Tag: Imagimorphia

Book Review: The Magical City and learning to colour with Inktense

Published on by Vanessa GregoriaLeave a comment

Ever since I watched the Speed Colouring of The Magical City with Derwent Inktense pencils (Hyde Park), by Peta Hewitt, I was intrigued with Derwent Inktense Pencils. I was in awe of the way the dull pencil shades would activate into vibrant hues with the touch of a magical water pen. For a long time, I held back buying more pencils. However, when Peta brought out her step-by-step tutorial series in The Magical City using Derwent Inktense Pencils I knew I had to give it a try.

Recently I have been practising and experimenting with Inktense pencils and I now feel more confident using them. The colouring experience with these pencils are much different to normal colouring pencils. They can be activated using a water brush, water-based blending marker or paint brush with water. The water makes shades more intense and is easily blended and create gradients.

Derwent Inktense Pencils are similar to water colour pencils, except they are made permanent when dried. This makes layering more effective. They can be bought loose or in fixed packs of  6, 12, 24, 36, 48 and 72. I prefer to use the pencils with the Pentel Arts Aquash Water Brush. However, I have also experimented with a Tombow Blending Marker, which is also very effective and better for paper that can’t handle water as well. Just note that the water can wrinkle the paper and the colour can bleed through if too much water is used. So always try your materials in the back of a colour book before painting with them. For a complete list of all the materials I used refer to the bottom of this post.

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Book Review: Imagimorphia

Published on by Vanessa GregoriaLeave a comment

The current object of my colouring obsession at the moment is Imagimorphia: An Extreme Coloring and Search Challenge by Kerby Rosanes. Since I bought this book I haven’t really coloured in anything else. Just flipping through this book I can find inspiration and can’t wait to unlock all the intricate doodles which can be hard to decipher until you start colouring them.

Kerby is a Philippines-based illustrator with a very distinct artistic style of using doodles to create intricate, quirky images. He originally collaborated  with other authors and illustrated Doodle Invasion: Zifflin’s Coloring Book (Volume 1) and Never Quit Drawing: Sketch Your Way to an Everyday Art Habit. But it wasn’t long until he brought out two of his own colouring books,  Animorphia, Imagimorphia and Sketchy Stories: The Sketchbook Art of Kerby Rosanes. He also has a third colouring book coming out in the new year, Mythomorphia. 

His first two colouring books are very similar in style. Animorphia features animals morphing into doodles, whereas Imagimorphia also features animals morphing or surrounded by buildings, travel devices, and machines. I was more attracted to Imagimorphia, because I liked the variety of images and I was not as keen on adding to the doodling.  Animorphia offers many images to add to, but I am not very confident in doing this.

For a great review of both of these colouring books I recommend La Artistino’s website and Youtube videos. In her videos she includes finished pages and tips on how to colour Kerby’s work. She also did an amazing job completing the wave ponies picture in Animorphia, which has plenty of space to add additional doodles. When looking at the completed work its hard to know where Kerby’s work ends and La Artistino’s begins. I will post some more links below of some videos and info.

Now for my completed pictures. Nearly all have been coloured with my new favourite pencils, Prismacolor Premier Soft Core Colored Pencils. The first two are coloured with Faber Castell Polychromos Artists‘ Colour Pencils. For sparkles and other details I used a White Uniball Signo Broud Gell Pen. For the black background I used a black Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pen. For the backgrounds of the last two pictures I used Mungyo Non Toxic Square Chalk Soft Pastel. 

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Title Page – This was my very first page and I love it. I used Polychomos pencils and stuck to a very limited colour scheme. The colours used in the doodle are the same ones used for the leopard.

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Christmas Spirit

Published on by Vanessa GregoriaLeave a comment

Christmas is only a week away and I’m so behind. I haven’t bought the presents for my family or myself and I still haven’t put up my tree. Your probably thinking that’s not a big deal, except that I have a 20 month old that knows something exciting is happening at the moment. I’m just dreading putting up the tree after she took one down at the shops the other day. We also had my partners birthday today, so now that is over with we can focus on getting ready for Christmas this week.

The only thing I have done to get into the Christmas spirit is colouring this Arctic Snow Leopard from Kerby Rosanes’s Imagimorphia. I am so in love with this book. Since I bought it, it is the only book I’ve coloured in. I will post all the picture I have coloured so far soon. But first I wanted to show you this one I just completed.

Its done in Prismacolor Premier pencils, pastel and a White Uniball pen. When I was colouring it I did find there wasn’t as much opportunity as I would have liked to have add more green and red, but overall I’m happy with it. I haven’t seen this picture coloured by any other colourist, so I was excited to see the end result.

I just recently bought Prismacolor pencils. I love them. They blend beautifully and the colours are really vibrant. The only negative I have about them is that their is not many brown tones. However, there is a great variety of just about every other colour, many of which are not available in Faber Castell Polychomos range.

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The front page of Imagimorphia is part of the same picture that I coloured. This was actually the first page that I coloured in this book with Polychomos pencils. I didn’t realised when I first started this page that it was an arctic theme, so I coloured the leopard in more traditional colours. I used a limited colour scheme and I am really happy with the way it turned out. I did find that the Polychomos pencils were a bit hard on this paper, leaving an imprint, however it may of been because it was the first page. I didn’t have the same experience when I coloured elsewhere in the book.

 

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