Another week has passed us by, and so it’s time for another coloring template for the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group members.
This week, it’s a more geometric design, albeit with plenty of curves. I was inspired by my art of yesterday. Also, I played around with adding some texture/pattern to areas of the design as there are fairly large spaces in this one – perfect for entangling/tangling/zentangling in, if you’re of a mind to do so.
Digital art – Autodesk Sketchbook Pro.
As I was coming around from yesterday’s headache, I plopped yesterday’s drawing into Repper to see what geometric patterns and tiles I could create.
Repper is a browser app that is great fun to play around with and makes the creation of tiling patterns from my artwork so simple.
Rather than save the patterns, I saved the tiles as so many of them looked like perfect inspiration for mandalas.
So, I chose one design, popped it into Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, and used it to inspire this particular pattern.
I chose a colour palette of soft pinks and greens, colours that are related to self-love, self-care, balance and harmony. Perfect for how I was feeling yesterday!
Today, I’m still feeling somewhat tired and fragile. That’s mainly due to a really poor night’s sleep. Emotionally, however, I feel a lot better than I have the past few days. There was an emotional storm brewing and it the headache was the torrential downpour that was needed to clear the skies by forcing me to take care and shelter myself.
So, the rest of today is going to be a quiet. nurturing kind of time to shake off the lingering wisps of stormy clouds.
Mandalas are so much fun to do. In this one are lots of zentangle patterns – can you spot them?
Soft blues and greens play against the coppery tones used in the structure of the mandala. Soft, yet not washed out with plenty of contrast betwixt the highlights and shadows. I’m actually really happy with the color palette I’ve used here, as well as some subtle texture patterns that may not be visible on this smaller, lower resolution image.
What I do like is the light, almost lacy feel to the outermost ring.
A lovely way to spend a few hours on a Monday morning. Indeed, I got so engrossed in this that I’ve not had breakfast yet and it’s gone midday!
Here’s a plethora of small drawings I’ve done over the past couple of days when I’ve woken up repeatedly through the night and needed to cool down before I could sleep again..
The various sizes are :
circles – 8.5 cm and 10.5 cm diameter
squares – 7 cm x 7 cm and 7.5 cm x 7.5 cm
rectangles – 12.7 cm x 7.7 cm
Media used :
Sakura pigma micron and sensei pens
Distress Inks to colour the backgrounds
Inktense pencils and Kuretake Zig Clean Colour Real Brush pens – colour spread with a damp brush
Claire Fontaine Mixed Media Paper and St Cuthbert’s Mill Bockingford watercolour paper.
I sure do have a lot of colour, shadow and light to add to these! It takes me a lot longer to add colour and so on than it does to draw them!
Also, I have a larger drawing that is a work in progress. I think I’ll turn my attention to that one for a while.
It’s Thursday again, and that makes it #TemplateThursday.
Each Thursday throughout the pandemic, I’ve created a coloring page / coloring template for the members of the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group.
This week’s offering, is a geometric pattern, which reflects how drawing more geometric, structured work this week has helped me be contented with my artistic efforts. Something in my heart and soul needed the comfort of the repetition and the delight of symmetry. That led me to really feel the touchstone of contentment within me once again.
So, I thought that others might like such a geometric design.
And there’s so much that can be done with it. Color it as it is. Divide some of the smaller spaces with doodles or zentangle patterns. Look for what hidden patterns you can bring out. Play with light and shadow to add dimension to the design.
I’ve deliberately coloured my version in flat, spring-like colours. Maybe I’ll find time over the week to add more detail to it, and to play with shadow and light as I love to do!
Oh, I drew this on dot grid paper with an 05 Sakura Pigma Micron Pen before scanning in, cleaning up and coloring digitally.
It’s funny how colours seem just right one day, and the next day I wonder what on earth I was thinking at the time.
Yesterday’s mandala, with it’s kind of yellow-brown background just doesn’t seem ‘right’ today.
I often mention about how I feel I really struggle with colour at times, but feel much better if I stick with simple color palettes, even monochrome ones, more or less.
So, this morning I wanted to draw a mandala, as is so often the case. They give me a chance to practice drawing digitally and using pattern and texture within them too.
The drawing was just fine and dandy, nearly always a pleasurable experience and I end up with a design I like well enough.
