I tried coloring that project. But it seemed difficult given the fact that there wasn't a clear background. Or even a top or a bottom. This is what inevitably arose:
I found I was having troubles with wide-selection tools because my lines rarely, if ever, connect. I couldn't get the paintbrush tool to put down an even coat of paint without overlapping and changing hues. Note the dark-blue stripe at the bottom of my shirt-tail. Even then, the palette of colors I used didn't exactly feel right. Indeed, the number of problems in this painting probably outnumbered its pixels per inch.
Eventually I decided to put this one aside.
Fast forward a month or so. The middle school I taught at (note how I say taught, that's foreshadowing) let everyone know that a budget crisis was in the offing that year. The rumor was that all the first and second year teachers were going to be laid off. There was such distrust and dark looks around the building that everything seemed to be sliding out of control. So I drew this while my children were taking their exam.
Anyways, to the inking process! As you can see in the sketch above, the legs aren't quite complete. A fact which will come to bite me as I scan this in and begin to trace over it:
So I'm falling very quickly, and I decide to cross my ankles. That'll help. I also manage to shrink my legs down to about the length of my arms. And my feet to the size of my hands. Note the lack of birds in this picture. The sketches were just a bit too rough for me to make anything out of them onscreen. One thing I'm proud of is discovering the Clone-Stamp tool to make all my clouds. I like their tails. I decided I needed some words in the air. I was experimenting with different fonts and finally settled on this one. That's Latin up there. Real Latin.
So this, I believe was my first real success with coloring. In fact, the end product actually looks just that: a finished drawing.
The poem is "Looking Forward" by Rachel Hadas. Hopefully she won't mind.
Should I ask her?
