Reflecting on the creative process of designing and then coloring a hen. Enjoying the process and using watercolor and colored pencils to add layers and details.
Tag: adult coloring
Review: Copic acrea paint markers
Review and demonstration of the new Copic acrea paint markers by Ruby Charm Colors – perfect for artists, crafters and fans of adult coloring books
Ruby Charm Colors Creative Companion 2025 Now Available
I was hoping to have this little book finished by November of 2024 but, given the number of hurdles I was facing, I just couldn’t make it happen on time despite encouragement from those who kept reaching out to me about needing this year’s planner. To all of those fans of the book who emailed and messaged me⏤thank you for keeping after me and encouraging me to just get it done. I appreciate you! And a very special shout-out to Lora King (@dukewife on Instagram) who colored my line art for the book cover, inspired me, and made it fun. Her color palettes are always so bright and cheerful⏤perfect for the playful otters!
So yes, the Ruby Charm Colors Creative Companion 2025: Organizer & Coloring Art Journal is finally published and available to order on Amazon!
The semi-structured format of this compact book allows you to creatively journal and plan out your time, track projects, jot down ideas, create lists and even do a little coloring if you like. The concept for this book goes back to 2019 and was designed especially for those who love to color, but it is handy for all types of creative people. It’s small enough (6 x 9.25″) to fit in a bag for appointments, shopping or traveling, and while there are structured monthly calendars and sections for specific purposes, there are also plenty of blank, lined and dot-graphed pages for creating your own notes, lists, etc.. There are also 16 full page designs to color as well as little design bits worked into the calendars and other places in the book. One of the full page designs (mice in a Christmas bulb) is brand new to the Ruby Charm Colors collection and won’t be available anywhere else until the fall of 2025.
The calendar section of the Ruby Charm Colors Creative Companion 2025 includes monthly calendars for 2025, a yearly 2025 calendar, a look ahead to 2026 calendar, a compendium section with multiple pre-designed lists and plenty of room to create your own lists, an 80 page creative planner section that includes lined, graphed and blank pages for whatever you like, and finally, a color notes and swatches section for keeping track of your favorite pencils, pens, etc.
Because this is a paperback, you can easily deconstruct your journal to fit inside a binder. I use a 7.5″ x 9.5 x 2″ deep Franklin Planner and it works pretty well. Check out the tutorial if you want to see how that’s done.
Just a quick reminder that if you are looking for art supplies, I have a list dedicated to many of my favorites (and then some) right here on my website. I plan to be adding more brands soon as I have come across a few gems you should know about. If you order supplies from any of the links I have on that page, I might receive a small commission from Blick, but that does not add to your cost in any way, shape or form. But, that small commission (honestly, a couple bucks every few months) does help me continue to keep Ruby Charm Colors alive so thanks in advance if you bookmark the page and order from my carefully curated list!
That’s all for now! I am gaining momentum and trying hard to carve out time for more line art for a new coloring book I’ve been working on, plus a few other projects in the hopper.
Take care my friends and cheers to creativity!
It’s okay to wander
Back in 1909, J. C. Tregarthen, author of The Life Story of an Otter, wrote that “the otter is a great wanderer, who not only traverses long stretches of coast and follows streams and rivers to their source, but crosses hills and even mountains to reach its fishing-grounds.”
As of late, I am feeling like an otter trying to get back to my fishing grounds.
I haven’t gotten lost but I have been distracted. Rough times over the past few months (okay, maybe a little longer) led to an exhausting creative slump and my mojo evaporated. It’s on the way back, however, and for that (and for friends who have been checking in and encouraging me) I am very thankful. It seems quite a few people are experiencing a slump of sorts (at least from what I can gather from comments in the coloring world) so I am here with a little encouragement. If you have something you love doing, keep doing it. No one is going to do it for you. Carve out a little time in your day to pick up your pencils (or whatever other media you like to use) and just play for a bit. It may not amount to much at first, but it can wiggle its way into your psyche like a little fish and eventually things will start to flow again.
