OCC™, Our Distinct Brand of Coloring Happiness

The koloristas flashing the OCC™hand sign at the first OCC™held in Dolcelatte, SM Megamall

In the Philippines there are several other Facebook coloring groups but the only one I joined is Coloring Book for Adults Philippines (CBAP). My coloring days were never the same after. The koloristas (adult coloring enthusiasts, what we call ourselves in CBAP) of the group became my chatter mates about coloring materials, book titles, authors, artists, art exhibits, coloring inspirations, copyright law, book launches, hoarding, selling, sellers, fairs, wishlists, OCCs, more OCCs! I can go on but you already get what I mean haha!

At this point you might already be wondering what an OCC is and what it stands for. It's a term I coined actually, an acronym for Over Coffee Coloring™ (trademark pending) which started with "kulitan" (poking fun and teasing) among some of us koloristas online. A handful of koloristas nudged me to coach some coloring techniques which I agreed to do for fun. I also openly declared that I wasn't an art tutor so suggested  that we use the term coaching instead, and that we can do it over a cup of coffee, hence over-coffee coaching. Over time 'coaching' evolved to the broader term 'coloring'. 

The first gathering took place in Dolcelatte, SM Megamall in Metro Manila. A couple of days before the meet-up I was already declining people from joining since I only reserved a small cafe that can comfortably seat 40 people. And by the way I also got Vermailene Barrios to join us by then, author of Kulay Pinoy and colorist extraordinaire, and sellers in the group to sign up which explains the full house. The program that panned out was nothing short of unique, and it happened spontaneously mind you. Well, not really, I did have an outline of how it could go but we were all still open to wherever our mood would bring us. After that OCC™ I felt a door was opened to us, that we can all actually be friends in person even if it's our first time to meet each other!

Now how can I describe what an OCC™ is to people who may be interested to feature us and our future gatherings? I tried, here it is.

Over Coffee Coloring™ is a unique gathering that draws koloristas (coloring enthusiasts) to, spontaneously or otherwise, converge in cafes, restaurants, private homes, and offices for the purpose of social interaction and advancing one’s skills in coloring. 

What was originally a loose term for us since its initial salvo has developed into a recognizable meeting with a distinct form and following. After our first OCC™ impromptu organizers in the CBAP group would then test the waters by hinting if an OCC can be held in their particular area or city. Once other koloristas respond with a "let's go!" the word is spread and before you know it we're all seeing each other in person and sharing our ideas and passion for coloring within the brief time we have together. And it's always brief. Three to four hours is never enough when one is in the OCC™ among kindred spirits in coloring. 

A group during an OCC™demo by Art Coach Dino Copreros

In a span of five months six (6) formal OCC™’s have already been mounted in various areas in Metro Manila not to mention numerous other informal ones, called mini-OCC™s. Before 2016 is over there are six (6) more OCC™’s scheduled to take place in different areas and cities, including one in Cebu City.

OCC™in SM Mall of Asia (MOA) in January 2015

Since I was requested for a video about me and the OCC™ recently I thought I'd share it here, too, for inspiration. I hope you enjoy viewing it. And in case you still need some push to hold your own OCC™ after watching this send me a message and I'll tell you how easy it is to throw an OCC™ party for all the koloristas in your area. It's always a treat to hold one I tell you. 

Watch the video here 🎥

http://youtu.be/nMaKUTGhhig

A Lenten Reflection In Pencil Strokes

Instead of Lenten readings I found myself taking a quiet mental walk in my cozy world colors while laying pigments on this image. It was like saying a prayer for every pencil stroke, a mindful exercise of keeping my heart free of any yearning other than what the pencil and the paper wish to accomplish through me. 

Where the artist's lines curve there my wrist follows.

Where the petals meet in the flower's core there my darkest shades converge. 

Where the tips open up to the light there my pencil lifts as if in flight, to leave the surface white, free of color, to bare the highlight. 

