Going Green-ish...
Zesty greens and clean blues are the colours picked for Week 31: Chrysoprase Green, Chinese Green, Skagen Blue & Aucuba Green
When I got home from Portugal two weeks ago I decided to dedicate some space for experimental creative playtime in my studio rather than diving right back into making paintings. I really enjoy exploring possibilities with water soluble crayons, mark making and layering of simple shapes to see how the Pebbles & Petals process can be developed further.
You are invited to join me later today for an hour here on Substack Live where I will show you what I’ve been doing and we can play along. See more info at the end of this post.
Pigeon Letters’ Summer Creative Retreat 2025
As mentioned in previous posts, I have joined The Pigeon Letters once again for their Summer Creative Retreat 2025. This event consists of 60 workshops taught by 50 artists and runs from 1-6 August. My lesson was recorded live on Friday 1 August: I created a layered floral using only water soluble crayons in the colours shared here. My lesson can be seen along with the other newly recorded workshops here. Registration is FREE and open until 6 August.
Click here to get all the info on The Pigeon Letters’ annual summer event.
Play with limited colours
To celebrate it’s 50th anniversary, Caran d’Ache released five special editions of Neocolor II crayons. I treated myself to all of them, each set includes three brand new colours and getting new art materials is always a treat, right? The sets are grouped into five thematic palettes: Pop, Lush, Portrait, Pastel and Dark.
I’m still experimenting with the newly released colours and have chosen this week’s colours from them.
“Sketchbook pebble doodles”, Neocolor II on paper, Esté MacLeod, 2025
Colour Combination
The colours this week are taken from the names on the Neocolor II crayons Chrysoprase Green, Chinese Green, Skagen Blue & Aucuba Green. Use the colours along with a contrasting dark and neutral light colour if you wish. Create an artwork in any medium or style.
I love seeing what you’ve create. If you’re posting on Instagram, please tag #coloricombo and #estemacleod and join us in the private Facebook group Creative Prompts.
Make interesting shapes, marks and layers
Everyone is invited! Join me for a creative playtime session at 5PM London time on Monday 4 August right here on Substack (9am San Francisco, 12pm New York, 6pm Berlin, 9pm Dubai & 3am Sydney). There will be a recording if you can’t make it at that time!
I’ll be exploring the four featured colours from the Lush crayon collection and possibly some more and will also incorporate the same sheet of printable pebble shapes shared in Week 23. You can find the PDF downloads here, right at the bottom of the post.
Print out two new sheets in monochrome and we’ll work through a fun new stencil layering technique.