A work in progress as I try to work out my Christmas card design for this year. I’m not entirely sure it works, so will let it ‘sit’ in it’s folder for a couple of days before I commit to adding colour to it.
I’ve had a busy day with Entangled Starry Skies. I woke with some kind of inspiration for a couple of the last templates to be created, and so I worked on them. I have three templates left to do, though I’ll be trying to get some more done so there’s some choice for the book.
Me getting engrossed in templates is the reason some personal artwork is later today than usual. Still, it was fun to do! I think it’s time for some ‘Angela’ time now.
Yesterday, I got so focused on editing templates that time ran away with me. I only realised at bedtime I’d not blogged! By then it was way too late as I was tired, headachy and had an upset tummy (again!).
Today, the tummy is better, thank goodness. I was up early for the weekly Abel & Cole organic grocery delivery, and after breakfasting I ended up back in bed.
Before I turn my attention for the rest of my work-day to Entangled Starry Skies, I thought I’d put together a quick montage of my latest drawings, what I’m calling Entangled Assemblages. The weird exercise cyclist makes another appearance, but there’s a couple of drawings I’m working on during my insomniac periods of night.
For someone who doesn’t do faces/people artistically, there sure are some appearing in this style of my personal art. Personal as opposed to contracted work.
Whatever, I’m enjoying drawing in the moments I can do so just for my pleasure.
I will get to colour them in at some point, and add a funky background of mandala or other design too. Just not today. Today I need to turn my attention to the artwork for Starry Skies as soon as I’ve completed social media posts.
This particular abstract intuitive drawing took an unexpected turn as pareidolia kicked in and I saw a stylised figure on some weird kind of exercise bike! Well, I just had to go with it. When you see something in the purely abstract, it is hard to un-see it.
I used a 0.35 Rotring Rapidograph pen on SeaWhite acid-free cartridge paper for the drawing.
I wanted to see how I could add colour/texture to this drawing, which I think is now complete. So, I added a Kraft paper background to the image and started to add some highlights and shadows to the image.
It never ceases to amaze me how just simple shadow and highlight can add so much to a drawing. I chose a monochromatic colour scheme. I also have left my notes to remind me which colours and digital tool I was using to achieve this effect in the image.
I really want to finish adding shadow and highlight to this image, but I must turn my attention to work. I’ve been granted an extension to the deadline for Entangled Starry Skies, but that means I need to get my nose to the grindstone and get the templates done. Yesterday, I did all the edits and reworks of the templates I drew last week. Today, it’s a couple of new templates that need drawing.
I’ve been having trouble sleeping through the night, again. I wake up feeling very hot and need to cool down again before I can, sometimes, fall asleep again. It’s pointless me tossing and turning, so I sit up and grab a sketchbook, pen and reading glasses and draw. I put the light on first though.
This is the product of last night’s periods of insomnia, and also drawing while having breakfast in bed. Once I was ready to get up, I scanned the drawing in and faffed around a little with it digitally.
The design was drawn in my 12″ x 12 ArtGecko sketchbook. I feared I’d not be able to scan the image in on my A4 scanner but I managed, just. I used a 05 Uniball Unipin pen to draw with.
I woke well before dawn. As it was rather chilly in the house (heating hadn’t kicked in yet), I sat in bed drawing. White gel pen on black paper. The above, after some digital wizardry, is the result of that.
It has a very Meso-american feel to it with plenty of my favourite curves, spirals, circles and other patterns and motifs. It’s meant to be entirely abstract, but we’ll all see things in it. The ability of our minds to see patterns and familiar items in the purely abstract is called pareidolia. It is a perfectly normal aspect of being human.
Interestingly, apophenia is the tendency seek meaningful connections in random things, such as in gambling.
Some Friday facts there!
Sunshiny day
It’s a dry day with some sunshine today, so my spirits are lifted somewhat. I may take a break from arty work for a while to go for a walk. It’s likely to be chilly and brisk out there – my weather app tells me it’s 4ºC in the outside world, which equates to almost ‘brr’! I’ll see how I feel after showering and so on.
Entangled Starry Skies Progress
I’m getting along well with Entangled Starry Skies and want to continue with the progress being made. I have 21 out of the 31 templates required, but I always do some extra so there’s a choice for the templates in the book. I do have a tendency to become fixated on an idea and so can end up with templates that are too similar. That’s something I need to bear in mind going forward.
As well as creating new templates, I do have some editing to do on a couple of the ones submitted so far based on feedback from the editorial team. This is where digital art really helps hugely and saves so much time as I rarely have to re-draw a template.
I appreciate the feedback from the editorial team. It helps me gain some perspective as well as ideas for new avenues to explore within the theme of the book – and that helps to break me out of the tunnel vision I can get myself locked into. Note how a lot of my art is Meso-American in feel at the moment.
