entangled

Zentangle tile

Angela Porter2 Comments
Zentangle tile ©Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

I really needed to do something creative today to sooth my mind, emotions and soul.

I tried digital art and I just couldn’t settle to it, so I thought a spot of traditional pen and paper drawing in an entangled or zentangle style might just fit the bill.

So, I cut some Claire Fontaine mixed media paper into 4″ x 4″ ’tiles’ and used some Uniball Unipin and Sakura Pigma Micron pens to draw the lineart.

I worked intuitively, not really thinking about what I was doing, just trying to lose myself in the flow so I could find my inner contentment and some peace.

I did scan my drawing in and digitally added a background and shading to the drawing, which really helps to lift it and bring it to life. If you’d like to see the black and white version, then pay a visit to my Instagram account – @angela_porter_illustrator.

Instagram is really irking me at the moment. I can no longer upload images or videos from my PC, only from my phone. I really loathe using the silly little keyboard on a phone to add the blurb that needs to go with the image. I may either reduce my posting to Instagram, or give up on Instagram completely.

Anyway, drawing in this style is something I’ve done for a long time. The familiarity of the process, patterns and motifs is a comfort to my troubled emotions and mind. It has helped to settle me down somewhat, though I’m still exhausted after a poor night’s sleep.

Coloring template

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Here in the UK, along with many other countries around the globe, the hatches are being battened down in response to the COVID-19 crisis.

I thought people might like some colouring templates to download, print, and colour for relaxation, stress-relief and mindfulness.

So, via the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group, I’m going to make one new template available a week, in addition to the many that are already available.

You do need to be a member of the facebook group (it’s free to join) to get the template, and there are some terms and conditions about how the template can be used, but otherwise they are free for purely personal use.

If my creating some coloring templates to help people during this worrying time, then it’s worth it.

This particular drawing harks back to early days of entangled drawings. It’s purely abstract, but with some design elements taken from architecture and nature.

If you do download and colour, I’d love to see the results of your work. Post them in the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group, or tag me on social media.

Happy coloring!

Dydd Gwyl Dewi Hapus! Happy St David’s Day!

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March 2020 Coloring template for Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group
© Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

A new month means a new coloring template exclusive to members of the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group.

March the 1st is St David’s Day, the patron saint of Wales, which is where I live. The daffodil is one of his emblems and so it was fitting I included some in this month’s template. As we are heading towards the spring equinox and the official start of spring here in the Northern Hemisphere, I’ve also included plenty of flowers that would be lovely coloured in spring colours. They’d be lovely in colours of all the seasons, however. Flowers are beautiful no matter what season we’re in.

The template is drawn in my signature ‘Entangled’ style of line art, with very stylised flowers, foliage, and even butterflies and shells, along with patterns derived from architecture, sculpture, pottery, and more. Lots of my favourite things all in one abstract image.

If you’d like to print and colour this template, then please pop along to the facebook group where the members, and I, would love to see how you bring it to life with your own kind of colour magic.

Golden Mandala

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Golden Mandala © Angela Porter | Artwyrd@aol.com

This morning, the rain has finally stopped once again, albeit for a short while no doubt. Blue skies and sunlight shine betwixt the broken clouds. Yesterday and last night the rain was relentless, including high winds at times, thanks to Storm Jorge.

I thought I’d do a golden mandala this morning, while I come around. A simple line-art drawing.

Sunday morning mandala

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Mandala © Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

It’s a sunshiny morning in South Wales. A welcome respite from the rain we’ve experienced most of the week. The cleanup and return to ‘normal’ continue after the flooding that occurred just one week ago.

I had no idea what I would create this morning, other it would be a mandala.

I drew and painted the design digitally using Autodesk Sketchbook Pro along with a Surface Slim Pen and Surface Studio, both from Microsoft.

This one has the floral centrepiece with a zentangle-style background. The flower is an unusual colour choice for me; I tend not to use corals and red tones much. It’s easy enough to change colours digitally, but I went with it, knowing that my colour choice reflects how I’m feeling at this point in time.

Yes, I do tend to create rather intuitively. This design didn’t start with a sketch, but with the first shape to be drawn, which was reminiscent of a petal. The rest of the design grew from there.

I’m surprising myself with how I’m able to ‘paint’ digitally. I enjoy creating more stylised forms, but with added texture and contrast to bring them to life. I know I’m not an expert at this; however, each time I work in this way, I learn more.

Today’s big lesson was how to save a brush style I’d edited and liked as a new brush for my brush library.

I’m glad I’m learning and developing my digital art voices and styles and that it’s happening slowly over time and as my needs demand. I know if I watched videos or followed tutorials on how all this worked, I would become incredibly overwhelmed and frustrated.

I also know that by watching what others do, I would likely be tempted to emulate their style and way of working.

I need to work out my own style/voice and be comfortable with it.
So, I’m not putting any pressure on myself to do something that I’m not yet ready for or haven’t had an awareness of what I could do.

Kindness

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Kindness © Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

I’m really not sure the colours work.

The border was a design I drew back in January using Uniball Unipin and/or Sakura Pigma micron pens on dot grid paper. I’ve added colour and texture digitally, as well as the typography.

Poppy Pods WIP

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Poppy Pods WIP ©Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

I’ve had a lovely, soothing, creative Saturday morning drawing, and this is the result so far.

