Have you ever colored the same page twice?
What about three times?
What about seven?
I want to see just how different this one
coloring page can look if I approach it in seven completely different ways.
Everyone keeps asking me to take on a one-pencil challenge.
What about one pen?
First, I need to find a pen that actually
works because none of these pens seem to work.
Here we go.
Okay, this is actually much harder than I thought it would be.
I shouldn't have started with the face.
As long as I keep my hand in this very specific grip...
Actually, no, this is cramping my hand.
I just... Light strokes and cross-hatching
and maybe a better pen would have made this easier or a worse pen.
I don't even know.
I think I've done it. Success.
What's next?
Colored pencils and not just any colored pencils.
A Caran d'Ache - my favorite.
Okay, so I've decided this next style is
going to be where I put most of my effort because pencils are my go-to medium.
I'm going for a realism approach here as much as I can from a coloring book.
This will probably take me longer than all
of the other styles, even though it's the one I'm the most confident in.
I'm starting with the face,
and I've got some colors here that I think will work for the skin tone.
I'm going to start by blocking out the shadows first to help give me an idea
of the shape and the structure of everything that I'm drawing.
The concept of drawing the same art piece
in a bunch of different styles isn't new.
In fact, I tried to figure out who started the art style challenge and found myself
going back as far as seven years ago on YouTube, where even the oldest video
that I could find back in 2016 was still talking about the trend that he was
copying that was already extremely popular on Instagram.
But this challenge of drawing the same
thing over and over in different styles is a great way to stretch your creativity
and explore new ways to do things that you might have never done before.
But my challenge is also different in a few ways.
For one, I'm not just changing art styles, I'm also changing art tools.
I'd love to hear your suggestions on whether I should try this again
and what other tools you'd like to see me use in a future video.
I also don't think I've ever seen someone try this challenge with a coloring page,
which by the way, isn't my own coloring page.
This page is actually from The Grains of Gold coloring book by Hanna Karlzon.
But starting from the same coloring page every time really limits what I can do,
especially since I am not working with digital art.
So if I want to change the lines,
I have to make sure that I can work around the tools that I'm using.
I can't just redraw everything.
But these limitations can also help us
to think outside the box and be creative in other ways.
And that is exactly what I'm hoping this challenge will do.
These pencils are going to take a while, so I'll come back to this page in a moment
because I really want to try a stencil style.
I don't know how to best
describe the style that I'm going to cover here other than the word stencil.
I was originally inspired by a few pieces from the famous artist, Banksy.
If you don't know Banksy, he's a UK street artist who's built
a reputation as one of the most creative but controversial artists in the world.
His art often highlights social
and political issues and nobody knows who he is.
Maybe his most famous statement or prank was when he secretly built a shredder
into one of his paintings in case it was ever sold at auction.
And it was for over a million dollars
right before the room watched in horror as it automatically shredded itself.
Not to worry, because the shredded piece
was later resolved for the highest price of any Banksy piece, over $25 million USD.
Back to my art.
To call this style Banksy doesn't feel right because it's not making a statement,
it's not commentary on anything, and nobody can be Banksy except Banksy.
This style is stencil, and I think I'm going to need more black markers.
I'm adding some very heavy shadows, and this is a little scary because I've
never done heavy shadows like this, especially shadows around her glasses.
I mean, does this look a little weird or is this okay?
I think I'm just going to lean into it because I think overall this is heading
towards the stencil look that I'm going for.
All it really needs to finish this is
a simple flat color palette, maybe with some pastel or muted colors.
I'm really just wanting to use 1-2 colors
here, and I'll leave most of this picture in white.
What is?
No!
The black marker is bleeding into my colors.
I think one of the markers I was using wasn't fully waterproof or maybe
waterproof doesn't apply because I'm using alcohol markers.
This is so annoying.
I was hoping this would be really quick
to color, but now I have to be super careful.
I guess I'll have to keep this in mind for my other pages.
And maybe I need to find myself some other black markers for the future.
Okay, I'm liking how the first few pieces
have turned out, but I need something a little easier for my next challenge.
I usually only use my mechanical pencil for sketching now.
Well, these days I actually just use Procreate on my iPad.
But I feel more like a YouTuber if I pull out all my sketching supplies, right?
And they are looking a bit sad.
Actually, though,
all these different erasers are pretty handy for different things.
Oh, wait, I still haven't even opened Jazza's sketching box.
I just stole the mechanical pencil out
and I was waiting for a good excuse to explore the rest so
I guess now is a good time.
Sorry, Jazza.
My goal for this piece is to create
the illusion that this is an original sketch and not a final coloring page.
Basically... I'm lying?
No, it's just a style swap, okay? In fact,
I'm sure that Hanna Karlzon's original sketches look far more intricate
and interesting than the mess of scribbles that I'm creating here.
I've added some structural lines around
her face, some measurements around her eyes.
Let's use the blue because artists often use blue for sketching so that the picture
doesn't end up too busy, I guess, by the end.
It still feels unfinished.
I mean, it's a sketch, so it's obviously unfinished.
But it needs...Notes, I think.
What would we be thinking about as we're drawing this?
What would we be thinking about as an artist?
Maybe the light source.
These are berries in the hair, in case that's maybe that's...
Are these glasses or sunglasses and moody shadows?
Yep.
I think we're done.
Back to my colored pencils,
and I'm only just finishing the face now after two hours.
It's time to color the hair.
I've chosen to use a few of the same
colors from the skin in the hair and added some darker browns just keeping my color
simple so that I can focus on the technique.
Instead of trying to color every
individual strand of hair, I'm focusing more on the big blocks
of color and the shadows and highlights of the overall shape of the hair.
Hair and fur are not my strong point.
I'd say I don't have the patience, but I've already been coloring for so long
that I don't think I can use patience as an excuse anymore.
I think I just need to practice and give myself the challenge one day like I've
done with everything else to finally master hair.
For my background, I'm wanting to use the grays
from the color palette and create a simple colored background with a subtle shadow
behind my character; who I feel like, really needs a name at this point.
So tell me, what should we name her?
While you think of that, let's move on to the next challenge
and we'll come back to check on my background progress shortly.
Pixel art.
I have been looking forward to this one.
Pixel art feels like something that never goes out of style,
especially if you've seen people create murals with Minecraft blocks or
even the diamond paintings that are really popular at the moment.
While the official term of pixel art goes
back as far as the 8-bit games of the '80s,
traditional art takes this concept of square-by-square art back even further
with mosaics and cross stitches going back to the Middle Ages.
I have never drawn pixel art,
especially without a computer, and I have no idea if my plan here will
work or if this will look anything like a person by the time I'm done,
because pixels lose a lot of detail if they aren't small enough.
But I am excited to try.
I should have just printed this on grid paper.
I'm going to mainly use paint pens,
but I've also got a few fine liners to help me with a few more of the colors
from the colorful palette that I've chosen.
I think it's good to have a limited color
palette here because that's what pixel art usually has.
But having a darker and a lighter shade of some of these colors will just help
this to look a little more interesting and it will help this process feel
a little less repetitive as I'm coloring square by square.
I've chosen paint pens because I want
to cover up as much of the original lines as possible.
Most of the paint pens are opaque enough, and a few just need a second coat.
Although a few are a bit transparent,
so I'm wishing that I added a layer of white under all of this before I started.
Most of these areas are fairly easy, but there are some parts where there's
a line right through the middle of a square.
I need to choose which color to use,
and that color will determine the shape of the design.
Some of these don't matter too much.
But when it came to the glasses, I needed to be really strategic and get
this shape right, even if it wasn't a perfect match for the art underneath.
I think the biggest area that I'm
unsure about is the face.
I want to add more shading, but I don't have a good range of skin
tones here because the paint pens are quite limited and I'm wondering if I
should get out my pencils and maybe do some shading on top.
But that feels like I might get carried
away and drag this out to be a much longer project than it should be.
Instead, I'm working within
the limitations of the two skin tones I've chosen here, and I just need to be
strategic with the basic shading available to me.
I've decided to add some stray pixels around the background,
and as I'm erasing the pencil marks, I actually like the look here
of the partial grid, so I think I won't erase it completely,
and I might leave some sections of these lines as part of this background.
It wasn't my original plan, but I like it.
Okay, future Sarah jumping in right now
to say I thought this style would be easier than it turned out to be.
My plan here is I want to color this in,
but with only one color and using the words to create the shading.
Thicker, bigger words will look darker
and thinner, smaller words should look lighter, I think.
I've seen stuff like this before, but I don't want it to just create
a silhouette, and I don't want the words to overlap.
I think I just need to try it.
I spent far too long trying to decide what
words to use, whether I wanted to choose song lyrics or find something meaningful.
