Draw with me … Part 2 of the Siros Zentangle Inspired bookmark. Also, a peek inside my lettering sketchbook.

Please click on the ‘Watch on Youtube’ button to view this video on YouTube. It helps my stats. Cheers!

Today, I finish the bookmark with some subtle colour and shading. Indigo blue for a suggestion of water, and sepia for the shadows.

In the video, I also give you a peek inside my lettering sketchbook 🙂 I’m actually quite proud of some of the pages!

Doodling around in a new sketchbook

Link to today’s video on YouTube.

It’s been a funny old day. A load of deliveries were scheduled today. I’d woken way too early, and by the time I’d drifted back to sleep, well it was time to get up ready for the Abel & Cole delivery, which didn’t arrive until after 11am. If only I’d known, I could’ve had a couple hours more sleep! Ho-hum.

Still, I pottered around with different colours on yesterday’s ‘Give Peace A Chance’ drawing, as well as adding colours to some other drawings.

Finally, all my deliveries had arrived, the last one being my order from CultPens, which included a pair of D&S A5 landscape Hahnemuhle sketchbooks. So I just had to try one out.

The paper is quite thick, has some tooth to it, but not too much. You can very, very faintly see the pen drawing through the paper, but that’s not a problem at all. And adding some tinted charcoal to the drawing was a pleasure as it was gently eased into the paper fibres by the careful use of a paper stump.

I’ve tried some Graphitint pencils and a damp brush to see if that would be ok on the paper. So far so good!

So, I’m quite happy with the sketchbook paper.

My current sketchbook page

This page is just a kind of doodleart that I’m exploring, along with working with alcohol markers and trying to understand how I can best work with them.

All these ‘doodles’ turned out kind of organic in a kind of mechanical way, possibly. I’ll be turning my attention to them again this evening.

Wednesday Whimsy

I’m really busy working on the cover for my next Creative Haven book. So, no time today for a video. I’ve not even started on this week’s template!

Still, I thought I’d share with you a page of weird, whimsical robots, bots, automata, thingies that I’m gradually adding to in my sketchbook. Weird is definitely the word here!

Tangle Tuesday – Hatooringkle, Springkle and Zinger

Click on this link to see today’s video.

Time for Tangle Tuesday! This week, I have a brief look at three tangle patterns that feel very related to each other – Hatooringlke by Mina Hsiao, Springle by Zentangle Inc. and Zinger by Zentangle Inc.

I wanted to add some botanicals to a pile of greeblie, robotic, mechanical space junk and these patterns spoke to me. They could very well be made from metal and futuristic material themselves!

At the last knocking, I remembered to try Diva Dance, another tangle pattern from Zentangle Inc, as a variation to the nice curvy lines. Something interesting happened … and that needs a bit more exploration.

Motif Monday

Click on this link to see today’s video.

I love playing around with motifs, letting variations appear on my paper. So, having a day dedicated to exploring in such a way is, I think, a good idea for me!

Today, I chose two templates. One ‘seedling-y’, the other ‘coral-ish’. I ended up with this page (A5) full of possibilities and potential.

I worked in an A5 Arteza plain paper notebook rather than a sketchbook. I’m getting papers all over the place again. As much as I like the discbound sketchbooks I have, I just felt the time was right to dedicate a casebound book to my motif, tangle and fragment pursuits.

The paper reminds me of dot-grid notebook paper, without the dots. I didn’t expect it to work well with the washes of colour. However, as a sketchbook, it’ll be fine for me. The smooth surface of the paper is a pleasure to draw on. Also, I won’t wreck the nibs of my fineliner pens so quickly!

Oh, I also used a matt graphite pencil to add shadows – no tortillon or paper stump, just using pressure and/or layering to increase the depth of the shadow. I also worked with texture in the shadow in the blue seed-pod/sea anemone/round thing. That is something I want to look at a bit more going forward too.

Something Different Sunday – Bots invade my sketchbook…pesky things!

Click on this link to see today’s video!

A rainy, windy, grey morning here in the Valleys of South Wales. The perfect day to cwtch up in the warm and dry and work on some art.

I’ve been drawing robots, or bots, in my sketchbook lately. I blame Bill Making Stuff on YouTube. I stumbled across his channel a lil while ago, and it seems his insidious bots and makes have found a corner in my creative mind to lurk. It’s inevitable, I suppose, that they should creep out.

But my drawing style has exerted its muscle …and these are typical ‘Angela’ style drawings! Actually, I had started to work on some new bots and characters for my Doodleworlds style of cute and whimsical art. But Bill gave me, unknowingly by him, the push to have a go at drawing these creations.

Fun. Whimsical. Cute. Different. Just what I needed to do on a rainy, windy, grey morning.

Template Thursyay! and “Ivily” for day 20 of #IFYC2022

Template Thursyay!

I added some more colour to my version of this week’s coloring template (or coloring page if you prefer) for the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group.

I stuck to a fairly limited palette of blues and teals, oranges and terracotas for this one.

I wasn’t aware until I added colour of the circular objects trapped beneath the triangles! It never ceases to amaze me now colour can bring out unexpected structures in a mandala or zentangle style design.

“Ivily” by Debbie New CZT – Day 20 #FYIC2022

Part of me wants to call this fragment ‘evilly’ because I was really, really vexed and frustrated by the original fragment. I just couldn’t get my head around it.

Don’t get me wrong, the fragment is lovely, but I just couldn’t work out how to draw it. It took me ages and ages of looking and working with it to even to be able to see the ivy leaves!

That’s all to do with how my mind works, nothing to do with Debbie’s beautiful fragment.

Eventually, I decided to cut my losses and just see how I could put ivy leaf motifs a la Angela into fragment shapes. That was a bit more of a fruitful journey with some unexpected results for sure.

Once my head is clear of my vexations, I may very well return to this fragment to see what I can do then.

Here’s the link to today’s video, all frustrations and vexations, trials and tribulations included!

Template Thursday on a Wednesday and Day 19 of the #FYIC2022 challenge.

Template Thursday…On a Wednesday?

Wednesday is the day I design this week’s template for the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group and give a sneak peek at what tomorrow will bring!

This week I really felt the need to draw a mandala, so I did! It’s a very abstract kind of design, and I’ve chosen to use terracotta as a background for my version. So, to go with terracotta and other warm, earthy tones, I had to pop in blues and teals. I wonder how others will add colour to this one.

Fragments of Your Imagination Challenge 2022, Day 19

Today’s fragment is called ‘An Ode to Triangles’. I didn’t quite have many ideas what I could do with this one.

I quickly realised I preferred to leave the little triangles in the corners out. Between following ideas I got as I was drawing and mis-strokes of the pen, I eventually got a variation I liked. A bit too much as I became focused on just that variation.

But just as I was about to stop the recording, another idea came to me and I went with that on the smaller piece of paper.

If you’d like to see today’s coddiwompling exploration of this fragment, click on this link to view the video.

Purk, Day 16 of #FYIC2022

Purk is a Zentangle pattern, and today it appears, to begin with, in a leaf shape.

I managed to fill in half my sketchbook page with variations. I’m sure there are other variations to be discovered, but just not yet. My mind is ticking over slowly with ideas today. I’m really brain-foggy at the moment and I don’t know why. Perimenopause, not sleeping well, something else? I dunno. But I’ll return to this fragment later today.

In today’s video I start by taking a look back on the past week of the Fragments of Your Imagination Challenge, #FYIC2022, along with some of my recently completed artworks. Then, I share how I worked on variations of Purk.