300 post wo-hoo! Free Coloring Sheets of Manga Trading Cards Activity

To celebrate reaching this blogging milestone, I am sharing a couple colored samples (using two of the the coloring-sketch templates posted yesterday) and a 3 coloring sheets of manga-style fantasy Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) that you could use the next time a rainy day keeps the kids indoors.
Forest Guardian colored with Faber Castell Big Brush Artist pens.
Sample cartoon portrait colored with a waterbrush and Faber Castell Albrecht Durer aquarelle sticks.
Instructions: Print any of this fantasy trading card sheets on card stock and color with colored pencils or fine-tip markers. Then cut along the straight lines. Repeat and try different color combinations after reviewing your color theory.
The theme here was elemental or Magical ladies.
Bit of Egyptian inspiration in this set.

Impromptu night art class for my nieces

Even after a long day of teaching art classes (for myself) and a full day at the beach (for my nieces Nicole and Camila), we still managed to do a bit of art in the evening before calling it a day. Always have a set of aquarelle sticks and a few waterbrushes handy for some impromptu watercolor sketching.
Pentel Aquash pocket set with 8 color pans provides a compact source for coloring and keeps mess to a minimum.
Enjoying the convenience of a Niji waterbrush.

Sketching with a leadholder loaded with a B lead.
Bit of watercolor sketching.
Comic cover featuring a princess in a garden partially colored with Faber Castell Albrecht Durer watercolor pencils.

Bit of watercolor doodling

Another use for 3X5 index cards: quick watercolor doodles drawn with a waterbrush and some watercolor pans.
Just for fun decided to color this page of graphite doodles with a few washes of Faber Castell Albrecht Durer aquarelle sticks using a handy medium Niji waterbrush.

Some Warhol inspired kid activity templates

For a collage type activity: this 20-faces template could be printed on sheets of assorted colored construction papers, cut into its component portraits, and pasted on a sheet of cardboard to simulate the repeating subject Warhol prints. Crayons could be used to color each mini cartoon portrait.
Completely blank template for more advanced students that would rather choose and draw their own subjects rather than coloring the ready-made templates.
Designed a few custom coloring templates for 30-minutes kids' activities to follow a tour of the Andy Warhol Portfolios: Life & Legends exhibit at the von Liebig Art Center.
Dragon and Phoenix blank coloring template.
These blank "Sentai Ranger" templates could be used for trying out different color combinations and finding the out the more effective color palettes and background colors.
Cartoon template with some mixed characters of Eastern pop culture origin.
Coloring sample done with Copic Wide markers and some Faber Castell Pitt Artist brush pens. Both inks are nicely translucent allowing the printed outline to still show through under the bright swatches of color. The only downside is that the white card board tends to soak up the Copic ink using up the marker ink load a lot faster.
Blank template can be printed on regular copy paper, card board, and even Strathmore watercolor paper depending on the coloring materials planned for the post-tour activity.
Sample template colored digitally with Photoshop.
Sample colored first with washes of Faber Castell aquarelle sticks, allowed to dry, and then the underlying outline was highlighted with Caran D'Ache Neocolor I metallic crayons. For a finishing touch inspired by Warhol's use of "diamond dust" crystals on some of his screen prints, glitter glue and metallic gel pens could be used to enhance the final effect of the colored templates.

Couple of aquarelle sticks doodles

Cretacolor 4B graphite drawing lead outlines colored with Faber Castell Albrecht Durer aquarelle sticks.

Golden robot outline drawn with a Zebra disposable brush sign pen fine and colored with aquarelle sticks. Nose jewelry and head dress are loosely inspired on Mochica iconography from the Lord of Sipan.

Talented lil' artists

Cracking open a fresh box of Rembrandt 30 Half Pastels, and trying out the brilliant colors that can be achieved with soft pastels for the first time.
Pre-K little sister doodling with Art Rose markers following in her elder sister's footsteps.
Young artists at work using Caran D'Ache Neocolor I wax crayons and soft pastels. It's hard to understand the price difference between these Swiss-made wax crayons and their counterparts from the local kid's crafts aisle until you actually try them. Even grown ups would enjoy coloring again alongside their kids with these smooth crayons that yield rich saturated hues on the paper with ease. This product line is water-resistant and produces very little mess since the sturdy crayon sticks do not break easily.
Ooops! didn't leave enough room for the head, but already showing a high degree of observation skills at a very young age while copying the clown drawing guide. Colors and shapes are being accurately perceived and confidently drawn.
Second try taking no chances and started sketching the head and decided on her own to work on a flat surface instead of the easel.
Demonstrating her creativity, observation, and memory skills once more, Nicole finished her drawing by enhancing the original design with juggling balls as she had seen the previous day at the Ringling Circus show. In a further display of initiative, she proceeded to create another clown design.
In the meantime, Camila was getting acquainted with the properties of Faber-Castell aquarelle sticks and a Niji flat waterbrush. Noticed the wet paper towel and shop towel kept close by to keep little hands clean and free from moist watercolor and stray pastel crayon dust. Close supervision is always required when allowing children to handle artist grade supplies even if they are non-toxic (as it's naturally the case with all the supplies featured here) to prevent them from unwittingly ingesting them (never a good thing) or staining their clothing and furniture (since we wouldn't want any such accidental damage to hinder their artistic development by restricting their media exploration to just kids art supplies with their paler hues and limited performance).
Now trying out a Conte Crayons pastel set while combining two ninja drawing cards into one design back at her easel.
Quickly learned to wipe her fingers on the wet shop towel when switching between color pastel crayons and also kept wet paper towels right beneath her drawing to collect pastel dust (Good tip to keep pastel drawing mess to a minimum and facilitate cleaning)
After combining elements from the "ninja on the mountain" and "the ninja having lunch" drawing guide cards, she finished her drawing by adding a rainbow. Creative kids will continue to pleasantly surprise you by combining the guidelines they are given and by going beyond the task parameters by adding details of their own.
The perennial little girls' favorite drawing subject: "Mermaids"! Nicole chose to portray them feeding sharks. Once more notice the attention to detail and observation prowess in the depiction of the shark gills.

