New Colors for Phoenix

When I moved out here, I brought a few art supplies with me. I chose simple supplies that did a lot but didn’t take up space–colored pencils, kneaded eraser, bone folder, a blade.

Prismacolor pencils are wonderful–rich and easy to use, waxy, thick color. The more you layer, the richer it gets. When I arrived in Phoenix, I had many greens, yellows, oranges, blues.

But here, I needed different colors. Richer grays, shades of browns, purples. They are the colors of blue agaves, rock walls, and the big smooth stones that create the look of water, but in rock. I saw a fence that was designed to hold rocks vertically and still look like a river.

These big, smooth river rocks are different from the desert granite, warm and cool grays and thunderstorm colored ones, too. Desert granite is hard brown and pink, all new colors I needed.

The browns of shadows and rust and granite. It took 16 more pencils in all to catch all the new colors here. Just waiting to be seen and put on paper.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer, trainer and artist who teaches writing and visual journaling classes. See her work at QuinnCreative.com (c) 2008 All rights reserved.