Once I colored “Drinking Light”, I found that I liked it much, much better.
I chose to keep a lot of it untinted, because the whole intent of the moment in the story was how Ungoliant was consuming and destroying the wonderful light of the Two Trees. Thus, having the color disappearing as well felt very right. I also hit on the idea of the color getting duller as the sap of the tree was drained. So at the extremes there was still some color, and a couple of flowers of the second tree remained bright (but probably wouldn’t last). I had almost colored the “bleeding sap” a gold color, but when I came to it, and looked at the picture as it stood (it was going to be the last thing I did), I realized that it was much more striking as a purer whiteness in the greys and dulled colors. So I left it alone.
All in all, I’ve come to like the colored version of the picture far more than the original black and white.
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