Instead, I decided just to use the words of the thing I was coloring,
and at least writing them in different languages gives me some variety.
You'd think by now,
I'd have major De ja vous with coloring this page over and over.
But actually, I'm having the opposite.
The change of styles and media is making
this page feel like a completely new challenge to the point that I don't feel
like I've ever colored this page before, which...
What's the opposite of De ja vous?
J'ai mai vue.
That's also the word they use to describe when you repeat the same word so many
times that it eventually looks or sounds wrong.
Scarf.
Scarf, scarf, scarf.
Okay, so I'm quickly finding this harder than I expected.
I'm not seeing the difference in the shading that I hoped I would.
I think part of my challenge is that this
page is so small, so there's not a lot of room for variety.
I probably should have looked at some examples before I started to see if
there was a particular approach or a trick to making this look good.
I feel like I need to write on her face, but I'm really unsure about writing in her
face because I don't want it to look like she has a beard.
But it doesn't look finished.
I mean, it's not a challenge if I don't
push myself out of my comfort zone a bit, right?
All right.
Here it goes.
Actually, this kind of works.
I don't love it, but it
looks finished now, and I would like to try this again one day.
This definitely was one of the more challenging styles today.
By the way, if you are enjoying this challenge, it would mean so much to me if
you would give this video a like or a subscribe or both.
But it's time to finish my pencil piece.
The background is coming together, and this is a technique that you can try
with any coloring page and with any colors.
Just choose a faded color as your base.
If not gray, you can choose a pastel color.
Then choose a darker version of the same color.
Keep your pressure light by holding the pencil further back and work in small
circular motions with light layers if you can, and just slowly add those light
layers to build up your background from the white.
In this case, I have picked a corner, maybe picked something where your light
source might be, and leave this area a little lighter than the rest of the page.
It's like a slight gradient across the whole background to look natural,
like a white wall with a light that's cast over it.
If you decide to give this technique a go or any of the other techniques that I've
tried today, please tag me so that I can see your work.
With the background done, I have made some extra touch-ups on her
face and finished some details, and it's time to work on her scarf.
Because I want this scarf to feel a little
more realistic, I decided to add some extra fabric creases,
which I was a little unsure about at first, but I'm glad that I did it.
Details like this can add so much interest
to a coloring page, and reference photos can be super helpful
if you get stuck on where to add those shadows and highlights.
With all of these details finished five hours later, I
am really happy with how this colored pencil coloring page has turned out.
There's one style left, and it's going to be a fun one.
When you think of pop art, the first name to come to mind might be Andy Warhol.
But today I'm leaning more into the pop
art style of Roy Lichtenstein, whose work helped define the pop art
movement and was heavily inspired by comic books.
I've actually always loved the comic book pop art style, and one of the biggest keys
to this style is the varying widths of the lines.
I'm working from the lines that are already on this page and making them
thicker at different points where I think they would naturally be thicker
with the pen stroke, and hopefully this will look natural at the end.
This is a style that I never draw because I'm always working with a single thickness
for the lines in my own coloring pages too.
This is a really fun challenge for me.
I'm not really sure how to approach the hair.
Why do I always get stuck on the hair?
I guess I just need to make it up as I go.
When it comes to colors, pop art tends to be bright,
but it uses only a few colors because of the printing processes back in the 50s.
In fact, as I'm doing this,
I realized that this is still a bit of a modern approach and isn't really
the color palette that Roy Lichtenstein would have used.
I'm actively avoiding doing any dot printing effect, even though I know it
would look cool because that feels like it would take forever.
I'm already really behind on this video because of my colored pencils.
But I like how this is turning out, so... I don't really care.
I've decided to add a bright background,
and already the black marker is bleeding again.
I thought this one was waterproof this time.
Is it the paper?
Is it that these are waterproof, but not alcohol-proof?
Maybe? If you have a good suggestion for black
markers that don't bleed with alcohol markers, please let me know.
I know people have asked me to do a black pen marker review.
Maybe I should. Just to find myself a decent black marker.
As I'm finishing this up with the highlighter, I think this might just
be my favorite page of this whole challenge.
Although it is a hard choice because I've
really enjoyed a few of these, so please let me know what you think.
Which coloring page was your favorite?
Was it the ballpoint pen?
Was it the stencil, the colored pencils?
The sketchy?
The pixel art, typography, or the pop art?
Let me know your favorites and what other
styles or other media that you would like me to take on next time.