Then, there’s the coloured background. Today I wanted a soft pink colour. I like the colour I’ve chosen. Black lineart would look start on it, to my mind, but a soft, warm, cream was just perfect. It looks almost like lace.
And I can breathe a sigh of relief as my faith in my colour sense is restored somewhat. Monochrome is the way to go, unless it’s coloring templates. Though perhaps I should try a monochrome colour scheme for them, or at least analogous colours with a pop of complementary here and there. I’ll see what happens.
For the rest of my day, I’m going to be gathering sketches of ideas and elements for the coloring book I’m working on, and creating a mandala has got me somewhat in the right frame of mind to do this.
Colouring page / template
It’s Thursday. The pandemic is still in action. That means it’s time for a new coloring page or template for members of the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group.
It’s free to join the group, and the template is a freebie for members of the group.
This week, I created a mandala design with a background of geometric, repeating patterns.
I’m still recovering from the stress of my first trip out since March 2020. Drawing (and colouring) mandalas is an incredibly peaceful, relaxing and mindful activity. So, it was natural that I drew one.
The mandala design is based on some of the abstract art I’ve been doing of late. It’s a bit unusual for my mandalas, but I really do like the organic flow of the lines.
Even though the design is abstract, the repeating symmetry of a mandala bring some structure to the design. I am looking forward to seeing how members of the group add colour to the design.
The geometric patterns in the background also result in a soothing, repetitive rhythm for colouring; a rhythm that results in soothing and calming ones mind and emotions.
De-stressing
I have been totally shaken by the level of anxiety/stress that resulted from my trip out on Tuesday. I am beginning to feel more my contented and calm self. However, I find I’m still irritable and grumpy and have withdrawn from social media and the like for most of the day.
It was a sobering thought when I realised I’d lived most of my life constantly at elevated stress levels, often as higher than what I experienced in the past couple of days.
It’s also a wonderful realisation that I can recognise this now, and I also am able to allow myself self-care time to let all the stress hormones leach from my body. It’s been a long time since they peaked in this way.
It makes me extremely grateful to my therapist for her years of patient work with me. Experiences like the Tuesday Trip remind me of how I used to be and show me how far I have come in recovery from cPTSD.
Yesterday, after my social media post, I binged watched the Harry Potter films from The Order of the Phoenix. I found I was irritated by crochet. I tried cross-stitch, which irritated me too. Eventually, I settled on knitting, which, oddly, soothed me. I think it’s because I could knit and watch the film. Knitting allowed me to channel my irritability into something creative. As I can knit without looking at the knitting, I could also watch and immerse myself in the films at the same time.
My fingers are itching to knit again, now I’ve thought about it.
Even though I slept well last night, I’m still feeling really tired today. This happens as part of the post-stress come-down. It can last a few days. I’ll not be rushing to nap, however. Napping has a knock-on effect on my ability to sleep at night when I’m like this. My naps tend to end up as periods of deep sleep, so I try not to take them unless it’s absolutely necessary.
Last night, I had a play around with one of my latest watercolours in an app that creates patterns from your artwork. The process was mesmerising. I didn’t realise that they now do metamorphosing patterns like these two!
The top image is directly from the artwork, the bottom one has been lightened, the colours more saturated and adjusted slightly.
I fell in love with metamorphosing tessellations thanks to the works of M C Escher, like so many other people. I love the detail, observational skills and the way he plays with the illusion of space.
Anyways, creating these patterns, albeit digitally, was fascinating and something I can definitely lose myself in for hours! Being able to adjust colours in Autodesk Sketchbook Pro or Affinity Photo is an added fascination too.
I like both colour variations of the same metamorphosis above.
I have made both available in my RedBubble Shop on a wide range of quality products. Please take a look and support my art by sharing with others. #findyourthing
This was a nice one to do. There seems to be a bit of a theme with my colour palettes lately though. Another theme is stylised, abstract flowers. Overall, I am pretty happy with this particular design.
Flowers, foliage, mandalas, geometric repeating patterns – all my favourite things!
Today, I thought I’d share one of my favourite geometrical patterns. You may have noticed it often appears in my entangled art, as well as in dangle designs.
I’ve included the steps I use to draw the pattern, along with some variations and different ways I use the patterns.
I used a 05 Unipin pen, a pencil, a couple of coloured pencils and dot grid paper.
Angela Porter 