender as well). I first lay down all the colors with medium to light pressure on the paper. Then I erased the "glow" in the middle creating an uneven circle or oval. Make sure you see it glowing. Then I added the darker tones or reapplied the same color I erased on the top and bottom parts of the lantern and gradually softening the gradient as I move to the middle glow. And voila!


Be ready to make plenty of mistakes when combining, especially with the neon pencils since these perform differently on some papers, this especially. I believe the paper didn't absorb their pigments well hence the loose wax.   


The lanterns weren't the only ones glowing after I was done, with them was my smile, too. Have to say I felt quite proud finishing this one, especially after those nice remarks from Moon Blossom's artist, Katrina Pallon. It got 2 likes shy of 250 in one international coloring group site in Facebook. Yipeee! 



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