About a month ago, I started playing with a new design on my iPad after catching the tail end of a nature show about otters. The sketch started slowly and I kept changing lines and shapes, but after a few days of playing around, I got it where I wanted it. And then I decided to color the design on my iPad since I was out at my dad’s place and didn’t have any art supplies with me (or a printed copy of the design). I used Procreate with a few different texture brushes (and lots of layers) to fill the design up with color and more patterns. I had fun working on the iPad but what I kept thinking that weekend was, I sure wish I had my pencils with me!
After a long period of not creating anything at all, it was a ripple in the water.
A week or so later, I decided to duplicate the otter and work it into another design. This one sat still for a spell since I had a few back-to-back shifts at my part-time job, but I finally printed out a copy yesterday and pulled out my pencils. I used a few Derwent Inktense watercolor pencils for the seaweed and the bodies of the otters, then worked in some Irojiten pencils and gel pens. I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed having those pencils in my hands again, and though I felt rusty, it didn’t matter. I just had fun. Until it started getting too dark to see what I was doing and my shoulder started aching but that’s another story…
The thing is, I picked up those pencils and reconnected. Which leads me to community. After having been absent from social media for a good bit (and hibernating from just about everything especially now that it’s winter where I am and everything feels so dark and gloomy), I was reminded how most of us need community. It doesn’t have to be big, but it does need some common threads woven through the fabric to hold it all together. For us in the RCC community, the most prominent thread is coloring, but it extends to art supplies and, maybe most importantly, the connections we have made with one another. After being in touch with some very good humans this week, the sun peeked out and feel ready to follow that current back to my fishing grounds.
I’ll have added the otters to my website and Etsy shop and now have my new Bunny and Bird design listed as well. Also, if you don’t have my LinkPop address, feel free to bookmark it. Thanks for being patient with me while I wandered off into the weeds, and I hope to see you back in all the usual places before too long!
Best wishes and stay creative!
The Big Book of Color Charts (Artist Edition) is Finally Digital!
It took me some time to come around to the idea of offering the Big Book of Color Charts as a downloadable PDF, but I finally took the plunge and am excited to offer it here on my website (with a discount) and in my Etsy shop. Since shipping the physical book has been prohibitively expensive for those outside of the USA, offering a digital version makes it more accessible and affordable for everyone, plus, you can print out as many pages as you like on your favorite types of paper.
The book, with a few notable updates, is split into 4 different PDFs (to help keep the file size reasonable), plus a “Read-Print-Me” PDF that gives a quick overview of how the digital version is organized and includes a “book pages to PDF pages” index so it’s easier to find what you need.
You can learn more about the contents of the original Artist Edition here. In addition to over 50 pre-labelled charts (some with needed updates and additions) for the most popular colored pencils, markers, watercolor pencils and more, there are blank charts and a ton of Ruby Charm Colors designs to color. Because why have an uninspired spreadsheet when you could have fun putting your pencils to work with some art to color?
You can make this book your own functional work of art!
Even if you already own the printed version of this book, the digital version can be handy if you want to make extra copies of any of the pages. I know a few people who are doing this already. Personally, my “master charts” stay in the spiral-bound book, but I have printed out additional charts that I keep folded in half in my zippered pencil cases for easy access and for travel.
Also, if you use the digital version with a 3-ring binder, you can add in manufacturer or other charts as well.
Printing Tips:
There are so many different printer brands and models out there it would be impossible to give instructions for them all, but there are a few general commonalities. Most all home printers have a print dialog box that pops up when you print something. Look at all the options in that box because you can customize the settings of your print jobs. In addition to telling the printer which pages to print (like 1-5, or 2, 4, 6, 8 or all, for example) you can adjust the size of the image (scale) by chosing a percentage like 100% (or 85% if you want it a little smaller) of, many printers have a “Fit” option which assures that all of the data on the page fits on your sheet of paper. You can also choose whether to print in color or black and white, double-sided or not (if your printer supports color and/or double-sided printing) as well as page orientation. This book should print in the horizontal or landscape format for best results. Some printers have additional settings and most will give you a thumbnail preview of what the page will look like before it prints. If you are not sure what your printer can (or cannot) do, do an online search for the User Manual using the name and model of your printer.
