It's fixing to get loud... And weird...

I finished the first wax resist in my new journal, Red Lead. I started it on December 22nd, but had trouble completing it until this morning. It was bugging me, sitting there at the beginning of the journal, unfinished.

The problem I was having was with my crayon holder. I got one from Jerry's Artarama, stuffed my favorite deep blue crayon (Caran d'Ache NeoColor I Wax) into it, and couldn't get the crayon out when I was ready to switch colors. I did color with the other colors holding them by hand, but after I broke two of them - they're very brittle, these crayons - I gave up and went looking for my other crayon holder. It's the same kind, but I couldn't find it.

So there the page sat looking pale and unfinished. I needed to be able to color really hard on a hard surface so there were no uncovered bits of paper showing. Finally this morning I found the other crayon holder, went out to the studio and colored away.

Red Lead, pages 2 and 3.

The odd thing for me about wax resist is that it's unlike many other media that I use. When I get to the part where everything is blocked in and a preliminary coat of color is on the paper, I have to go back over the whole thing and 'color hard,' to fill in those spots. It's boring. I usually do it while listening to podcasts. You might not want to watch a movie, but something is needed to occupy the mind.