I'm taking on another one-colour
challenge, but this time I'm not just using colored pencils.
I'm challenging myself to use every red art supply that I own on a single coloring
page. Paints, sharpies, watercolors, pencils, alcohol markers, pan pastels,
and I don't think these things are supposed to mix.
I haven't even chosen a coloring page yet,
and I'm not sure how to choose a page to color red without instantly making it
look like a scene from a bloody horror film, which isn't really my style.
Although I have been looking forward
to coloring this Stranger Things coloring book at some point.
An all-red challenge though? Might just push this a little too far.
Instead, I've decided on this scene from The Lion King.
And since I have far too many supplies to fit on this tiny page and thin paper,
I've decided to make it bigger and transfer it to some large art paper
that will hopefully handle more of my supplies.
If you've watched any of my past
One Color Challenge videos, you'll know that I have a lot of supplies
at this point, and so it's nearly impossible to just jump
in and start drawing without first trying to sort them out.
Because I love my color theory,
this is where my analytics brain tends to go into overdrive.
Where's the line between red and pink?
Where's the line between red and orange?
How light can I go?
How dark can I go?
Do I rely on the pencil names or do I go strictly by the color wheel?
I feel like people in general are more
particular about what red looks like compared to something like green or blue.
There's a much smaller range of red before
it starts looking like orange, brown, magenta, or pink.
A lot of these are technically red but aren't red enough to make the cut.
I've decided to start with my watercolors because if I'm going to use every supply,
I'm not sure where else these will fit later in my project.
Even just using the two red palettes, this is already looking pink.
Because frankly, pink is a light red, so some pink will be inevitable,
although hopefully the warmer reds will help balance it out as I keep going.
I want to use all of my unfamiliar media early on and leave my familiar options
like my pencils for the top layers where the details will matter the most.
That means that these Distress Oxides are
next, and I'm sorry that I am not doing these justice today.
And with the embarrassing start I've made so far,
it's time to bring out my red markers.
Because these colors almost never match
the actual lids, I've created a quick swatch and have already eliminated even more
colors that just aren't red enough for today's challenge.
Also, just I'm sorry, but this tape is terrible.
I was trying to be on theme with the red
washi tape, but it must be really old and cheap because it is not sticky at all.
I've already tried to stick it down at least six times before even starting.
I'm using a big mix of brands and a mix of alcohol markers and water-based markers.
This is not something that I would generally recommend,
but it is definitely fun every once in a while as a bit of a challenge.
The alcohol and water do not blend well
together, but I'm not really trying to blend here anyway.
Instead, I am just trying to fill the white space at this point and create
a base layer that I'll later color over with pencils.
Like an underpainting, but without painting.
One of the biggest challenges with these one-colour videos is trying to plan just
far enough ahead that I don't run out of space before I use all of my supplies,
especially with so many pencils and markers.
In the past, this was a little easier because I was just working with pencils.
But I think this is going to be an even
bigger challenge today because I have to think about the different layers ahead
of time, and I haven't even decided yet if I'm going to create a background.
It's time to move on to the pencils.
Now that I'm working with my pencils, I can start to build some colors around
Simba's body because I didn't have markers… Is this Simba?
I've just realised… I don't know if this is Simba or if it's from The Lion King 2?
Looks like Simba to me.
Does Simba have the black bits on his ears, though?
I don't know.
Or is it one of the baby lions from the next movie?
It looks like Simba, right?
But does Simba have these bits? -ears.
-no, the black bits on the ears. Oh, he does.
Okay, so it's definitely Simba. We're okay.
We'll cut it out of the video. -no, you won't.
I know you won't. To add to my embarrassing brain fog
for the day, I almost forgot to include my pastel pencils in our challenge.
I remembered them just in time.
Now that I'm working with my pencils,
I can start to build some colors around Simba's body because I didn't have markers
light enough for this, but my pencils can be layered as lightly as I need.
After seeing the colors of the red watercolors, I also decided to go back
and bring in some pastel red pencils, which I originally didn't even think
to include because they looked more like a peach or a pink on my shelf.
