I did film the process, and two videos are available on Youtube. Both show the process of drawing, not adding colour. One is a vlog of the process, with about half in time lapse. The other is the time lapse version.
It was lovely to spend time drawing in a style that is very familiar to me. It’s lovely as a bit of a break from the more challenging explorations into abstract art I’ve been doing.
And of course, while the videos were uploading and processing, I decided to start to add some colour to the template.
Abstract, entangled, zentangle inspired coloring pages are not just fun to draw but to colour. They’re non-representational so any colours at all can be used.
I got carried away with the process of adding colour. The videos have long been uploaded and published.
This week’s template is a template I created for the Whimsical Cats book that didn’t make the cut. So, what a better way to make use of it than to release it for the members of the group to colour.
I did the inking in of the sketch in Autodesk Sketchbook. The colour was added using Clip Studio Paint.
I do have a timelapse video of how I added colour to part of this sample. Unfortunately, I forgot to record sound so it’s just video with music.
I like working on a darker, or coloured, background. The colours seem to much more alive than on white. Also, it saves me some eye strain!
It’s always fun to see how the template comes to life with colour. I’m often really unsure about my templates. Are they too simple, too naive, too intricate, not intricate enough. Adding colour helps me to see that they’re good enough, and also that they are created in my own artistic style. Cute, whimsical, imaginary. Places to play with colour and not worry too much about realism, if you wish. A skeleton that can be fleshed with colour however you wish.
I like that. It ties in with my exploration of abstract art. That’s on hold until later today, maybe tomorrow. I first need to focus on getting the last couple of templates inked in, though I am awaiting the review of the final one submitted. I have three to do, plus that last one. So, it shouldn’t take me all day to do!
It’s always exciting coming to the end of a book. Though not quite the end. I will still have three templates to colour in. I let the editorial team choose them; I never can! Also, they have a more objective view about what images will best represent the book.
Each of those images will take me a couple of days to add colour to, each! Not a quick process at all.
So, It’s time for me to finish my social media posts for today, get some breakfast while my computer installs and update, and then settle to work.
This morning, I started my day off with a bit of entangled drawing along with a chatty vlog talking about my first mini-trip out with a friend since last August.
My friend and I met up and went to Porthcawl for lunch at the seaside. We picked up some chips (or fish and chips in Liz’s case) from a chip shop on the way to Newton. It was lovely to sit in the fresh breeze, the gentle sound of the sea, the smell of salt air and enjoy the chips. Then, we had a walk along the beach.
Then, we had a little visit to the church in Newton – St John the Baptist. It dates back to the C12th, built by the Normans and designed both for worship and for defence against pirates and the Welsh! It was rebuilt in the early 1500s, and in more modern times there have been refurbishments.
Sadly, the church was locked, so we couldn’t take a look inside. We did, however, have a wander around the churchyard, looking at the different styles of funerary furniture present. Some of the graves dated back to the 1700s or 1600s, I can’t remember now. But it’s somewhere I’d like to visit again. This time remembering to take in the structure and so on of the church, as well as more to do with all the different styles and fashions of the gravestones there.
The few hours out, were so lovely, and I really hand no need to be overly anxious at all. Not that I’m going to be going crazy about going out and about and travelling. Having company made a huge difference for me. I’m not so nervy when I have company.
Of course there was lots of chatter as well, a lot to catch up on too, surprisingly. I even have a sore throat from talking so much!
It was overcast there, yet I still managed to get sunburned on my arms! I’d put sunblock on my face/neck, but didn’t think about my arms as I had a gauzy shawl around my shoulders. But the wind blew it off them, and, well I burned. Note to self for future – sunblock on every part of body likely to be exposed!
It’s Thursyay! So that means a new coloring page / coloring template for the members of the <a href="http://<!– wp:paragraph –> <p>It's Thursyay! So that means a new coloring page / coloring template for the members of the Angela Porter's Coloring Book Fans facebook group.</p> <!– /wp:paragraph –> <!– wp:paragraph –> <p>As it's the first Thursyay in July, that also means a new color palette challenge. The colours in my digital palette are at the bottom of the artwork, and were suggested by two members in the group.</p> Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group.