Different printers use different inks. Home-use inkjet printers typically use inks that are not water resistant (and I don’t think any of them are considered waterproof) but I do know that Epson inks are far more water-resistant than the others I have used. It’s always a good idea to let your freshly printed pages dry for a bit before coloring with pencils, but it is especially important to let them dry (maybe even overnight) if you plan on using any wet media. If you are struggling with smudging or bleeding with your printer’s ink, let the page dry, but also consider spraying a workable fixative over your page. That should lock in the printer ink and give you a nice surface to to work on. My favorite is the Krylon Workable Matte Fixatif but Blick makes a wonderful fixative as well. Just be sure to use spray fixatives in a well-ventilated area (away from people and pets) and don’t breathe in the fumes!
Laser printers use toner cartridges. A combination of heat and pressure fuses the toner onto the paper and the toner is considered permanent, so there should be less smudging. But, that depends on the paper you are using so you might have to experiment if you plan on using paper that is textured (like watercolor paper).
Paper:
There are lots of great papers to use when printing coloring pages or pages you want to use for color swatching. I like the Recollections Card Stock (65 lb) found at Michaels craft stores, but I am also fond of the Neenah Premium Cardstock (65 lb). There is a great selection of mixed media paper through Blick, but most of these specialty papers are not sized for printers. You will probably have to trim them down to 8.5 x 11″ (or 8.268 x 11.693 if using A4) if you want to use, for example, a special watercolor paper.
Some of this might seem a little over the top for printing a set of color charts, but if you are really into using certain types of paper for your coloring pages and artwork, having your pencils and watercolors swatched on the same paper you will be using will give you the most accurate results. The beauty of having digital charts is that you could print, for example, your Derwent Inktense chart on plain white cardstock, on grey or tinted cardstock (if you like working with tinted papers) and also on watercolor paper to see how the colors look and behave on each one.
A note about the black pages … there are quite a few! Originally, these black pages were put into the physical book purposely to help prevent colors from bleeding through to the back side of the page. It helped the book stay a little neater. I kept those pages in the digital version but you don’t necessarily need them. You can print your pages one sided only, then place them back to back inside plastic sheet protectors in your binder. If you do decide to print a few black pages (there’s lots of art plus a few black charts) just be aware that these pages will use a ton of ink/toner. Make sure you don’t accidentally print a bunch if you don’t need them.
Always pay attention to which pages you are printing⏤check (and double check) before clicking the print button!
That said, there is definitely use for a few black charts if you like coloring on black paper (which I do, and I know quite a few of you have my Black Magic coloring books and box sets). Black charts let you see which media and colors work well on black and which don’t. Markers are notorious for disappearing on black paper, but some gel pens (the pens advertised as opaque) and most colored pencils can look fantastic on black paper. So do the shimmery mica watercolors made by the lovely Karen Spencer⏤magical, in fact.
There is also a handy chart for comparing whites and blacks which we often use for shadows and highlights. You can see how the brands of white pencils I have look quite different from one another in the photo below. And black pencil brands are really interesting because some have a slight blue tint (like the Derwent Lightfast Midnight black), while others, like the Lightfast Mars Black, has a slight reddish tint. And the Chameleon Black looks more grey than black. The deepest blacks seem to be the Caran d’Ache Luminance and Holbein blacks … and this is partly why I find charting my colors so interesting (and very helpful).
That’s all for now! I’ve been busy trying to get back on track and will have a few new announcements in the coming weeks, so hang tight and stay true to your creative side!
Bambino Clay Crayons
An artist’s review of the Bambino clay crayons for coloring.
Colouring Heaven and More
January is off to a productive start with a few new designs in the Ruby Charm Colors shop and on Etsy, and, some of my art for coloring from the Oceanimaginary book is now featured in the new SEALIFE Colouring Heaven Collection! Check it out when you have a chance!
My newest design⏤so new it’s not in the Colouring Heaven SeaLife collection⏤can be found here on my website, and also on Etsy. I really enjoyed drawing this Dolphin Trio and then spent a few days taking it for a test drive. My colors are a bit on the soft and muted side and there are a few things I might have done differently, but I had fun adding some extra details and giving my Caran d’Ache Luminance, Derwent Lightfast, and Irojiten pencils a workout.
