Just Pick One Color And Sneak It In

I pulled the center of a previous comment to retrieve the title of this post. Thank you, I appreciate that! I often get stuck on the titles. The entire comment said: “Maybe just pick one color and sneak it into this picture. Might add a cool little touch.” See how I got the title?

We did take that conversation a little farther, right? You specifically asked for red. That did happen, didn’t it? Or did one of me imagine the whole thing? I looked all through the comments section of that pen drawing and other conversations we had around the same time but I couldn’t find the actual red request anywhere.

@jlsplatts: Feel free to set me straight on this one and copy/paste your request because I can’t find it, I’m going on memory. But I can show you what the red drawing looks like:

After

Before

Something as simple as “might add a cool little touch” is greatly appreciated. Your request challenged me to do something I’ve never done. The only way any of us can get better at something/anything is to become comfortable with what we’ve convinced ourselves is not comfortable.

This is only my second time drawing with pens and my very first time drawing with dots, both are direct results of the red pen acquisition. I didn’t own one, locating it was difficult. I went to one business center, two commercial convenience stores and finally a craft store to find the red pen. It took about a week. It still isn’t the one I’m looking for but it worked for this drawing. I learned a little more with each visit, too, @jlsplatts, thanks again, otherwise I would not have been inside those places asking questions.

Locating the pen turned out to be easier than applying it. The most difficult part of this challenge was actually touching the page with the red pen once I finished the black ink. It took me 30 minutes of ‘almost’ touching the paper, only to retract my hand and rethink the idea. 30 minutes later I finally touched the paper and added a ‘sneak’ of red:

:pause: This is where I stopped using the black ink. I wasn’t sure what the red ink was going to do to the tree so I kept trying to imagine it. I would ‘almost’ let the red pen touch the paper, then pull my hand back. This is what happened the time I did not pull my hand back:

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