The transition to using color was a real challenge for me.  I have always used value as the central organizing principle in my B&W work. I isolate what I perceive to be distinct and uniform and then construct maps of this value to be transferred onto the final image. Whether I am working in markers or stippling, the process is the same.

I have always thought of B&W as consisting of three variables: 1) position/placement 2) value and 3) rate of transition (is there a distinct edge, or does one value fade into another). I came to the conclusion that my approach to color would need to expand the number of variables to 5. I would need to include hue and saturation as well. But I could not think of a system apart from the value maps I had long been constructing. I wound up creating multiple value ladders/chains with highly unique hues and saturations. For instance, I made the water here one system - but with 8 different but interacting value chains. The way the greens creep in on the top left and the appearance of fluorescent darks in the top right are probably easiest to see. I constructed similar interlocking value chains for the hair, for the tube, for each shark, for the rocks, for the tank top, for the skin tones, etc. It was all very laborious. There were many times that I had to start over completely. I would estimate that I spent at least 40 - 50 hours slaving over systems that proved to be absolute garbage.

It took some time, but I do think I eventually developed some facility. It really did amount to getting some sense of what colors I had at my disposal and how they blended. Initially I thought it would be as simple as using one marker for each mapped value. Copic makes 358 colors after all.  Boy was I ever wrong. Blending would become a go to technique.

Another thing I began to realize was that color as it appeared on my computer screen (this image arrived via email BTW) was quite a bit different from the color I saw in photographic prints. (was this RGB vs. CMYK?) And to make matter worse (for me anyway) I was working from multiple types of prints. Before the project was over I was working from 3 computer screens, a B&W 28 x 20" print, a color version of the same and then, finally, a color transparency print. I sometimes found the map that I had constructed to be so complicated that I also needed a projector to sort it all out. The (non shark) fish and the fish schools are good examples. Other photorealists use projectors all the time. Some use grid systems. But I had never done that before this project. I am a light table guy. Plus, the construction of "the map" is a big part of the point. It is like a negative for a photo. It has all the info for an image within it but it is not the image. It is kind of like the code. 

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A restaurant colleague once told me that the only reason to be a restaurant manager - other than you one day want to own your own restaurant - is just to prove to yourself you can do it. The hair brained process I developed to accomplish this seemed sort of workable by the end. But I have come to feel that working this way is like being a restaurant manager. I did it just to prove to myself that I could.

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One last note. Most of the markers I used were Copics. But I did use some Prismacolor and Sensei Touch markers as well. I am not sure that I needed to here; but I later found the Touch markers essential when working on Mourning Mörlenbach.