I finished this detailed mushroom-picture (an illustration made by Jen Katz, @katzundtatz on Instagram) today, and it was so much fun!
A lot of people who have commented on this picture, have written that I must have a lot of patience, but if you know me, you know I have not! And this was actually a quite fast coloring, because this was how I did it:
- I decided to use a fast medium, that also works well on small spaces: waterbased markers. In my case I used Pitt pens and Zig brush pens.
- I decided the colors in advanced, and because I wanted to color it for my #flamingseptember2018 color along on Instagram, I knew I wanted autumn-colors, like red, yellow, orange, brown and green. I also added a light and a dark blue and a light Purple, for a poisonous look on some of the mushrooms.
- I picked out a selection of pens in these colors and put them in a box.
- I used one color combination at the time, like red – orange – yellow, and added that color combo on a lot of spaces, evenly spread over the paper. I had printed the picture on a really great paper (it´s actually the back of one of the pictures in a coloring book I have, that I don´t want to color in: Rembrandt by Pepin Van Roojen. It´s an artist edition, so the paper is fantastic, but I really don´t dare to color Rembrandt-pictures!), so it was quite easy to blend the colors together with the pens. Zig was more easy to blend, but Pitt worked ok.
5. I just kept doing one color at the time – or a specific color combination at the time – and tried to spread them out evenly on the page.
6) When I´ve used all combinations, and different colors, but still had some white areas, I went over the picture again, with the colors I wanted to be most dominate: orange and green.
7) I tested to color the background black, but it just didn´t look good, so instead I colored it over with a green Posca-pen. And last – I used my white gelpen on almost all the mushrooms and all the leaves for make them look a bit shiny (I could have left more of the picture un-colored instead, to get the same affect, but I didn´t).
Ok, so now you know how I could color this over a weekend, but just let me say: There is no need to speed-color things! I know that coloring is a slow, and relaxing, hobby for a lot of people, and that´s good! But even if this was fast, I enjoyed every minute, and had a smile on my face, and didn´t feel stressed at all. I guess we just color in different ways, depending on who we are (I walk fast, I talk fast, I color fast).
By the way: Thank you Elin for the tips to drink JAMU, for getting over the cold! It was DISGUSTING (I think I might have messed up the recipe, because it just tasted turmeric root), but I actually felt better after drinking it (or maybe it´s placebo effect!) You sent me the recipe in Swedish, but here I found a similar, in English:
https://quitegoodfood.co.nz/turmeric-jamu/