If you are a part of the RubyCharmColors community on Facebook, we are taking the month of January to post photos (and maybe some videos) of how everyone is filling in their Big Book of Color Charts. Stay tuned because I’ll be doing a blog post about the benefits of color swatching and will be featuring color charts and pages from our community!
That’s all for now⏤cheers to a new year ahead, my friends!
Sunshine
Winter is knocking on my door here in Michigan and it seems the older I get, the less I like it. And this is what inspired me to take a little time to color Sunshine⏤the need for warm colors and plenty of greenery.
This design was originally created as a line art coloring page for the 2021 Creative Companion and it is in my Etsy shop as a downloadable PDF and available here on my website. I also included it in the mini box collection on Etsy!
Since Sunshine was specifically designed for the Companion’s printed book page size (approximately 6 x 9.25″), you will probably want to expand the design using your printer’s settings if you have the PDF and print your own copy. My old Epson has a “fit to page” option, plus I can also enter a percentage to expand the design to better fit an 8.5 x 11″ piece of card stock. I chose Kraft card stock (which I get at Michaels) and printed page two of the PDF (the grey line version I include with all my PDFs on Etsy).
I started coloring Sunny at about 3 o’clock in the morning. Another sleepless night, and honestly, I have had so much on my plate the past few weeks, I really needed to do something more arty than staring at a computer screen. When people claim that coloring (or doing any sort of artwork) is cathartic and relaxing, I can certainly vouch for that. I also thought it would be fun to capture the steps I took and share them with anyone who might be interested in how I do what I do.
I decided to work with my Derwent Drawing pencils first since they are very soft (and release a lot of pigment on the paper), and I knew that would they would provide an excellent base layer on the Kraft card stock which is thick and fairly toothy. I first used Wheat for the areas I planned to highlight (like the cheeks and nose) and Brown Ochre for the darker areas or shadows around the edges of the sun’s face. From there, I continued to add very light layers of Yellow Ochre and Mars Orange, then put down a layer of white (Derwent Lightfast) inside the eyes and over the cheeks and nose to bring up the highlights a little more. I usually like to work with fairly sharp pencils and when I hand-sharpen them, I don’t waste as much pencil lead as I do when using the electric sharpener. I save that one for seriously blunt pencils only.
More colors added in very light layers: Sanguine, Venetian Red, Ruby Earth, and then for a little intensity (since the Drawing pencils are fairly muted colors) I worked in Lightfast Strawberry and Cherry Red which are far more vivid hues. I then started filling in the flower petals with a layer of Yellow Ochre. Olive Earth, Crag Green and Pale Cedar were the first layers of the leaves. You can scroll through the photos above to see those steps.
The color charts for my Derwent Drawing pencils came out of one of the author proof copies of the Big Book of Color Charts (which is also now available as a digital download). I removed a few of the pages with a blade and now keep them in my zippered cases with my pencils for ease of use. (Over the past years years, I have bought a few Soucolor and BTSKY cases through Amazon and they are pretty great if you are looking for sturdy cases.)
I did the same thing with my Derwent Lightfast, Caran d’Ache Luminance, Irojiten and Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils. If you have the digital version of the Big Book of Color Charts, you can make extra copies of the pages you need (and print them onto your favorite paper or card stock).
Since I started with three fairly muted greens, I got out my Caran d’Ache Luminance pencils, which by the way play very nicely with the Derwent Lightfast and Drawing pencils, and added Moss, Dark Phthalocyanine Green, and Dark Sap to give my leaves more variety, depth and saturation. Still applying gentle pressure and creating light layers, and if you look closely at the photo below, you can see that I am not too worried about blending just yet and you can see how toothy the Kraft paper is.