As it’s the first Thursyay in July, that also means a new color palette challenge. The colours in my digital palette are at the bottom of the artwork, and were suggested by two members in the group.
It’s a month-long challenge, with templates completed using this palette being posted on the last Wednesday of the month.
As it’s the first day of a new month tomorrow, that means a new color palette challenge for the group members. I’ve not decided on a colour palette yet.
This week it has a botanical theme.
While today’s vlog was processing and uploading, I took the time to edit the image digitally and also to add some colour to it. That gave the opportunity to play with a different brush. I’m not sure about the effect I’ve achieved, however.
In the vlog, I share my thoughts on the artwork and what I’m thinking as I draw. This is mostly focused on the art, but I do have a bit of a grasshopper brain that will flit around from time to time.
As the vlog is rather long – 1 hr and 13 mins or so – I’ve also created a speeded up / time lapse version with music if you prefer.
Today, I started my arty day with some entangled drawing and a chat based around some interesting questions posed to me by various people on social media yesterday. The questions got me thinking and talking about my particular drawing and art style.
What I’m realising is, I’ve never really be provoked into thinking about/talking about my art style and where it has come from! For me talking and thinking are the same thing – there are two styles of inner monologue. One is where you hear thoughts in sentences throughout the
The topic of inner speech has caused a stir on Twitter after the user KylePlantEmoji put out his own observation on the matter. “Fun fact: some people have an internal narrative and some don’t,” he tweeted. “As in, some people’s thoughts are like sentences they ‘hear’, and some people just have abstract non-verbal thoughts, and have to consciously verbalize them. And most people aren’t aware of the other type of person.”
I have a mix of them. My inner monologue is one that ruminates on the past, is self-critical and so on. But I also have abstract, non-verbal thoughts that I need to verbalise to be aware of them. So, if someone asks me a question about, say, my artistic style and where it comes from, then I have to verbalise thoughts about it. Until I’m forced in some way to verbalise these kinds of thoughts, I have no idea what they are. Same if I’m, say, sitting in nature, observing the world around me. My thoughts won’t be on what I’m experiencing. Often, there are no thoughts, unless I’m stuck in a ruminating, worrying and self-critical mode, which doesn’t happen all too often.
Until I read this, and other articles, I thought there was something wrong with me, because so many others seemed to think in their heads about lessons, or experiences, or the news. But I never seem to do so. Now, I know and understand why that is. I think in an abstract way that I’m not particularly aware of as such. It just happens.
So, creating these daily (almost) vlogs is forcing me to talk about my artistic style, choices, process, lessons and so on. And such it is making me more aware of myself as an artist.
Most importantly, however, it is helping me to understand the value of all these things validating my art to me.
Yes, I do have a bit of ‘imposter syndrome‘ going on when it comes to my accomplishments in life. But, talking about my artistic journey, and how far back it started and where the observational skills and so on started is helping me see it’s been an almost life-long journey. It’s also helping me to accept and understand my artistic voice(s), style(s) as being an expression of my experiences in life where art and observation are concerned.
There’s plenty about this (though not the inner monologue and imposter syndrome stuff) in today’s real-time vlog. It is around 53 minutes long, so I have created a time lapse version with music as well.
This morning, I spent some time watercolour wrangling. I had started this work yesterday, but kept getting myself into more than a little bit of a pickle with it.
So, after a day away from it, I thought I’d try an idea I’d picked up from a Domestika course by Lapin to see if I could recover some of the parts I’d made a bit of a mess of. That idea is to use Gelly Roll or other pens to add highlights/colours/add details. But in this case I wanted to try to ‘hide the crimes’ and use these pens as a kind of watercolour resist in the tinier areas that were seriously vexing me yesterday.
I’m not entirely sure my experimenting is successful. But, it’s something to ponder on and work with going forward.
In my vlog I mused about how the watercolours were, or weren’t, working for me and starting to make connections.
No matter how many books I read, videos I watch, courses I take on watercolour, translating that knowledge/information into practice just doesn’t seem to have worked for me entirely. Experimenting for myself is the only way forward I think. As is finding the balance between controlling the medium and allowing watercolour magic to happen too.