I’m working digitally as I really wanted to give my new Microsoft Surface Slim Pen a workout. I have to say that I love it as it is so much lighter than the original Surface pen. It also has a different shape, which surprisingly sits well between my fingers. The lightness of the pen really does make it a pleasure to hold and use.

I am also in love with the way the nib glides across the screen. That’s one of hte issues I have with the interchangeable nibs that come with the original Surface pen – all but the ‘2H’ one is just too sticky for me to find pleasurable to use. I also don’t like the way the wear down relatively quickly either.

The Slim Pen is as responsive as the original Surface Pen and just as accurate.

All in all, it gives me a drawing experience that is very much akin to drawing on paper with a Sakura Micron, Uniball Unipin or Faber Castell Pitt artist pen. Having said that, the Surface pen does so too, except that it is much heaver than these pens and I prefer a lighter weight pen. Indeed, my arthritic-y joints seem to be happier with the Slim pen.

So, I’m a happy bunny with the purchase.

Unusually, I did a quick sketch to lay out where I wanted the pods and stems. And by quick sketch I mean the basic shapes using a digital brush.

Once I inked in the basic outlines of the poppy seed pods, I deleted the sketch layer and started to add detail with a flexible nib digital brush/pen. I still have a lot to add to this, but I’m quite happy with how it’s progressing.

Monochrome Monday Mandala

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Monochrome Monday Mandala © Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

This mandala took an unexpected turn as I was adding colour. I was experimenting with brush settings in Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, particularly the ‘colour’ setting. This will change the colour of any area, but preserves the shadow/light values. I thought I’d see what happened when I used grey as the colour, and I liked the monochrome that resulted. So, I completed the mandala in a similar way.

So, quite a different kind of mandala from me, and very different from my usual bold use of colour.

Lavender Mandala

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Mandala © Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

I’ve been busy this morning, working out how to video record the screen of my computer as I draw digitally.

I found a YouTube video about using OBS Studio to do this. I followed the instructions, problem solved, and after three attempts I had a poor quality video that I wasn’t happy with.

So, I went to Movavi, a video editor I’ve used previously. It has an app that will record the screen, easily. It’s a one button click to launch. A simple, small, and minimalist control panel sits in the bottom right corner of the screen. I can record, pause, start again easily.

I recorded myself drawing the mandala above. The video is currently processing and being saved. I’ll then need to edit it. The still of the video I can see while this is happening is of a fab quality it seems. So fingers crossed the video will be too!

I didn’t think to look at Movavi before Googling for advice on recording the screen. I did have to buy the software, but it wasn’t extortionately expensive and I’m sure that it will meet my needs.

So, once the video is saved, I can spend sometime today editing it and I hope to upload it tomorrow, as long as the recording is of a good quality.

Yesterday, I had a day out with my friend Liz. We visited Hay On Wye for a walk around and lunch. It was one of those glorious winter days where the sun shines warmly and the air is crisp and cool. It was mild enough for me to walk around without a bulky coat.

Art Quote

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Artwork (c) Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

This is a drawing I did late last night as I settled down to sleep. It feels quite disjointed in places, which was how my mind felt in it’s state of tiredness. Even though I was tired, I wasn’t ready to sleep.

I thought I’d work with it, adding a background and colour to it. I wonder if adding colour will resolve the disjointed areas as it breathes life into the design.

I’ve only taken a short time this morning to ad some colour. I do have to do other things today. The colour certainly helps to lift it from the background, as well as adding dimension to the design.

I’ve chosen fairly dusky, dusty, pastel colours which seem to glow against the darker background. The pinks remind me of faded Victorian velvets.

I drew the design traditionally, using a Tombow Fudenosuke pen and ClaireFontaine dot grid paper. The flexible nib of the fudenosuke pen results in lines of varying thicknesses, and a drawing that reminds me of linocuts or woodcuts.

After scanning the drawing, I removed the dot grids and cleaned up the drawing digitally before adding a background.

I felt this needed quote to go with it, and this one spoke to me today. For the typography, I used Affinity Publisher. The rest of the digital work is being done in Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, using a Surface Pen and Surface Studio from Microsoft.

My art is always ‘pretty’, it’s how I express myself artistically. Some of my inspiration for patterns and motifs comes from things that other smay not consider ‘pretty’, such as rust, run down old industrial machines, ruined buildings.

My art does, I think, speak of who I am. It shows what I’m interested in, what patterns, motifs, shapes, textures, colours, and so on that I find aesthetically pleasing. It also shows, to those who look and think a bit deeper, what things interest me, from prehistoric art to Romanesque architecture to La Tene and Celtic art to Illuminated Manuscripts to flora, foliage, fungi, and lichen to fossils and shells to nature in general, and more besides.

I work very intuitively. It’s when I think too hard about what I want to do that things go to wrack and ruin.

By letting my intuition flow, then drawings have a way of coming together in a way that expresses how I’m feeling and what is fascinating me or soothing me at that time.

This drawing is an example of how my feelings come out. It’s only now I can recognise how disjointed I was feeling within myself last night, how I was out of sorts. I think that’s why the art jars with me today as that feeling has now passed by, like clouds in the wind. It’s a drawing that shows the weather my emotions were experiencing yesterday, weather that just happened and has no real source for it.