Hello coloring book fans! Today we have an interview with one awesome English teacher from Taiwan!
Q: First of all tell us little something about yourself.
A: My name is Kim Mazyck. I’m from Taiwan. I teach English in my country from age 7 to 17. My hobbies are cosplay and coloring. I also like photography and makeup artist- related activities.
Q: How did you start to color? When did this attraction begin?
A: I started coloring last October. One of my friends was coloring madalas and I thought it’s a very relaxing activity, so I tried it with Johanna Basford’s Secret Garden coloring book. And I instantly fell in love with coloring.
Q: Do you use coloring as a small getaway from the real world?
A: I do. I have lots of stress from work and from child-caring. I teach young kids and I have two children who are 2 and 5. I normally can’t enjoy being myself during the day, so when I color, I really feel I can lock myself away from the world. I usually color at night when everything is quiet.
Q: How do you prepare before coloring?
A: I would look at the page for a few minutes and think about how to match my colors, or look for reference pictures to get the ideas of specific plants, animals, or characters (sometimes you don’t want to mess up the original setting from the movies, comic book or such). And I will try my pencils on the last page (if there’s a blank page) to taste how well them blend. If I’m not sure about the paper, I normally use Prismacolor, it’s the best risk-free pencils I’ve got. I also listen to music based on the theme of the page I’m coloring. It can be new era or rock music.
Q: What inspires you to create so beautiful coloring pages?
A: I like to look at other colorist Instagram accounts and get inspiration from them, I also watch YouTube to get tips from them. Sometimes I Google real nature pictures to learn the colors and lighting from them.
Q: Describe your coloring pages in three little words
A: Strong, Playful, Diversity
Q: What are your favorite supplies for coloring? Do you always use the same or you like to experiment with it?
I normally use color pencils, my favorite are Caran d’Ache, (pretty much their every product), Faber Castell Polychromos, Prismacolor, Holbein, and Rembrandt pastel. I also like to use Copic markers for my comic coloring books.
Q: Do you have special techniques and color mixes that you’d like to share with us? Any tips and tricks?
A: I’m not the type of person who has to stick with one brand and one type of pencils when I color, I color based on how I can achieve the color I want. So I mix them. But I’m very careful when I mix oil/wax-based pencils and water-based pencils together, I’ve found that Caran dAche Supracolor is my favorite water-based pencils because I can mix them with my other oil/wax-based pencils perfectly. I also love Caran dAche Museum white to highlight, it has the best coverage. I love blending with Derwent blending pencils (although not everyone likes it), and I also use my fingers to blend pastel and other mediums.
Q: What challenges (if any) did you face in making your designs and can you give other artists any tips for solving similar problems?
A: Blending background is always pretty difficult to me. I’ve found out that using my fingers is the best way to me, I normally color the background with pastel first and erase whatever I don’t want on the page. It’s better than doing after you color the object because it might make the picture dirty. But I’m sure everyone’s got their best way to color the background.
Q: Here at Colorplaner we think you did a really great job with “lovers” from Coloring Book: Let’s Color Love. How did you came up with idea to make that picture?
A: I really appreciate one of my friends, Erica, who ordered that poster for me. First I did not know it’s poster, when I received it, I was very shocked by the size. Then I really want to challenge it because it’s a very beautiful picture and I haven’t done any south-eastern Asia theme coloring page before. I research a little bit of which colors they usually use on Buddhism paintings and I added my own ideas on it. I try to keep the color simple but it still ended up very colorful: )
Q: If you could choose only one of your finished coloring page which one would it be? And why?
A: I will choose the butterfly from Kerby Rosanes’ Imagimorphia because it got almost 800 likes from one of the coloring grounds on Facebook, and I also won a few coloring contests because of it. I colored it based on Iron Man’s theme color because I love Iron Man and wanted to play with red and gold colors.
Q: Do you have a favorite coloring book author? How did he/she earn your admirations?
My favorite authors are Johanna Basford, Kerby Rosanes, Hanna Karlzon, and Patrick Earl E. Alvarez. I love Johanna because her works are not too hard to start with, and that’s why her works attract so many people in the world. She works very hard on building her websites and really shows lots of wonderful colorists’ works from all over the world. She seems appreciate people’s feedback and that really inspires me when I manage my own pages.
I like Kerby Rosanes because he’s unique, you can tell it’s his works right away. I have lots of fun coloring his pages and discover those little hidden objects. His works are so crazy and it fits my personality a lot! Hanna Karlzon is also a lovely lady. Her coloring books are so far the only hard-cover coloring books I’ve got so far, I really love it.
Patrick Earl E. Alvarez recently became my friend on Facebook, his book, Mythos, is a very unique coloring books about Greek Mythology. His works are also quite crazy, When I color them, I will it’s made for me! I love coloring people and I love mythology. He also just launched his new coloring calander: MYTHOS ZODIAC CALENDAR 2017. You can contact him at: https://www.facebook.com/
Q: In your opinion, why does your coloring pages appeal so much to adult coloring book fans?
A: I haven’t notice my pages appeal many fans yet, but my friends are all very supportive. I think my works shows much diversity and it surprises them.
Q: What drives the adult coloring trend according to your experience?
A: I think it’s because there’re lot of us who can’t really draw or don’t want to work their brain out drawing from a piece of blank paper, we just want to pick a coloring page and start throwing colors on it. It reliefs our stress or even create lots of sense of achievement. People also enlighten each other by showing each other’s works and tips. We’ve made so many friends through out the world, it’s a very wonderful community.
Q: What would like to see more in adult coloring book world?
A:I really want to see more coloring them about local culture. I love the books I’ve got which are about Greek mythology, South-eastern gods and ladies. I also love the Steampunk coloring books. Now I want to see more such as Chinese and Egyptian gods, the Renaissance, or Native American culture.
Q: Besides coloring you are also a cosplayer. What’s your favorite costume? Why? And how long did it take to make it?
A: My favorite costumes are Assassin’s Creed (they also just launched a coloring book), I usually spend about 3 months preparing them. I sometimes order and add accessories on them, or make them with my friends. My favorite cosplay is Ip Man and Tony Stark. I even had Martial Art (Wing Chun) training in order to portrait Ip Man professionally. When I try to cosplay or color, I will do lots of research and keep studying on them.
Q: What are your plans for the future?
A:I’m planing to color something more realistic. I just bought the Assassin’s Creed Coloring Book and I have learned lots of shading and lighting from it. And I also want to start coloring some Christmas related pages soon. I bought Johanna’s Christmas and I’m looking forward to coloring it. I really love the book and I recommend everyone to get it.
Q: And last but not least, where can we find your artwork?
Facebook page: