COLORING CONTEST from Pop Art Diva!

COLORING CONTEST from Pop Art Diva!
Win a copy of my latest coloring book, Through The EYES of an ARTIST Fantasy Coloring Book by Pop Art Diva!
It's simple. All you need to do is go to the CONTEST PAGE and follow the directions.
What's the prize? THIS BOOK!

You have until this Friday, July 29th, 2016, to complete your coloring entry. What are you waiting for?  Grab those coloring pencils, markers & crayons and get coloring!
I'm looking forward to seeing all the beautiful and entries. GOOD LUCK!

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Video Preview of the Coloring Book "Through The EYES Of An ARTIST FANTASY Art" by Pop Art Diva

    My latest coloring book is now
Completed and available for sale on Amazon   Through The EYES Of An ARTIST FANTASY ART COLORING BOOK

Video Preview of An Adult & Family Coloring Book of Fantasy Faces by Pop Art Diva:

To view the 43 Work In Progress Videos of the Coloring Pages in this book, visit my Facebook page: COLORING LIFE HAPPY    A unique, one-of-a-kind coloring book featuring women's eyes and faces morphing into all nature of earthly and fantasy creatures with coloring designs ranging from abstracts, butterflies, fish and sea critters, dragonflies, birds, flowers and even a skull and a cosmic view of space. All as seen "through the eyes" of an artist.

WHAT'S INSIDE?
* 31 Beautiful, HAND DRAWNColoring Pages
* All Pages are Single Sided
* 15 Vertical Images and 15 Horizontal Images, PLUS the Cover Art!

* There's even a little coloring doodle on the "Book Colored by" page, & you can color me on the "About the Artist" page!
* Skill levels are easy to moderately detailed.
* Well defined boundaries to make it easy to "color inside the lines".
* Includes Coloring Tips, Coloring Medium Charts and Medium Testing Pages!

All of the coloring pages within this book are completely hand drawn. Done in ink, on paper and, in nearly all cases, directly inked with no preliminary sketching done. I did not use any digital drawing processes at all when creating these images except for the clean up stage where I corrected noogies (my word for mistakes or a slip of the pen.) You can even see progress videos as I drew many of the designs on my Facebook page at Facebook.com/ColoringLifeHappy.

What does this mean? It means that these are not perfect, and they're not meant to be. Nothing hand-drawn is perfect and it shouldn't be. The whole point of not using digital drawing tools is to leave in the charm of the artist's imperfections and, at the same time, including a little piece of the artist's soul.

I can, and do, create art completely digitally, I did for years professionally. Which is why I wanted to get the pen and the paper back in my hands again and sit down and draw the way I was taught to draw. For me, personally, it is tremendously satisfying to have that physical contact with my art tools again. These drawings have given me many hours of artistic pleasure after having been separated from my art by bits and bytes for many years. I hope they bring equal measure of joy to you.

I love drawing eyes and faces but not JUST eyes and faces. Heck, I just like to draw, but it's always more fun if I can let my imagination run loose and that is what I did with these drawings. I used what I call a direct inking process, no preconceived idea or design. Starting with the eyes and part of a face, I then let the drawing tell me what it wanted to be and, with pen in hand, happily followed along. If you are surprised by these designs, imagine my surprise at what ended up on my sketch pad at the end of an illustration session. It was great fun to see my menagerie grow as I created the book and I hope you have as much fun coloring the images as I did creating them.

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Coloring Book Zentangle Style Fantasy Fish Drawing

Here is my latest hand drawn, direct inked (no preliminary sketches), Zentangle Style Zendoodle Fantasy Face that turns into a fish coloring book illustration. I call it Fat Fancy Fish.

As I have for this entire series, I started with the human eye. As I put the details and design in around the eye it started to look like a fish and so I continued with that and let it swim right onto my paper.
This drawing will be included in my next coloring book, "Through The EYES Of An Artist Fantasy Coloring Book by Pop Art Diva" available on Amazon:

Here's a video of the work in progress:

This this was so much fun to draw that I have decided to do an entire coloring book of fantasy fish and other sea creatures in the future.


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COLORING BOOK BLENDING TIPS, TECHNIQUES & MEDIUMS, Preserving Your Coloring Pages.

DO YOU WANT YOUR COLORING PAGES TO LAST A LIFETIME?
There's a lot of discussion about ways to blend colored pencils on the coloring book pages and coloring forums on Facebook and the internet. Many of the posts I see talk about using Vaseline (petroleum jelly), baby oil, vegetable oil and other greasy home use products to blend colored pencils like Prismacolors. I've even seen nail polish remover suggested as a blending medium. Every time I see these suggestions I cringe. As a professional artist and illustrator of over 40 years I have always used archival procedures in producing all of my original art, whether it be a painting or drawing or any other original work. Petroleum products, oils and other household products that are not produced for use as an art medium can often damage the paper and the pencil pigments themselves, leading to eventual deterioration of the artwork.
If you want to keep your finished coloring pages safe and protected for decades to come, you will want to use approved blending mediums and techniques. Among the mediums you can use are:
1.  Blending Pencils and Sticks.(Prismacolor Colorless Blender and theCaran d’Ache Full Blender Bright.) I use these most often with pastels as opposed to colored pencils, but they work for both.
2. Turpenoid, a solvent (a newer version of the classic artist's thinning and blending, but dangerous, turpentine.) Turpenoid is not completely safe and, like turpentine, presents certain health risks if not used properly and in a well-ventilated area, but the fumes are less severe than turpentine. This is my favorite liquid solvent to use as it evaporates faster than mineral spirits. I use it mostly for large areas and backgrounds. 3. Mineral Spirits, a paint thinner and solvent (Gamsol). Again not the safest blender healthwise, but way less odor than turpens.
4. The Icarus Art Board. This is basically a heat plate that will melt the medium as you work. Very pricey.
5. White Pencils. This is one of my top blending techniques.  Unlike the solvents which can bleed into nearby areas, white pencils give you pencil point control over your blending area. Frankly, I think they give you the smoothest blending. ( I order white pencils by the dozens!)
As mentioned above, the turpines and mineral oil products do present certain risks of use, mostly from inhalation of the fumes but also they can cause allergic reactions if applied directly to the skin. There is also the risk of absorption through the skin. Be aware of these risks and take proper precautions if you must use these.
Here is a great PDF comparison on the use and risks of artist solvents.



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