But when looking at my color scheme,
they were the only way to introduce a lighter tone of red.
I decided to include a select few pencils
that fit in this range to help bring some contrast without breaking my red theme.
This is where I'm spending the most time on this piece.
Switching between pencils constantly means
I am both trying to focus on shading, but also trying to make sure I use
a variety of shades, and I am continually assessing what colors I have left.
It's not just the challenge of only using
one color, because in a way, I've already done that at this point.
It's more the challenge of not using up all the space in the paper while I still
have so many supplies left and not getting caught up in the creative process too much
in a single area because I can't use one pencil for more than a few seconds before
I need to switch or I won't get through them all.
I love the challenge of trying to work
with so many supplies on one page, and this kind of project takes a completely
different creativity compared to anything else that I do.
It's like training and stretching
my creative muscles in a completely different direction.
It's a huge bonus if the end result ends up looking any good.
I could stop here.
This piece is basically done.
But look at all the supplies that I haven't used yet.
If this was an only Red Art Supplies challenge, we're done.
But I said that this was an every Red Art Supplies challenge.
So somehow I need to fit all of this on here.
I guess we're doing a background.
This might be the last time that any of this looks any good.
It turns out this scene is from I just can't wait to be king,
which is one of my favorite songs and scenes from the whole Lion King movie.
It's embarrassing that I didn't recognize
that this was Simba, but I totally didn't remember that the leaves were red here.
It's been a while.
This has ended up being kind of perfect for this picture.
But it's given me some inspiration for the background where I can maybe
create a darker base like the tree that Simba is standing on,
and then a lighter background with some trees or bushes in the distance.
With so many pencils left, I think I can pull this off.
Although I still don't really know what
I'm going to do with the paints that are sitting here.
This is such a big page,
and I've ended up working on this over four days at this point.
Although not four full days,
because I've been multitasking some other projects and our kids have been home sick.
But it's been nice to break it up,
and I've enjoyed working with my pencils again for the first time in a few weeks.
I'd love to hear from you if you want to see more challenges like this.
I've actually finally put all my pencils back in their original packages,
except for these reds, but that doesn't mean that we can't get
them back out for another one-color challenge.
So let me know in the comments what color I
should try next, and please subscribe so you don't miss the next video.
I've only got a few pencils left and my page is full.
There is absolutely no reason I need to pull out my paints to finish this page,
except that I set myself the challenge to use every supply.
But I really like how this looks at this point.
It's completely red without being too red - somehow.
But the challenge isn't over and it's time to bring out the paint.
I'm not going to be using the orange
yellow, the rose and the fluorescent orange red,
but otherwise, everything else here is red.
I've just realized that a bunch of these tubes are watercolor paints.
I really don't want to use watercolors
on top of everything else, so I wish that I noticed this earlier.
I guess I'll just have to be careful and hope for the best.
I thought the paints could be good
and have some leaves in the foreground, although I'm not happy with my first
attempt, so I might need to keep working on this for a little while.
Since I've got a lot of colors to get through, I'm not going to be able to use
all of them on these leaves, so I'll add even more details
to my already busy mane of leaves around Simba's head.
I have this idea,
maybe we could do a cool shot where I load all my Poscas at once.
So all the lids flick off and… Well, that failed!
Some of these areas are looking a bit
muddy with my mess of layers of so many different paints and pencils and markers.
If I were to do this again, maybe I'd plan ahead a bit more,
so I didn't layer so many things on top of each other unnecessarily.
But I'm not an expert at mixing media,
and most of these things aren't meant to be mixed in the first place.
Overall, I'm actually really happy with how this has turned out.
This started as a coloring page,
but by the end, it was a huge art piece with 241 pencils, 16 alcohol markers,
18 water-based markers, seven paint pens, nine watercolors,
seven pastels, two distress oxides, 14 acrylic paints, three gouache paints,
two crayons, and probably some stuff I forgot to count.
Of all the color challenges I've done so far, this was probably the hardest.
If you want to see some of my other attempts with other colors,
I've put them all in a playlist here so that you can watch them right now.