Probably should have stopped at the second picture

Hello everyone,

Great to be here! The work here is mind blowing!

Here's my first full page completed with alcohol markers!

Also my first time using alcohol markers! :)

How did I do?

I think I saw a similar colour palette for the kitchen somewhere but I can't remember where. anyway, these were fun! I was also happy to see that this technique already inspired some of you to try it yourself! :)

I’m glad that I didn’t mess up the water because it was kinda hard creating the waves with white acrylic gel pen. I need to work on my sky coloring skills. Any recommendations which color combo you normally use for blue sky? TIA.

I get it now. 😂

Book: Cozy Eras by Jade Summer

I always struggle when it comes to the sky especially when the background takes up a lot of space and you have to follow the marker lines constantly until the end. I’m not very good at blending and stuff like that, I want to make the top of the sky a bit darker and kind of blend down in this picture, any tips for getting it to look good and not like I just whacked some dark blue at the top? Also why do my sparkles not look very much like sparkles lol? I just went over them with white pen but they don’t look very nice.

I wanted to try to color hydrangeas without taking too much time…😅 But again, I was super entrained that ended up coloring for more than 2hrs.

Book: The Catto Club.

I know there are some parts where the ink from the lines smudged into the colors which sucks 😞 this is also my first post on Reddit!!! This was just me having fun nothing too serious :)

In Mythographic Wild Summer illustrated by Joseph Catimbang

Legend says that where the river meets the sea lies a hidden beach that appears only to those with kind hearts. Its golden sands sparkle with enchanted gemstones, each one glowing with a tiny bit of magic. At the water's edge, a mermaid sleeps peacefully while playful otters stand watch, protecting her dreams.

Medium: gouache paint

Had my eldest home for a couple of weeks and was too entertained by him to get more than a little here and there coloring done. But life’s back to normal and I sat down to do this start to finish yesterday. Swipe for details and color palette!! If anyone uses my page for inspo (and I encourage this, that’s why I’m happy to share palettes) please tag me because I’d love to see it!

still new to colouring, but i had to do this page as soon as i saw it. i’ve never seen my cats’ personalities captured so accurately. cat tax included 🙂‍↕️

I found this one a little tricky. Overall I think it works.

Don’t talk l about the bleed through from the previous page ☠️☠️☠️

I've used many methods to pick colors and have found that most of them have drawbacks.

Like picking all the colors ahead of time and testing to see if they look good together can result in a great palette, but it can be tiring.

Using a pre-generated palette removes all the challenge of picking colors (and also the fun of picking colors). The generated palettes are often very limited in their range.This makes for a very cohesive page, but sometimes it feels monotonous.

Picking completely random colors can be hit or miss whether the colors actually look good together or not.

This random color wheel method I found removes some decision fatigue, but also usually ensures you can pick colors that look good together.

Step 1. (Optional)

Get a swatch chart that puts your colors in chromatic order. I use one similar to the one No-Sample222 posted in r/Ohuhu. Each page is a different color family. Each color is sorted into warm, nuetral, or cool. It then has groupings from light to dark in each category. You don't have to do this for this color picking method, but I find it makes it a lot easier

Even if you understand undertones and color theory, it helps to precategorize. Otherwise a color might fall into multiple categories. Like how do you decide if a color is a cool red or a warm purple when it falls somewhere in the middle?

Step 2. Make your color wheel

I used an app (Spin the Wheel). I added a section of the wheel for each color family in warm, nuetral, cool, light, dark, medium. For example for the orange color family I have these sections:

-light warm orange

-medium warm orange

-dark warm orange

-light nuetral orange

-medium nuetral orange

-dark nuetral orange

-light cool orange

-medium cool orange

-dark cool orange

Step 3. Pick a page

Step 4. Pick Colors

Next you simply spin the wheel and start coloring. I make it into a game. I can only spin and pick another color after I have used my selected color somewhere on the page. I keep spinning until I either have enough colors to finish, or I land on something that I can't find a use for on the page. When I use a color, I set it aside so I can use it again later.

The thing that make this so different from just picking random colors, is that you are picking a category instead.

So if the wheel lands on "light cool orange" I will have multiple options. I could pick a bright light orange for a pop of color, or I could pick something muted that reads more nuetral like sand or wood.

Because of this, it's hard to land on something that's going to ruin your page before you already have a lot of colors in your palette.

Step 5. Modifications

You might want to add a non random color at a certain point in the process.

Example 1: in the picture I posted here, every color is random except for the background. When I color, I usually save the background for last so I can pick something that ties everything together. I liked the muted teal color of the center fish, but I wanted the sky to be lighter than that. So I picked a lighter version of that color, and a yellow green marker to blend the sky into the sun. Similarly, for the sand, I wanted a lighter shade of another marker I had already used so I could have a good gradient from light to dark.

Example 2: for blending

On one page, I really wanted a metallic texture for some items. So I used a randomly generated color as a base, but I added in a lighter and darker marker so I could get a smooth blend.

Example 3: for shading

I'm my example picture I was able to do all my shading with my randomly generated markers. However sometimes it's fun to randomly generate your base and then add shading with darker markers after.

I found this little block of bookmark sized coloring pages at a local craft store (cat for scale). it has watercolours right next to the page, with watersoluble pigment. sadly the paper, while thick, can barely handle water so my first attempt (not pictured) failed completely. my favourite page so far is the squirrel where I ignored the paints and did alcohol markers and pencils lol. the deer one is okay too, it's inktense and a bit of the paints applied very carefully. but the lines are also grey, which makes them quickly disappear so the already very small details quickly vanish underneath some colour.

so while I like the concept of this colouring product, I wish they would have at least tested if the paper can handle water and even more importantly I wish the lines where black! The animal motives are nice though so I'll play around with it some more.

book: Aquarellglück Zaubertiere – Coppenrath