Petal Maddock, a colorist friend, gave an insightful comment about my recent muted works admiring the restraint she surmised I had summoned to finish them. 'Less is more' was my reply to her comment. Indeed that's what I may have developed, not just as an approach to coloring, but as a way of living as well. 

Adult coloring is an addicting hobby to many but to me it's evolving as a manner of self expression in my adult years, to show how much I have come to appreciate my life, my family, my friends, and myself. There is much to be pruned in me but that too must be appreciated.

In the absence of extravagant colors, in the muted presence of the greys that are normally shunned is a kind of spiritual solace. A concealed yet still beautiful path to take for a deeper understanding of beauty and life that are all, ultimately, gifts to our being.  

Muted (Dagdrömmar)

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I woke up to a gray Monday. It wasn't cloudy, just a kind of longing inside me to color with my grays. 

I opened Hannah Karlzon's Dagdrommar which has been with me for three months already but with not a single page finished.

Here are my unfinished pages. 

For some strange reason I don't feel like continuing the three works above anymore. As if color inspirations escaped me once I was halfway through with them. 

But today was an exception. For this image of a Spartan lady it was smooth sailing from the start, no mental blockades at all. It was like something was telling me that for this (and maybe for the rest of the pages in this book), muted is the way to go. 

I used five gray pencils for the face alone: 90% Gris Chaud

50% Gris Chaud

30% Gris Chaud

70% Warm Grey

10% Gris Froid

I'm convinced this is pretty much how the rest of my Dagdrömmar (daydream) images should be rendered. 

Cloudy Skies Over Venice

It's been a topsy turvy Friday morning in my corner of the house. I had wanted to finish the Venice page from the book Street Traveling by Jeongjiwon before lunch so I started dabbling in it before my husband, Marvin, and I even had breakfast.

Two hours later, with two buildings left to color on the left side of the spread I took a break and  mindlessly flipped through the posts of the coloristas at the Coloring Book for Adults Philippines group page. I then came across Ian's video clips on blending. 'Wow, sipag, galing ni Ian!' I thought. Then came the inspiration to shoot a short video clip of the remaining water part I was about to color using Inktense pencils and paint brush.

So I hurriedly fixed my tripod and selfie stick and lodged the phone on the clamp, rather routine when I take videos of works in progress.

Now here's the thing, I never took note of the proper orientation of the phone when taking videos. So, when the shot video appeared sideways on my phone screen I knew the project was going to take more time than I intended. 

To cut the long story short I uploaded the 'sideways' video but apologized to everyone who would be viewing it (or would be turned off from viewing it) since I knew there was no way I could reorient it from my phone, laptop, or any other device I had.

Good thing my friend Eli Lorenzo saw it and came to the rescue. She downloaded the video using this app:

http://www.fbdown.net/down.php, then edited it using Movie Maker, and even added nice royalty-free background music from https://musopen.org/. She is such an angel!

You may view the video from this link: https://www.facebook.com/ces.aceron/posts/10154047317788945
   

A word on the sky that I painted though, it was an afterthought.

Since I was bent on using only Inktense watercolor pencils on this picture I went along and shaded the sky area with very light lines at first. But then I had instead this brilliant (rather moronic, really) idea of scratching the tip of the pencil against sandpaper and letting the dust fall loosely on the page. Next, with my wet brush in hand and much bravado I swooshed the pigments around on that small part of the page leaving a big blue blot that I could not lift even after adding more water. That's Inktense for you.

Anyhow, I didn't want to blame myself immediately after and just thought it could still be rectified later on. The only thing left to do then was to just continue laying the blue the same way until the entire sky was done. 

When I was finished I studied the image I had created of the sky and started to notice that the uneven coloring could pass off as cumulonimbus clouds! It was a speck of light in the end of the tunnel, not exactly a eureka moment because I wasn't entirely sure it would work, but I had no other choice, I had to take it. I went in with the Aquamarine Inktense pencil and sketched tiny lines here and there until, voila! the clouds looked like it was deliberately done.

I'm definitely charging this to experience, as my friend colorist Cathy Lasam-Ballo comfortingly suggested. 

