Well, more of a preview of this week’s template before I make it available in the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group tomorrow (24 June 2021).
I felt the need to create a mandala today. Indeed I’ve not drawn a mandala for two or three weeks or so. A nice change for me, not just with the mandala, but working digitally after a while of working with traditional media.
Adding colour digitally makes me wonder why on earth I’m spending so much time struggling with traditional media – watercolours, coloured pencils, Inktense, and so on.
I think it’s the challenge, to work out how to make these media work for me. And to prove to myself I can work with them.
Still, I really do find working digitally a dream, but with it’s own challenges too. I know I have a lot to learn still, but in my own time. And I need to apply that to working with traditional media, though you’d think after 20 odd years of really focusing on arty pursuits I would’ve worked it out, wouldn’t you? Obviously not yet!
It may be that I have to work out which type of medium I work in depends on the purpose of the art. I think traditional media are more just for fun for me, for a change of pace, for a bit of a challenge, to use in sketchbooks and explorations of drawing/art, preparation for digital artwork even.
And that there, traditional media for fun, relaxation and preparation for digital work may be the function of traditional media in my artistic journey.
I’ve worked out that I enjoy drawing with pen, or pencil, on paper, though I do enjoy inking in sketches digitally too. Adding colour digitally to these drawings seems to work well for me.
I may come to a realisation that I really need to discard traditional colouring mediums in favour of digital colouring at some point in the near future, maybe reserving a couple for sketching trips out, perhaps. Only time will tell.
Except, I keep saying that, yet I keep on going back to the warring pleasure and frustration that comes with traditional media.
I may eventually work this out, or it may be a tug-of-war that I experience for the rest of my life.
Angela Porter 