Picking pinks

I'm working on my valentangle.  Obviously it's not done yet but I thought it would give me an opportunity to help me explain how I pick the colors to use on my colored tiles.

This zendala tile has already been colored with professional grade watercolor paints. That's a whole different class. I've also lightly penciled in my zendala template lines. If you are looking at this post on a phone you will never see the lines - you may have to enlarge the picture anyway 'cause I always make my pencil lines very faint.

I started with my pens. I have a Sakura Pigma Micron pen in pink and a Staedtler triplus fineliner in pink. I like a thicker line so this Micron is a 05 width.

If I'm not sure which color pen works best I'll lay a clear piece of plastic on top - like a page protector or the plastic window from the envelope of old mail. Then I can draw a few lines to see which works better and gives enough contrast.

Both colors work with my tile so I tried both with my colored pencil options.

I have a complete set of the Prismacolors colored pencils so that's what I used. You could of course use the same technique with other brands.

At first it's just trial and error.  I pull out all the colors that are anywhere near the colors I'm looking for.  I've been surprised in the past so I don't eliminate colors before I have tested them.

This picture is a little misleading - the paper is white here - not gray.

The colors I ended up liking the best are shown below - PC993 Hot pink, PC994 Process Red and PC1008 Parma Violet for an accent.

Once I have the colors I like I try them out by layering them too. It's fun to see how much more depth that achieves.  Using additional colors as accents can add to the tile too.

This picture is misleading - The paper is WHITE! not pink.

In the partially completed zendala you can see all the colors plus a white highlight.