Some pages are intimidating to color

Some drawings are intimidating to color. When I looked at this, I didn't know where to start. Coloring can help you become more brave- because it takes courage to jump into a puzzle like this. It is a challenge to begin to color a drawing like this and an achievement to complete it.  I wanted it to be warm on the edges and progress to a cold center. At some point I felt it was necessary to use the color pink- even though I hate pink.

I see trees

When you color things, you see them better.

"Nothing here to fear, I'm just sitting around being foolish when there is work to be done" Tori Amos

 

Tori Amos' lyrics to "Wednesday" form the border for this work.

 I shared it on Facebook and it got a lot of likes. Here's a clip of Tori singing "Wednesday". 

Tori's always singing my life or giving me life. 

If you knew how to read a coloring, you could peer into the artist's very soul, maybe even into the center of God

              When I am coloring, sometimes the work becomes a story I am telling myself. Since it is an image, it could be a lot of different stories. Take this work for instance: maybe the black deer, while galloping through the real world where trees are red and blue, and the forest is dark, is dreaming of being in love. Maybe he thinks love will make him purple and his lover will be magenta and trees will be ice blue with purple leaves: this is his heaven. I just hope he can appreciate his green forest and red trees since those things are richly and beautifully present in his current moment. I would like to see how someone else would color this. The way you color reveals who you are. It is possible to produce accurate assessments of a person's psychology based on how they color. You could read someone's future, present and past if you knew how to correctly interpret a coloring.

White butterflies

 

               Coloring can be like creating alternate realities. It is a creative meditation that can allow you to create and re-create your reality. I intentionally paint things impossible colors and in doing so, make the impossible possible; like a science fiction writer, a magician... a Godd. In this painting, (the medium is colored pencil) the sky, which is indistinguishable from the sun's rays is simultaneously embodying the dawn, midday and night. The hills behind the trees remind me of planets, and they flow into the sky. The water is blue, purple and electric pink in spots; this reminds me of when you're swimming in a lake and it's cold in some places, cool in some places, and has some warm spots. The painting had so much color toward the end, that I couldn't bring myself to color the butterflies.

Purple Hair and Zentangles

For the background, I experimented with Zentangles. It's a drawing technique developed by a couple of monks. I wanted this young woman to be very dark. The work is a worship of dark chocolatey, espresso-ish women, like India Ame'ye Olowokande- twirler, dancer, author of "You Look Like Something Blooming" and EatMangoesNekkid tumblr.

Update: I edited it again:

Grown Woman Coloring

I'm a babysitter at a fitness club. This is interesting because I'm not particularly fond of children and also I have a college degree. Working this job got me into coloring. It is an under appreciated art- it's not just for kids- it takes time, commitment, innovation and decisions,"what color should I choose?. It's like cooking, combining ingredients to produce a glorious taste. Here we apply colors to create something of great physical beauty, or something which illicits an emotion or thought. Like choreography is a collaboration between dancers and a song, coloring is a collaboration between the applicant of color and the drawing. This first work of art is African Mickey- he's a raw foodist and he tosses salads..