As a child I loved to color but I didn’t let just anyone color in my color books. If they couldn’t or wouldn’t stay inside the lines and outline each item, they were banned from my book.
My Grandmother, the one I spent so much time with as a kid, liked to color hair pink, blue, purple or green. I was a hairdresser even when I was 2 evidently because I couldn’t stand it that she didn’t color hair the right colors. So she was banned from my color books. Today I’d have to find another reason to ban her from my color book because you see all those colors on hair.
Grandmother gave me paper doilies to color when I forgot to bring my color books. These were very challenging but I was up to the task with my perfectionist attitude toward coloring. I’d work on one doily for a couple of days. I suspect that was Grandmother’s way to keep me out of her hair when she was sewing or cooking.
During high school we were supposed to be too old to color. I still liked to color so when I’d babysit small children I would encourage then to sit down and color so I could color with them. After high school I didn’t get a chance to color again until my niece came along (when I was 42) and she loved to color so I would color with her. She was as particular as I’d always been so we got along well in a color book.
When she thought she was too old to color I had no one to color with. I was in my late 40’s by then and decided I was too old to color anymore. Then I tried oil painting classes, one at the college and one at the recreation commission. I enjoyed painting but not trying to get the picture drawn on the canvas.
There were a lot of years that coloring was not a part of my life. In my 60’s the adult coloring books came out and I discovered the joy of coloring again. I started coloring when I was writing my book and it helped with the stress of getting all the facts in the right order in the book.
When I started to color again I bought a couple of adult coloring books and a box of 12 colored pencils. I didn’t use those pencils very long because it was hard to get the color to look dark enough and there were not enough colors. I couldn’t blend the colors to make shadows either.
Then I discovered the ultra fineliner pens that actually had a tip like a pen but were made of the same material as a marker; the best of both worlds. I started with a small set of 12 colors, and then moved on to a larger set of 18 pens.
The third set I bought and I am still using has 36 pens. They are Pentel Arts fine point color markers. Just a little bigger to fill in large areas and the colors are a little different. I use them a lot and love the colors that are in the set. At this point I had 66 pens of different colors and size points.
The next pens I bought were 6 metallic markers. Still smaller than regular markers and they have a metallic shine to them. The problem with these pens is the color doesn’t show well on the page unless you move it to catch the light. Now I had 72 pens.
For my 70th birthday last month I received another set of the triplus fineliner pens and this one has 20 colors. All the sets of pens have a little different hue of colors so now I have 92 different pens and colors to work with now.
I just bought a set of 72 Prismacolor pencils. These are nothing like the first pencils. The pencil lead is soft and the color is more saturated than normal pencils. They get a super fine point on them when sharpened. My hands used to get tired when I used the regular pencils because I had to press so hard to get a deep rich color.
The Prismacolor pencils lay the color down so easy it is a dream to work with. They also have at least 3 shades of each color in the box. It is fun to shade the designs so they have a shadow effect (which I could never get with the other pencils and pens) because they blend together so well.
I love the intricate Mandala designs which are the most involved and take longer to finish. So I have made a complete coloring circle because the doilies I colored as a child were almost like the Mandalas. I also like to color greeting cards from little notes to Christmas cards; most people appreciate the work that went into them.
Some things never change in our lives. If there is something you love doing then you should pursue it no matter what your age. To contact Sandy: [email protected]
