More new crayons

Last year at this time, I wrote a post about the childhood thrill that a new box of crayons would bring. (I'd just received my set of 132 Prismacolor pencils for Christmas!) Well, Prismacolor recently added 18 new colors, so guess what I got from my husband this year? Since I also got an annoying cold for Christmas—I'll take a lump of coal next year, Santa—today was the first day that I felt like playing. I just had to start by making swatches—the ones I made last year have been invaluable—but since these won't fit into my original pages, there may be another swatchapalooza happening really soon.

It's hard to believe that 132 colors didn't already cover all the bases, but a few of these are really nice additions, even if they don't have great names. The "Sap Green Light" is beautiful—when you do a lot of botanical drawings, lots of really good, natural greens are important. And the "Dioxazine Purple Hue" nicely fills a gap in the deep violet range. There are three "neon" colors, which are new for me. I didn't think I'd care for them, but as I did the swatches, I was kind of intrigued:  the color really jumps off  the paper, and they'll be fun to experiment with; I'm curious to see how they layer and get along with the other colors.

So, tomorrow, at long last, the drawing resumes. It's been a busy month, but I've just packed away the last of my Christmas decorations. Happily, my New Year's weekend consists solely of fresh Dungeness crab...and fresh new pencils.