I drew some San Francisco houses and scanned them from my notebook:
Then I painted them in value:
And in color:
I never used color much while growing up, instead preferring plain old black and white. I mainly never wanted to color anything because I could never get it right the first pass and would inevitably trash an otherwise good drawing. And unfortunately I was never disciplined enough to teach myself how to use and mix paints. Colored pencils are "easier" but aren't bold enough. I started using Prismacolor markers, as committing as they are, and really like their look (Tuscan Red is my favorite). Nevertheless, I'm still too apprehensive to put color to paper, for fear of destroying many hours of work. However, for better or worse, Photoshop is changing that. Mostly I can paint and undo at will. As this and recent posts might suggest, I'm starting to learn how to work with color. My hope is that eventually I'll learn how to handle real paint at all, especially watercolor and guache, and be able to apply what I learn from Photoshop about mixing color values and temperatures to real paper. Ultimately I want to be a traditional artist, not solely digital. Afterall, Photoshop and other painting software only tries to mimic reality (paper texture, brushes, cutting and pasting, etc). Why can't I go in reverse? Mimic on paper what I do digitally.
