Page 34 - Sports Illustrated KIDS Magazine (January - February 2020)

says
Zoë. “We don’t live in black and
white.” She painted this righteous
rendering of pro surfer Coco Ho
to prove how much more you can
make a piece pop when you use

colored pencils, paint, or crayons
instead of just a No. 2 pencil.

“It’s just kind of a natural law of color

theory: You can never go wrong with
complementary colors. They’re the
“Her face is the focal point, and I
wanted to use color to make sure colors opposite each other on the
that was obvious. In this piece, I’m color wheel. In this case, orange (a)
is a complementary color to blue (b).
working in a cool palette. Blues,
Her skin is flesh-toned, but I’m making
purples, soft greens. So I focused
all the warmer colors, like reds and it a little more orange than it might
oranges, in her skin, hair, and face.” be in real life, so that turns into a
complementary color to the blue.”

What color is Coco’s
board? White, right? When you’re drawing
Sure, but look closer skin you’re not just
and you’ll see light drawing what you
pinks and cool grays. see, you’re drawing
“When we’re looking underneath. Blood
at a color, like a white vessels, muscles, things
wall, you’re not seeing that all have their own
white, you’re seeing color that are slightly
all the different lights coming through the
and colors that are skin. So put colors that
being reflected back you wouldn’t assume
at it. In this case, the are a skin tone into
board is in the water, the skin. People have
which is blue, so all sorts of reds and
you’re going to have greens underneath
some of that blue their skin.
represented in the
white of that board.”

“Blue is naturally
going to inform the
colors I choose
Coco’s foot casts a when it comes to
shadow on her board. water, and that in
But what color do turn helps the viewer
you make shadows? know what they’re
“It’s good to use the looking at. Like, she’s
complementary cooler on a surfboard, so
color as a shadow. I she must be in water.
knew I wanted to use So there you can just
blue because it would start to play around
fall behind her feet, with water more, and
which are warmer.” you don’t have to
rely so much on stiff
little peaks, or all the
classic stereotypes
of what water looks
like when drawn.”
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