The Color of Excess

 One of Christine's favorite sayings is "Anything worth doing is worth overdoing!" I'm not sure she intended me to follow that line of reasoning as I began to accumulate a store of markers for my images, the current state of which is reflected in the image below.

There is method to the seeming madness. The markers in the jars are the current palette for Pearl. Those are the shades, hues, widths, etc., that I consider before touching marker to the Pearl image. That process is a touch mystical, sort of like dowsing for water. (See note: According to Wikipedia Dowsing is a type of divinationemployed in attempts to locate ground water, buried metals or ores, A Y-shaped twig or rod, or two L-shaped ones, called dowsing rods or divining rods are normally used, and the motion of these are said to reveal the location of the target material.) So, I run my hand and eye gently over the collected markers and pick up the one "that feels right." The plethora of other markers in the plastic bags are back-up in case the dowsing doesn't choose a color. The dowsing usually does narrow the options - like maybe a red, purple, violet or pink. So I pick up those bags of markers and gaze at them with what I hope passes for insight, and pluck up a marker.

Now let me clarify, lest you think this collection and process exceeds the normal demands of an obsessive artist's palette. Actually the impetus to gather these markers together occurred to me while working on Pearl's hair - an image which I recently shared with you here on the Wall. What happened was one of my markers ran out of ink! Check out the little blank spot between the feather feature and the grid feature off Pearl's shoulder. Empty!

That is more than a little scary for me. Think about it, markers aren't paint brushes, they are reservoirs of color attached to various types of tips that let you apply the ink to the surface you are working with - paper, canvas, cloth, glass - whatever. The problem is no matter what the color of the top of the marker, or the best intentions of the various manufacturers, the color of the ink in each marker can be unique. So when that individual marker runs dry you may never be able to duplicate that precise shade. So naturally, I panicked 😱! 

Visions of a mass "dry off" danced in my head, resulting in no "dowsible" colors for that blank - or other portions of Pearl. There was only one obvious solution - replace the entire palette. Fortunately Michaels was having a 50% off sale on their 160 colors adult artists marker set. I immediately placed my order and am now fretfully awaiting delivery of 160 new glorious markers while attempting to reorganize my limited studio space to accommodate the new arrivals - since naturally I will keep the old ones as backup.

Difficult? Absurdly so, but . . .

Anything worth doing is worth overdoing!😜