Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!

And I did!

Did a quick ATC using mostly colored pencils with a touch of pastel. I wanted to try out a different support for cp's so, having various colors of Mi Teintes on hand (left over from last year's experimental sessions with pastels) I selected a blue and went for it.

The only thing I drew was a quick horizon line, then got out the cp's and played with color. Was quite relaxing, I learned a few things, and, got an ATC out of it too!

Here's what I learned:

1. I don't care for Mi Teintes as a support for cp's. The paper texture is too difficult to cover.

2. Next time I use a colored support, I'll choose the color based on what would work best for emphasizing the focal point of the piece, not the overall tone. In this piece the focal point was the setting sun and the glorious yellow-orange-red haze it created in the sky. Problem was, with a blue/grey background it was difficult to get a vivid yellow for the sun (that's where I caved and pulled out the pastels). I had hoped that a white cp base for the sun would give enough opaque coverage that I could get the intensity I was looking for, but that was not the case. Knowing cp's are translucent (evidently my brain was on hiatus at that point) I should have known better. Lesson learned!

3. Occasionally it's good for me to set aside a demanding piece (i.e. a portrait) and let my inner kid just "color"! Sometimes this girl just wants to have fun.... and if I learn a couple of things in the process that's even better.