Friday, May 10, 2013

Shades of Gray

Sometimes when I read about a subject, I skip over the information that I find difficult to understand thinking that I'll pay attention to that later.  It's like when you read a book for the second time and pick up all sorts of things you didn't get in the first read.  Once your mind is not flooded with new information, there's room for more new information to sink in.  Huh?  At least that's the way my brain works.

The first time I recall reading about using grays with your colors or colorings to enhance appearance is from book on coloring long hair.  There it shows how you can go back over your finished project using gray to add depth.  I've also read enough about coloring to know that it's not black and white but gray that influences color shades and tints.

Now, because I know that doesn't mean I understand it.  From a scientific standpoint I probably won't.  At one point in my life I would have scoured any info until I understood, but the older you get you start to realize that you don't have to know everything about a thing to know enough to make use of it.  Huh?  Makes perfect sense.  We only live so long.

I started this coloring wanting to use some colors I don't use that often.  I used Promarkers, but I didn't write down the colors.  As you can see from the first picture, the colors are "off" and looked like two different colors rather than shades of the same color, not at all what I thought they would be, and I didn't like it.  Something in my brain tells me maybe this would be a good time to try out some of that gray stuff I've been reading about.  Couldn't hurt. 
I added gray to all of the purple.  I used a lighter gray for the light purple and darker gray or the darker purples. Started with the lighter grays and worked my way up until I was satisfied with the final color. 
Wow!  What a difference a little gray makes.  I loved the purples now, so much so that I completed the coloring instead of scrapping it.  Sassy Studio Design has its own name for her, but I call her Cher.  And I have a short pictorial on how I colored her hair for another post.

These next two pictures show the before and after of adding gray to enhance the layers in hair.  By adding gray in places where there would be a layer, you add fullness to the hair, lusciousness.  
"Before"
 
 Amazing what you can do just by playing around. 
"After"
As always --
Thanks for stopping by!