Watercolor tips for Kids

As much as kids enjoy to paint with watercolors, parents often worry about the potential mess from having young ones working with brushes, wet paint, and buckets of water in pristine kitchens and playrooms. A couple of products in the market make it fairly neat and simple for anyone to sketch with watercolors anywhere with no fuss. Instead of using watercolors tubes, provide little ones with a good assortment of watercolor pencils or watersoluble crayons coupled with a waterbrush.

Popular brands to consider include Faber-Castell, Caran D'Ache, Derwent, Niji, and Pentel. The latter makes a nice compact sketching kit that can be ordered online.It's often useful to create a color chart by scribbling swatches of color on a small card made out of the same support used for watercolor sketching to familiarize budding artists with the colors available to them. These cards can also serve as very portable palettes (tucked inside a field sketchbook), since the scribbled pigment can be picked up from them with a wet brush or waterbrush to complete small coloring tasks. When switching colors, the waterbrushes can be easily cleaned by gently squeezing out a few drops of fresh water and dabbing the brush tip on a clean paper towel or sponge. No separate pots of water required, but cleaning under running tap water might be necessary if the brush tip gets heavily soiled with a strong pigment.

The tools pictured above are ideal for on-the-go sketching on postcards, pocket sketchbooks, and 7" X 10" watercolor blocks. Shown closed and ready for travel in the picture below (clockwise starting from top left corner): Winsor & Newton Cotman Water Colour Field Plus Set , Pentel Vacance Water Color for Artist, Yasutomo plastic folding palettes filled with assortment of Holbein, Daniel Smith, and Winsor & Newton artists watercolor tube paints, Derwent pencil wrap loaded with watercolour pencils, Cotman 15 water colour postcards pad, Hand Book 5½" × 5½" Artist Journal, Moleskine 3½" × 5½" watercolor notebook, and Faber-Castell Albrecht Durer Aquarelle Sticks set of 20.
The Field Plus Set is a nice gadget, but a tad on the bulky side especially considering that a good waterbrush renders the waterbottle feature somewhat superfluous (at least within an urban environment where bottled water or a sink are usually not too far away, but I guess a dedicated canteen would be an asset out in the wild). The cakes from the original Cotman pans have been replaced with artist grade tube paints, but they were inexpensive beginner paints suitable for practice and sketching. The Plus cartridge system is convenient for swapping paint pans quickly and keeping each color separate from the rest preventing contamination.

The Pentel Vacance kit is not readily available in the USA (got mine at the Kinokuniya Stationary store in San Francisco's Japantown). It features a rotating thumb ring on the bottom for a comfortable grip and a cleaning sponge for the included medium Aquash waterbrush (which are kind of hard to find, so it's good to see that some online retailers are starting to carry them). This watercolor box's main drawback is that it's easy to contaminate colors since the pans are so close to each other.

The plastic folding palettes are inexpensive, light, offer plenty of large mixing areas, and can be loaded with any selection of favorite tube paints. Some green and blues (phthalos) pigments unfortunately tend to stain them permanently.

The Derwent canvas pencil wrap is a pretty convenient way of carrying pencils and keeping them organized while working anywhere. Although depending on the finish and diameter of the pencils (especially those smaller than 10 mm), there is a tendency for some to slip out of their holding loops and fall off the wrap. The revised model featured in some British websites has corrected this flaw, but I have yet to see it on any US retailers' sites. As for the watercolor pencils, I prefer the brands that color code the entire pencil barrel for ease of identification and that yield bright color washes. Currently my favorites are Faber Castell Albrecht Durer watercolor pencils and Caran d'Ache Supracolor Soft Aquarelle Pencils. Derwent watercolour pencils perform well and are readily available in local craft stores like Michael's, but I dislike their current color-coding system of only marking the pencil end and their slightly duller and "milkier" washes. Derwent did release a 36 watercolour pencils 50th year special edition box on 2003 for which they painted the entire barrels (see picture with open pencil wrap which incidentally has traveled with me in my carry-on bag on many flights), and some of them can still be found in retail stores.

The 4"×6" postcard format is an ideal working size for various reasons: requires little paint and water limiting potential mess, can be completed on a short time since it usually dries quickly, and the resulting sketches can be mailed to relatives like proud grandparents that would likely treasure the works of their fledgling Van Goghs.

My original set of 20 Faber Castell Albrecht Durer aquarelle sticks has been a constant fixture in my vertical messenger bag or travel backpack as my preferred source of convenient and seemingly ever-lasting watercolor pans. I have often shared it with my nieces, as they learn to paint with brushes and explore watercolor media. It has certainly outlasted a set of Cotman water colour half pans, that my older niece managed to use up on a single afternoon with a 1/4" wash brush and buckets of fresh water. While she has learned to blot the excess water from her brushes on a paper towel after cleaning them, she still tends to destroy conventional watercolor pans with her vigorous scrubbing (which is also why I still only let her borrow synthetic brushes for now). The aquarelle sticks have proven to be quite resilient and have survived several kid painting sessions. Unfortunately they seem to have been discontinued in the US, but they occasionally still pop up in clearances and close out sections. I have been lucky to secure several kits and tons of open stock from art supplies sales in the past couple of years.

For larger scale paintings, traditional supplies (watercolor tubes, sable rounds and synthetic wash brushes, and large water buckets) might be more efficient so long as proper care and closer supervision are taken.