High Contrast Creates Drama and Commands Attention
Contrast in a composition refers to its darks and lights, regardless of its colors. For example, the color blue can be so dark it appears almost black or so light it appears almost white. In art, the degree of darkness or lightness of a color is called its value. A color can be any degree of dark to light. There are many values between the darkest dark and the lightest light.
Black and white create the highest contrast of values because they show extreme dark against extreme light (or extreme light against extreme dark.). Any dark color against any light color has high contrast, too.
Use contrast to create drama and command attention in a work of art. The eye is immediately drawn to areas of high contrast, so you can use that to your advantage by deciding what your center of interest is to be. In addition, within the cat figures, I employed high contrast in the eyes by placing the only pure white in the highlights against the black pupils.
[READERS NOTE: At the end of this post learn how you could be eligible to win a Staedtler triplus fineliner Pen Set! ]
Are You a "Night" Person? Introducing the Midnight Edition of Elegant Elephants
I created this special Elegant Elephants Midnight Edition Adult Coloring Book so that you can color the images with the extra drama of black backgrounds. The contrast of color against the black will make your colors seem to glow and pop off the page! The elephant subjects comes to life and become the focus, and the background becomes illuminated.
The illustrations are the "same" as the original "daytime" edition of Elegant Elephants but their background transformation makes them totally different in appearance and provides a distinctive coloring experience.
Elegant Elephants Midnight Edition has 34 illustrations with finished borders on every page. The designs are printed on one side only on medium weight paper.
AFRICAN DRUMS – From Elegant Elephants Midnight Edition. ©Marjorie Sarnat.
Staedtler triplus fineliner Giveaway
To introduce you to this dramatic "Midnight Edition" of Elegant Elephants we are offering a Giveaway of a set of 20 Staedtler's triplus fineliner Pens. I used these pens to color the "African Drum" illustration shown. The fine lines and vibrant colors are perfect for a midnight-style coloring book. Go here for an in depth review.
The Staedtler triplus fineliner 20 pen set comes in this denim pouch.
To be eligible to win, all you have to do is be on my "For Color Lovers" email list. If you are already on the list, there's nothing more you need to do! If you're not, simply fill out the form at the top of this page. You'll get a complimentary downloadable coloring page to boot! See rules below.
[NOTE: CONTEST IS CLOSED]
Giveaway Contest Rules: Eligible only for residents of the U.S.A. or Canada. Entrants must have registered or be on my "For Color Lovers" email list by November 26, 2016 at 11:59 p.m.. Winner will be drawn at random on November 27, 2016, and notified by email promptly thereafter. If winner doesn't respond by November 29, 2016 prize will be awarded to an alternate person at my discretion.
[EDIT: Deadline has been extended to Nov 26 from Nov 22 to give a chance for more people to sign up.]
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