A little drawing this morning, used to embellish a quote that describes my artistic journey, well part of it.
The quote also describes the long journey I undertook to heal CPTSD enough that I found a touchstone of contentment inside me. That touchstone was something I’d never experienced and it is a very precious part of me.
Part of the healing process through EMDR was learning to trust myself, my memory, my emotions (which I discovered in the process).
The wonky motifs that form the border are perfectly imperfect. The imperfections in my art are part of my artistic expression. I’ve learned to recognise when my art is good enough.
I accept that my art is often perfectly imperfect, much of the time. I’m still learning how to not be so hard on myself, to recognise when something is good enough with me. It’s a work in progress for sure.
The motifs were drawn with Uniball Unipin pens on Canson Marker paper. I used Autodesk Sketchbook Pro and Affinity Publisher to create the ‘meme’.
A mandala in my entangled assemblage style. I really enjoyed drawing this, not least because I proved to myself I can transfer this way of drawing to digital art.
Unusually, there’s not a single botanical element in this artwork. Not one leaf, not one flower, nor any seed pods. It’s purely abstract.
I think I may have used up too much of my time this morning (a deadline is about to go whoosh past me), but it has given me ideas for some of the remaining templates I need to complete.
I’ve finished it! Well, I think I have. One crazy assemblage of all kinds of bits and bobs. I will look at it again in a few days and see if I want to add anything to balance the design. Fresh eyes are always a help in this. I’ll also decide if I want to add shadow and light to bring out more of a sense of dimension.
I really, really enjoyed doing this drawing. It’s my favourite style of drawing, yet different to things done in the past.
To complete the drawing I used a 0.25 Rotring Rapidograph pen, which is the same thickness as the Pilot G-Tech-C4 pen I drew the first part of this design with. The difference is that the Rotring pen’s ink flowed more freely onto the paper.
I didn’t realise it until last night, but the sketchbook I’m using is one by Sea White. The acid-free cartridge paper is sized so that it is more robust with wet media. That causes problems for pens, however, as the size tends to clog the nib/point/ball up. The Rotring pen seemed to have fewer problems.
Also, I found the larger barrel of the Rotring pen easier and more pleasurable to hold and draw with. I need to dig out some pen grips to use with the Pilot pens.
A different work in progress today. I started this one late last night and continued for a while after breakfast this morning. I used a Pilot G-Tec C4 pen, which has a very fine tip, on white acid-free cartridge paper (the camera flash has turned it a creamy colour, I have no idea why!).
It is always a pleasurable experience to draw with such a fine pen and to created such detailed and intricate designs. No real thought or planning, just trusting my intuitive creative instincts.
Purely abstract drawing, using my favourite shapes, motifs and texture patterns, along with a few new motifs that have developed as I’ve drawn this. It looks like a weird assemblage of bits and pieces, mechanical and sculptural, botanical and textural.
Assemblage is a fairly good way to describe my signature style of drawing. There are layers of all kinds of bits and pieces – flowers, mechanical tubes and pieces, textural areas, pipes, sculptural bits and bobs, seeds or berries and curls.
What is hidden beneath the various layers? Where did all the bits and pieces come from? What was disassembled or broken to liberate the pieces? Who or what did the disassembling, and why? What new things could they be assembled into? What dream fragments, story parts of my unconscious mind do they represent?
I can spot various influences in the bits and bobs present in the drawing – Mayan sculpture, dials and mechanical levers, pipes and conduits, discs and berry lights, flowers and seeds, textures and patterns, arches and columns, rocks and strata.
What do you see in this drawing? Leave me a comment, I would be intrigued to know!
This is just the start of what will be a bigger drawing. It’s my way of warming-up, artistically, this morning. Rotring Rapidograph pens on bristol paper.
Warm-up is something that is appropriate again this morning as it’s a cold start to the day. A hard frost greeted me as I opened the curtains, glittering in the dawn light. The sun is now well up, and there’s a haze in the air. Frost lingers on the north-facing roofs and shadowed pavements. Properly autumnal morning.
The sunshine is making my heart and soul smile gently. Solar energy always lifts my spirits, my mood, which is most welcome after a series of days filled with fatigue and brain-fog once again.
I did get out for a walk yesterday, and it was lovely to be walking in the chill air and sunshine. I twisted my knees, however. Age doesn’t come by itself and arthritis in my knees is causing me some issues. My plan is to look after my knees, take it easy at home and focus on getting work done. Mind you, the pull of a sunny afternoon, the need to be out and moving around may make me get out for a short and easy walk on the flat. I’ll see how i get on.
Art is the Adventure 