A couple of quick (ish) drawings of kitties, the first I’ve done since I said goodbye to my companion puss of 16 years a few weeks ago. So, they’re both white as he was pure white.
Often, all anyone would see of him was his backside while I was Skype-ing with them. Sometimes his cute pink nose pressed up to the screen.
He sure left a lot of deep paw prints of love on my heart. He was one unique kittycat for sure.
I’m trying out ideas for making use of hand-lettered quotes with my kind of entangled art. This is today’s offering, and it’s part of my #fridayfeeling and #weekendvibes.
It’s unusual for me to leave so much white space in a drawing/illustration.
I used Towmbow Dual Brush Pens with a blender pen to colour the mosaic sections.
#wednesdaywisdom
A strange bouquet or a weird tree, with a wise quote above it. I really shouldn’t have continued to add elements to the drawing once I’d added the quote, but it is as the quote says, small steps in the right direction of learning.
It’s #wipwednesday over on the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group.
Phew, this took some doing…
I tried four or five times to create this quote illustration using traditional media this morning. I failed each time; they just weren’t right at all. I’m still really anxious/stressed from the debacle of a car breakdown at the weekend. Once my stress hormones are elevated, it takes a goodly while for them to leach away. It takes a good while for this to happen as I’m much more susceptible to being startled or becoming even more anxious. I know from past experience that eventually things will return to a less stressful level.
So, in frustration, I turned to my trusted trinity of Surface book, surface pen and Autodesk Sketchbook Pro and created this one.
I’m learning how to set up pens in Sketchbook pro, and finally have one that mimics a roundhand nib. My hand-lettering is still a bit wonky, but I finally have something I like.
The background was made using traditional media by myself – distress inks on mixed media paper, scanned in to the ‘puter so I can make use of them.
Drawing on the surface is almost like drawing on paper, but without the eraser mess.
I do need to create more backgrounds for me to use now I’ve got my head around doing that.
I chose this piece of wisdom for #wednesdaywisdom because it is relevant to myself at the moment and the healing I’m going through in my EMDR therapy. I’m sure, however, that it is relevant to many, many people.
On another note, it’s #wipwednesday over in the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group. I keep saying it, but they’re a lovely bunch of people, friendly, supportive and appreciative of each other. Why not pop along, join up and say hello?
Also, don’t forget A Dangle A Day is available for preorder as is Eerie Entangled Art.
What does research mean for you?
For me, it’s trying out new materials, new methods, new styles of drawing, colouring, lettering, using my art in different ways, most recently that includes Bullet Journals (BuJo) and these little quote illustrations.
It’s looking at how other artists and illustrators work and letting what I see spark creativity in me, not to copy them, but to inspire myself to broaden my artistic ‘vocabulary’, to try those new things that develop my skills, to still do things in my own way but adding techniques to my toolbox of artistic expression.
This quote is also a work in progress, I’ve yet to work out what to do with the entangled drawing at the bottom – to leave it as it is in plain black, to add shading, to add colour. At the moment I don’t know what to do with it, but I suspect it will come to me eventually.
Talking of work in progress wednesday, it’s the day the members over at the facebook group ‘Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans’ share their wip’s. Why not pop along and join in? They’re lovely people, very friendly.
And hand-lettering is something I need to practice a lot!
I did draw the daisies and leaves on the background with a Unipin pen. For the lettering, I sketched it out, scanned it in and then worked on it digitally.
I’m going to have to learn to embrace the human imperfections, as well as balance the weight of the black lines in the writing relative to the drawing. It looks very heavy-handed, and not all that even.
Perhaps that actually suits the quote…
Don’t forget, you can pre-order my book A Dangle A Day, due out in September.
Friday means it’s #dangleday!
I thought I’d created a little dangle for this particular hashtag.
#createdonsurface #autodesksketchbook #microsoftsurface
A Dangle A Day, my upcoming book, is available for pre-order now. In the book, I will take you, step by step, through drawing dangles, along with lots of charm and dangle designs you can use to create your own, just like this one!
If you’re already drawing dangles, I’d love to see what you create!
I’ve been hard at work on my ‘A Dangle A Day’ book and felt I needed a break from the computer screen. As much as I love working digitally, I believe it does the soul good to work in different ways from time to time. A change is as good as a rest, it is said, and also a change can get the creative juices flowing!
A trip to Hobbycraft in Newport, Gwent, yesterday had me buying some A4 Daler-Rowney Mixed Media boards.
These are 1.4mm thick and sturdy board forms of their mixed media paper. The board did warp when I added tissue paper with matt medium, and it’s still a little wobbly today.
The pictures shows how far I’ve got for now. I’m letting the little drops of copper and golden glitter dry as I take a break from it to decide if I need to do any more to it.
The image I drew and then coloured using Distress Inks.
I’ve enjoyed getting a little inky, painty and messy for a change.
It’s been a busy couple of weeks with various projects, as well as sorting out my accounts for my accountant (a very stressful thing for me, I panic so much about money it’s ridiculous).
One project is exploring the realms of hand lettering, and the above image is one result from this. I had fun doing this one, as if I don’t always have fun doing art!
Another project is the completion of the coloured art for Eerie Entangled, a book due out next July in the Creative Haven series from Dover Publications.
I’m still working on getting my Doodleworlds book ready for self-publication, that should happen before the end of this month, or at the latest the start of next.
I woke up the other morning, Thursday I think it was, and had the overwhelming desire to try my hand at carving stamps from rubber blocks again.
I enjoyed doing lino cuts when I was doing my A level in art over a decade ago, well apart from the way my finger and wrist joints would hurt after doing this. So, I thought I’d have a go with soft rubber, and above you can see the first of my efforts.
The weird flower was the first, and I’m not happy with it, though I think it would be fine as a background stamp in mixed media work, maybe.
The other circular stamps followed fairly quickly after that one, but the stylised thistle was one I did this morning. The white rubber discs are made by Essdee, and I used lino and stamp carving tools by the same company.
The leaf, heart and geometric patterns I carved this morning from a different kind of pink rubber: Speedy Carve from Speedball.
Both kinds of carving material were easy to work with, perhaps a little too soft for my liking, but only time will tell. The only other tools I used were a pencil to draw the designs on the stamp carving material and a craft knife to cut the Speedy Carve. Oh, and some sepia Archival Ink from Ranger, and an acrylic stamp block for the circular discs to adhere to while I stamped with them.
Two more, drawn on paper coloured with Distress Oxide inks, with highlights of white gel pen and metallic gel pens added. Also, the bottom one has had colour added using Zig Clean Colour Real Brush Pens from Kuretake and also some Prismacolour pencils.
I still have two more 10cm x 14cm sheets of coloured paper to draw on… so at least two more to come!
Art is the Adventure 