Happy Weekend everyone, life is good and beautiful! 

Le Fruit by Mucha

When I began working on this Alphonse Mucha image I planned to use five colors in mind: grey, blue, pink, flesh, violet. When I finished I ended up using more tones and tints. It was great, those helped add depth. 

I also thought I'd use wet media for this but decided that it was too risky, I didnt want to end up ruining the reverse sides' images. I love this Mucha coloring book of mine, published by the Mucha Trust, and I don't think I could forgive myself if something happened to these near-sacred images. 

I know, I know "why don't I have it reprinted in watercolor paper". Truth is it takes time. I usually have one of two print shops do the image transfer for me. One is in UP Diliman and the other is in Joli's España. And I usually don't want to wait. I can't wait. Once I choose an image I like I'd want to get down to coloring it at once. At that very minute. Wish I had a reliable printer at home instead. That should be in my list of future investments. A good, reliable laser printer like Ver's.

Anyway here are the colors I picked for the skintone: Polychromos' raw umber, light flesh, and cinnamon. 

And these are the colors I ended up using.

A word about my experience coloring skin. I find that when working on skin my strokes turn naturally light. Like I almost don't want to touch the paper with my pencil tips. Works for me because then it's easier to blend the colors to produce the highlights and shadows.

I was just telling a good friend in a chatroom that when we color it takes awhile for our brain to warm up to the image even if my eyes are already familiar with the general lines. When I render colors onto spaces the image on paper seems to acquire a life of its own only after sometime, and I can feel I'm already in the zone when my mind is most susceptible to the image's suggestions of where curves, or creases, or bumps, or deflations should be. It's like my pencils have no choice but to subserviently follow the command of the drawing. I don't know if that's a familiar experience to most of you, but to me it is. I always hope to get in the zone when working on a coloring project. It cannot be planned. It's something that either happens or not. 

For Le Fruit it was when I got to the fruits. 

I found myself slowing down, enjoying each stroke of the pencil as I completed a grape. One after another. It wasn't while I was doing the skin, mind you. Maybe it was because I was too caught up getting the shading of the muscles right. 

All in all the Le Fruit was a joy to do, especially when I began to see how the psychedelic color palette I chose is far across the opposite side of the spectrum from its original colors. Am happy about the balance though, how the heavy and light colors were evenly distributed, thanks to the photo reference of the original work at the back of the book. 

I have a feeling I'm going to enjoy this coloring book more than usual. 

Piqued by Pastels

Since I have been receiving a number of inquiries about pastel pencils and pastel in pans I thought of dedicating this blog to that topic. I'm assuming the sudden interest is also because of the popularity of portrait and fashion coloring books like "Mystery Women" by Och Umlas, "Moon Blossoms" by Katrina Pallon, "Look" by Suwa. Perhaps like me many of you began to look for easy ways to render flesh tones on human images that would make their skin appear flawless and almost life-like.

The materials out there for this particular demand of coloring are pastels - powdered pigment bound together in different ways. They vary in form but are essentially the same in substance. The ones that can be used both as wet and dry medium are chalk pastel, soft pastel, pencil pastel, and pastel in pans.
 

For flawless skin coloring in particular my personal bias is for PanPastel. Two months ago I walked into National Bookstore bent on paying for three pans when, lo and behold, I was told that the price dropped just the night before and all of a sudden my budget (and a couple more hundreds) could afford me five pans instead! Whooopeee! (I believe the distributor already settled on the lower price point since up to now the new stocks I've seen remain marked with the lower price.)

The dust is gorgeous because, for one, it easily clings to paper unlike powdered Mungyo soft pastel or Mungyo chalk pastel. I only need to spend half the time moving the dust around before the color is absorbed by the paper's surface. Another reason I like PanPastel is because for skin coloring you'd want to visually achieve perfect smoothness which fine dust coloring gives. You eliminate pencil strokes from your work. If you take extra time to choose your application tools like eye shadow brushes, foam tips, spotter painting brushes (got mine from Craft Carrot) this powdered pastel is very easy and fun to apply and gives maximum satisfaction (for me at least). Also I find that I can also afford to make mistakes since the dust is erasable. Very good erasers I've used for this are kneaded rubber ones and the fancier but  effective Derwent electric eraser.

