This is a drawing I started three weeks ago for a series of YouTube videos. Today’s video is part 4 of the series.
I finished the basic drawing in part 3. It’s all about colour and contrast now before I add the final detailed textures/patterns.
To add colour and contrast, I used Chameleon markers.
Adding colour/shade is always a nervous time for me. Surprisingly, I’m not really confident with colour. I prefer to work with a limited palette of monochrome or analogous colours, maybe with a sprinkling of a complementary colour here and there.
That’s the case unless it’s one of my Doodleworlds, whimsical, colouring book page designs. Then the more colours, the better! But, for this kind of entangled art, I prefer a more limited and elegant colour palette.
I always seem to use grey undertones for the shadows. I think I may have to try complementary colours to see how they work to add shadows.
My Chameleon markers have been rather neglected for a long while. However, I remembered I had them last week, and in using them in limited palettes, I’ve found them pleasurable to use, more so than all the other marker brands I have and have tried. Also, I’ve not been tempted to return to watercolours, Inktense, watercolour markers, pencils or pastels all the time I’ve used them. That has surprised me!
Angela Porter 
Hello Angela, it was lovely to meet you yesterday!!! I hope it wasn’t too tiring for you.
When we talked about drawing and colouring all of a sudden I realised why working on a mandala with colour pencils is different from colouring a pen drawing.
When I make a mandala with colourpencils I only draw a basic grid in pencil. Then I start colouring and every next colour follows automatically, I don’t think about it. Just like drawing with the pen: every next line “grows” from the previous. As if it follows the hand that draws.
In both cases the drawing grows by intuition.
A finished black/white drawing doesn’t grow anymore, it’s “fixed”. Colouring means adding another “dimension”. I have to think about that!
That’s how it is for me. How do you feel about it?
Thank you ever so much, Angela, for sharing your art and thoughts and the wonderful Christmas afternoon.
All the best, José
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It was absolutely fabulous to spend time with you too! It was really nice to talk to you. I was fine for a day or two, but I did crash a little yesterday.
I think the idea of dimension adding to the ‘skeleton’ with colour is a fab idea! Colour adds the dimension that brings a drawing to life, and though I am choosing to work pretty much with very limited colour palettes, I still work intuitively with the colour. The colour will bring to the forefront elements of the drawing that, while fixed in place , can become highlighted or pushed backwards. And the colours that are chosen give a different ‘feel’ to the drawing, a very personal response to it. I love to see the many, many different ways people add colour to the same drawing, and your eye is drawn to different parts of the drawing in each.
Adding colour isn’t the end of it though. There’s the opportunity to add more texture/pattern, and to work with contrast and highlights to make what appears flat to have curvature and layers. The lines are just the start!
Also, the colouring pages can be used just for trying out different colour combinations, or drawing patterns/textures – kind of as a structured sketchbook page where your focus can be on other aspects of art. The pages are what you want them to be or used for. And I certainly won’t judge you if you do use them to explore colour, dimension, pattern, texture, contrast, highlights and more!
The artist I mentioned whose work I love is Yellena James. She does have a book called “Star, Branch, Spiral, Fan. – Learn to draw from nature’s perfect design structures”.
It wasn’t until I looked at the book I realised that I like to use certain shapes in my work and the endless variations you can create with them too.
Thank you too for sharing the afternoon with me, it was a real treat for me too.
With love and all the very best blessings to you, Angela xxx
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