Coloring for fun

So far, so good. I ate salads twice today, walked at the gym, and now I'm getting my 500 words. I still need to take a photo. I will do that as soon as I finish my words.

One of my hobbies is "coloring" black and white drawings. I use colored pencils, Photoshop Elements, markers, scans, etc. Whatever is at hand. Here is some of my "coloring."

The background of the above photos is a park in my town. Then I used Photoshop Elements to add color and texture.

I play with Photoshop Elements a lot. I started when working on various book covers. I think that's the only way to really learn an art program, which is to spend a lot of time just seeing what you can create.

Here's another colorized version of a black and white drawing.

I like how it turned out. I think it has a medieval look to it. Most of my black and white drawings that I use come from Dover Publications, a huge and excellent source of royalty free artwork, paintings, drawings, stencils, and much more. I recommend them highly.

I have always wanted to be able to paint, but all my attempts haven't gone so well. I know what I want the picture to look like, but my hands won't do as I command. It looks like a computer is my medium, but people don't respect it as much as they do painting or drawing or anything not electronic. Even though I spend hours on what I create, that time and effort somehow doesn't constitute art or craft. Whatever. I like doing it, and perhaps that's enough. Here's one final one:

I lost the template for this one. I wish I could find it. I used it on Twitter for a long time as my avatar. I really like the look of it. I'd like to make some other variations of it, and for that, I need the original. It was on my old computer, the one that died a painful death. (I dread when this one goes, and I have to finally upgrade to Windows 8. I've used a couple of Windows 8 computers, and I don't know how they could have made a more unfriendly user-interface -- unless it actually delivered an electrical shock every time you tried to use it. Then it would be worse. Barely.)

Time for me to finish this up, but now you know what I do when I’m not writing.

Tomorrow we’ll start a new feature on 51313 Harbor Street. It’s called “Author Speaks.” I’ll interview an author each week (I hope) and share the answers with you. I think I will learn a lot from other authors and hope you will, too.

Our first Author Speaks will be with Valerie Comer, who just had a book released today! Raspberries and Vinegar, an inspirational romance, is the first book in Valerie’s Farm Fresh Romance series from Choose Now Publishing. Be sure to drop by tomorrow and see what she has to say.

Anyway, I hope you have a great night and a good tomorrow. See you then.