The biggest limiting factor in choosing PanPastel is the hefty price. With one pan you can already buy a set of other coloring materials with varying colors. But there's a way around that. I found myself suggesting to colorist friends to split among them a pan and put them in those tiny containers one finds in BEABI stores. Since the PanPastel dust is a very efficient medium you really only need a small amount each time to spread around and blend. Believe me a little will go a long way.

For me another good pastel product to use, again for skin coloring in particular, is pastel pencils. The one I'm using is Stabilo's CarbOthello. The set of 60's has a good range of browns that you can use to tone. But don't overdo the browns so you don't end up with a darker complexion that what you want to achieve. Again, these are pencils so if you want to eliminate lines you'd have to go ultra light with your strokes. Good thing going for you is that the dust is a joy to spread. Limit your blending to the edges though otherwise you'll find yourself reapplying endlessly because you keep rubbing dust off ever time your tools touch the medium.

Someone asked me how Derwent Pastel Pencils compare with Stabilo's CarbOthello. My colorist friend, Anwy, made me try them side by side and immediately I could tell that CarbOthello's colors are more striking, and smoother to apply. It appears that the pigments of CarbOthello are more fine.

What's the advantage of that? Like many colorists today the choice of medium is essential in enjoying our craft. Stress-free coloring nga e. So generally I understand why many shy away from the less vibrant, or grainy brands that makes it harder for us to achieve satisfaction.

I have to mention too that CarbOthello pencils have good- to high- lightfastness rating, not bad at all especially if you're particular about the selling quality of your end product.

So for those in a quandary as to which pastel products to pick in the market, the ones I've mentioned are safe choices since the results are immediate, and long lasting in terms of use and display.

Oh wait, here's the fixative I use by the way. Thanks Mark Dean Lim for suggesting this to me. When applying stay outdoors or in a well-ventilated area. I have yet to try in a coloring book so I can't say anything about that, but if you will protect the rest of the book by putting a big board or paper beneath the page you're spraying on. And finally, since it has binding agents it's best you don't touch your work while the material is still wet. Wait for about an hour for everything to adhere together and for the solvent to dry.

***First colored image from Mysterious Library by Bakeunji

***Second colored image from Mystery Women by Och Umlas

The Waif in the Mysterious Library

Today I had a 'eureka moment with my ink pencils and markers. I used this newly discovered (by me, atleast) technique on the hair of this image, notice that it has hints of the vibrancy of ink but blended relatively lightly. I'll be sharing how to apply that in my classes in the future so watch out for that. 

As for this waif from The Mysterious Library by Parkeunji (finding that name is another eureka moment I'll talk about later) I think I'm going to be finishing this tonight, which is a couple more hours from now. Am now working on the background which I think is not too hard, a matter of flicking and blending blues, but may take quite awhile. 

 For her skin I used PanPastel (burnt sienna and iron oxide) and touched up the tiny details with paint brushes instead of foam tips. The spotter 20/0 brush really came in handy for lightly spreading the dust of the pastel. And you know what else came in handy? My glass table top! A few dust fell off from the pastel cakes and I found myself mixing on it. Eventually I would dab the brush on the glass surface before applying the tip on the page, that way I'm careful not to put too much and avoid ending up with a gross mistake. (Incidentally this glass top also came in handy when I traced an image to transfer to another paper)

Finally here's what I learned about ordering Korean books - I can't understand them! But then a friend told me about phone apps that you can download, take a photo with, and will do translation for you. How about that! 

Here's the copyright page I translated. It still doesn't directly say that Bakeunji is the artist but I have a good feeling it is. Hyeonamsa is the publisher, it appears, see for yourself. 

Anyhow, can't wait to use this app in translating pages from Daria Song's latest coloing book The Present. The back page has instructions on certain techniques in coloring which I'd love to learn. Wouldn't you?