I think the best way for me to work is by allowing two colours to merge along a wet edge, so that I get a modicum of control, but the mixing of wet into wet can still happen.
Wittering
I was out of action in terms of social media yesterday. I went for a walk on Saturday, didn’t watch where I was putting my feet and my right foot twisted over and I ended up on the ground on my hands and knees. One left knee with multiple cuts/grazes. One bruised, sore and aching right foot. And I was a bit shocked too. So Saturday went out of the window as far as anything arty was concerned.
Yesterday, I woke with various bits of my body aching from the jolt of the fall. I tried to do some art – the first steps in this particular painting – but it just kept going wrong. I started swearing, so decided to put it to one side.
Instead, I put my energy into editing some of the templates for the Whimsical Cats book, then inking in some of the sketches that have been approved (and declared “adorable”).
So, today I’m going to focus on inking in some of the sketches that need doing before getting some more sketches done.
I’m still feeling a bit out of sorts. I didn’t sleep well last night. So, I may crash and nap later on. So, now’s the time to get some work done. Inking in. Not too taxing, less likely to become frustrated with my artistic efforts while I’m tired and out of sorts.
Today, I share a bit of a vlog . I flip through my sketchbook pages of the past week or so, chatting about them. Then, there’s a timelapse of myself drawing my latest entangled art.
This morning, I spent over an hour starting work on this entangled pen drawing. I did film the process, but it’s recycling day, and the bin lorries and bin men were really noisy this morning. So, I turned the video into a timelapse with music. It lasts about 14 minutes, and the link to it is above this paragraph.
I remember chatting about my influences for this drawing, and they started with me watching a video from the “Journey to the Microcosmos” YouTube channel.
I’ve always loved microscopic images, being able to see things that are invisible to our naked eyes. There’s always a sense of wonder about it, amazement at the different shapes of the various organisms that become visible. That wonder must be the same as Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, a Dutch scientist of the 17th and 18th Centuries must have seen.
I loved drawing what I could see with the aid of a microscope from the first science lessons when I was 11 years of age, right through my degree and PhD and on through my teaching career too. And of course it was bound to creep into my art!
My memories of drawing diagrams of flowers and rock sections, minerals and scientific apparatus and diagrams are very fond indeed. This has certainly influenced my style of art – observing the tiny, abstracting the interesting (important) patterns and forms. Scientifically, the focus is on the features, structures, the important parts that allow identification or communicate the important features of what was seen. After all, photographs and videos can be made of all the glorious detail and colour.
The diagram is a simplified version, a map, that can help others to navigate their way around. A kind of scientific version of the map of the London Underground system. The map helps in navigating the system, but it bears no relationship to the physical layout of the rail lines and the geography of the city above.
Now, however, I take those observations and turn them into my own arty, entangled worlds of wonder. It is still the small parts that catch my attention, fill me with wonder and awe, are the ones I record, rarely the whole thing. If I visit an old church or abbey, I rarely, draw the building as a whole. I spend time looking and drawing the elements of it that capture my arty attention.
My sketchbook page often ends up of a collage of my visit, the various observations fitting together in a pleasing way. Often, I may join the elements together with imaginary lines or patterns. I may end up not with a drawing of the whole building; instead, I record my experience of the building at the day, time, season and weather I visited it.
The same is true for visits in nature, or to museums. My sketchbooks record what catches my attention, and that may not be the ‘whole’ of something, but just a part.
I’m still a scientist in my approach to art – what are the important forms, patterns, shapes, etc. that are the distillation of my experience, that I’d like to record and, maybe, share with others?
Of course, these observations find their way into my more Entangled art, like this one. The round orbs separated into three lobes were inspired by something I saw when watching one of the Journey to the Microcosmos videos. The flat leaves, by seaweed. The triangular pods are imaginary, though there may be real-world analogues of them from which inspiration was unknowingly gained. Curled, baby fiddlehead ferns are the inspiration for another motif in the drawing.
Inspiration indeed – based on observation, but interpreted and altered in a way that is personal to me.
I’m forever wondering what my artistic voice is, and here it is. At least one of the harmonic notes or chords anyway.
Art is the Adventure 