Preamble

I had been drawing for was long as I could remember. In the 8th grade I had earned an award as top artist in the class. But this was 9th grade. High school. I had chosen an elective: “Drawing.”

I realize now, decades later, what the point of the class had been. I understand now, what the teacher meant.

But at the time, I had no idea what I would learn in a drawing class. I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

So when the instructor stood over my shoulder, doing an exercise in class and said “you are holding your pencil wrong”: I was offended. Aggrieved.

I don’t remember the thoughts I had at the time. I remember that feeling. I was defiant and angry. I realize now I stopped listening to the teacher then. I thought the teacher was an idiot. I shut down.

And I know now that that piece of feedback was not the slap of a glove or an “I bite my thumb at thee” moment. It was not meant to insult every drawing I’d ever made, enjoyed making, and had been praised for making.

The way one holds their pencil has an impact. Comfort of holding the drawing tool has an impact. It has an impact on the line. I was going a different way. The way that had worked for me until then. I didn’t try a new way.

Today’s me is wiser and more receptive to critique. I can listen.

But even now, many of my impulses around how to create art feel more instinctive than studied.

The larger goal of the course was very much a how to draw what you see – we copied images from magazines, we did still lives, we did exercises with gradients with soft pencils. And because of the disjoint–the GRUDGE–that I let take hold in that moment… I did not get the full benefit of that drawing class.

Color in my mind comes last? Maybe?

This blog post is a response to the IndieWeb Carnival for August, 2025 on the theme of “color.” The host is Marisabel: Colors.

I think most of the time color is what I think of last.

Yesterday I created a little digital art clicky tool. I call it ARTLUNG BLOCKS. It’s at apps.artlung.com/blocks/. I made it monochrome. It can work in either dark or light mode, but it’s very much monochrome. I was more interested in the patterns than in what color might bring to it.

People said nice things about it. I liked that. I decided against random colors, or giving the player control over color. Maybe in the next piece I will. But I usually don’t choose color consciously before I start.

Questions occur to me:

Do I choose color that suits the piece I am working on?

Do I choose a palette that suits the desired goal?

And the answers to these questions are… well, kinda, sometimes.

I took art making classes in junior college. Drawing, graphic design, drafting. And taken some seminars and read books. But I have little formal training. In the ways that matter I’m the same instinctive creator now as I was at age 13.

Color comes last. I usually treat a thing I made like I’m creating a black and white coloring book and all that’s left over is to color between the lines.

But I like to color

But I’ve been practicing coloring in Procreate for several years. Coloring other people’s work lets me start after the figure has been created and be objective about the goals for the colors in the piece. I can make choices about how color will serve it.

Today I wrote some code to allow comparing a line drawing with the colored sibling. I put them up on CodePen. It’s really interesting to look at these pieces years later and slide back and forth to consider the choices I made, then.

Finally

It’s a goal of mine to be more conscious about my own work and my goals for the colors. I tend toward black and white work or limited palette work, as evidenced by some of the work on my art page.

Had I been a better listener when I was young, I might have integrated color in my process more effectively. I do sometimes create color swatches before I make my comics.

I am where I am now.

I accept my limitations as they are. I seek, with conscious effort, opportunities to learn and grow, and I can now listen to criticism and manage my own emotions such that I can appreciate what may be useful in that critique regardless of the tone of the feedback.

Thanks for reading. Go make some art. Make some marks.