The next hour or so was spend fine-tuning my layers, adding greens and more orange, red and yellow as needed. And then I started refining some of my lines and smaller shapes with my Irojiten pencils. I like using these for finer details because they are pretty hard and I can get nice sharp lines. With Autumn Leaf, I drew small circles inside the swirls of flower petals for extra texture and interest, then added Smoke Blue and white little petals over the eyes and in a few other places. I also used Malachite Green to add veins to my leaves, and in some of the areas I wanted deeper shadows. Same with Carmine Lake for some of the areas I wanted deeper reds.
Once I was comfortable with the basic colors I had on paper, it was time to start doing some blending. First, I put down a layer of plastic to rest my hand on since I noticed some of my colors were starting to smudge a bit. This can happen with pencils that have soft leads some sort of protection can really help. If you have any of my handmade books, you can use the plastic protection sheet I included. I like using it better than using paper because I can see through it, but paper works perfectly fine, too.
I used the Prismacolor Colorless Blender over the face and larger areas moving the blender with medium pressure in small circles. It helps to move your blender pencils in multiple directions to really work those pigments together and fill in the tiny ‘holes’ where the pigments skipped on the toothy paper. “A Few Thoughts About Pencils, Blending and Burnishing” is a post I did a few months ago that talks a little more about some of my blending tools if you are interested.
Once in a while I brush crumbs off my paper with this really nifty Tim Holtz Retractable Blending Brush I found at Michaels. It is meant for applying Distress Ink and Distress Oxide while using stencils, but I thought it would be great for colored pencil work, too. And it is. And because it is retractable and has a cover, I can toss it in my bag and not have to worry about crushing or ruining the bristles.
Next, I used the Caran d’Ache Blender Bright in a few areas to bring up the color saturation, and make a smooth surface for the ink and gel pens I planned to use⏤primarily around the eyes. I have found that if I use the Blender Bright to essentially seal my coloring, I can get much sharper lines with my Pitt pens, and lessen the chance the ink will bleed or snag on the tooth of the paper and then ‘blob’ which is a huge pet peeve of mine (and very frustrating since I don’t usually ink anything until all of the coloring with pencils is done).
In the photo below, you can see the sheen that developed over the flower petal swirl in the top left corner after using the Blender Bright. When I am working with both types of blender pencils, I am very careful not to burnish with the Blender Bright in areas I plan to add more color, or blend with the Prismacolor Blender. Why? Once you burnish with the Blender Bright, it’s nearly impossible to add color or blend further because essentially the surface becomes sealed. The paper becomes crushed and compacted and there is no more tooth left to grab your pencil pigments. A workable spray fixative will allow you to add more color, but since I work in a very small studio space, I don’t like to spray anything.
Once all my blending and burnishing was nearly done, I used a Faber-Castell XS Pitt pen to redraw and refine the eyes and eyelashes so that they became more of a focal point of the art.
Have you tried the Arteza white gel pens yet?! I thought the Uni-Ball Signo’s were my go-to white pens, but after tripping across these, I am sold⏤they are great!! If you like working with gel pens to create highlights and embellish your colorings, I think the Arteza’s are a must-have. As long as you keep the tip of the pen clean, it rarely blobs or skips, even over more waxy surfaces. As with any gel pen, they take a little coaxing and fiddling, but I am very impressed with these. And the box I got has three tips sizes: 0.6, 0.8 and 1.0 (smallest to largest).
I also used a few more Irojiten pencils to add details and darken some lines, then started embellishing with white dots (with the Artezas) and also turquoise (Sakura Souffle gel pens) and a few sparkly blue and turquoise Gelly Roll Moonlight gel pens.
I can’t seem to stop myself when it comes to embellishing with dots. I feel it adds a little playfulness to my art and it can be a lot fun to do. Mostly fun⏤sometimes really tedious. A tip for using gel pens: do small sections at a time and make sure your ink is completely dry before working in or over a freshly inked area. I have had far too many whoopsie-smudges and now use a Chandler heat gun to speed up the drying process.
And finally, here is Sunny in all her glory!
Hope you found my notes and photos helpful, and that you have fun pushing your own coloring in new directions if you so choose. I am storing Sunny in my Pinchbook (more on those soon!) and will be making a few fun products with this design in the near future.
Cheers to the creative process, everyone!