Off and Running!

Well....off and "coloring" to be exact. Yesterday I downloaded and printed the first image for Eliza Fayle's "Artful Joyful Me Project." And, just to clarify...when I posted about it a few days ago I called it a class...but Eliza is calling it a "project"...a group of women gathering on line to interact creatively and learn new techniques for coloring.  I'm going to enjoy the shared community and conversation around a weekly project.  (The conversation is happening in a closed Facebook group.)

Here's a little peak at my project so far....I'll share the whole thing when I'm done. There's something to this coloring craze....it's very relaxing! And it's a good excuse to catch up on TV shows.



This week we're working on blending with colored pencils.  I watched an informative video demonstrating different techniques and even learned there is a right and a wrong way to sharpen a colored pencil.  Who knew?  If you're using a small hand held sharpener you need to be sure to turn the sharpener...and not the pencil.  If you turn the pencil you loosen the lead which leads to easy breakage.  It's very counter intuitive to do it that way...but it makes sense. Also, I didn't know that baby oil (in very small doses) makes for a good blending medium.

So I pulled out the colored pencils Paul bought me a little while ago, bought myself some baby oil and a few blending stumps, (again...who knew there was such a thing?) and I'm off and running coloring.