typography

Monogram “b”, Zentangle Inspired

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To view the accompanying video which shows most of the drawing and adding background patterns and colour, click on this link!

I’m continuing with my exploration of monograms and patterns. This one is a bit odd with the ba sitting above a pool or pebble..or something. But I quite like the patterns I’ve used to embellish it. I’m also rather fond of the background patterns, especially the very faint ones to the bottom right.

I’m not too fussed about the greens, yellows and the colours I used for the flowers. Pretty much every colour apart from the background colours and the colours of the patterns around the b!

Must write a HUGE reminder and stick it where I can see it “WORK IN MONOCHROME!”

All the same, it’s a learning exercise for me, as drawing always is. The ones that turn out not quite to my liking at the ones I learn most from. Having said that, I still haven’t learned that ‘work in monochrome’ thing yet! One day, maybe, I will.

Monogram ‘a’ – Zentangle Inspired Art

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I’ve mostly finished this 3.5″ (11cm) square ’tile’ with a monogram. It’s changed a little since my last blog post this morning.

Apart from completing the colour, I coloured over the brown section in the bottom right. I used dark and light grey Gellyroll Moonlight pens to add the crazy ‘N’Zppel’ Zentangle pattern. It needs tidying up and perhaps some highlight within the inner black spaces.

But for now, it will do. I think I need a break from it to eat and do other things for a while.

Zentangle Inspired Monogram WIP

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Click on this link to watch the Draw With Me tutorial video on YouTube

This morning, I thought I’d share how I’m exploring creating some Entangled art, particularly monograms, via YouTube.

This little drawing is 11cm by 11cm, which is approximately 3.5″ square – took about an hour or so to get to this point. I wasn’t sure of the green, but I think it’ll work out just fine. There’s quite a way to go yet, but that will have to wait for another time.

The materials I used are:
* 03 black Sakura Pigma Micron
* Various Arteza Everblend marker pens
* Various fineliners in grey and green
* A white Sakura Gellyroll pen
* A metallic gold Uniball Signo pen

An Entangled Drawing

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I woke late today after a late night chatting to my friend, the lovely Brett who runs the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group.

So, after breakfast and time to come around, I decided to have a bit of muck about with Affinity Designer – a vector graphics program that’s an alternative to Adobe Illustrator. I wanted to see how text can be added to a line or shape. It wasn’t that difficult, once I’d looked at the instructions. It’s harder to get it looking nice and well done. I used a quote from Terry Pratchett, and though it’s not exactly elegant or even well done, I thought I’d use it as the basis for adding some patterns around.

Today, I decided to use a Tombow Fudenosuke pen and to make patterns with lines of varying width. Right at the end of my drawing (and recording) session, I realised I could have ‘ink’ flow from some of the letters to break up the white edge of the quote.

This really was just me trying out the text thing and playing with line and pattern. And chatting.

If you’d like to see the YouTube video just click on this link!

“Willingness” Entangled Art

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Today’s morning art – ‘entangling’ around “Willingness”. The original is drawn on white bristol board (21cm x 21cm) with black Unipin pens (0.5 and 0.1). The word was laser printed, cut out and glued to the bristol board.

I was willing to work with a lot of new and different motifs in this drawing, though not all are new. Some familiarity is needed!

It was lovely to do and took me about 2 hours in total.

I did create a vlog of this process – link here –> Willingness vlog. The first part, up until 49:33 mins is the chatty bit, from then on, the rest of the drawing has been sped up.

It would be lovely if you’d take a look, and if you enjoy the video please give it a thumbs up and consider subscribing.

I am not willing to use traditional media to add colour and/or shadow and highlight to this drawing, though I am very willing to do so digitally!

It’s been very, very windy here over the past day or so, and it has bucketed down with rain. It’s still fairly blowy, with strong gusts. So, I’m staying indoors unless the rain stops! So, I’m more than willing to keep the hatches battened down, and to settle to coloring at least some of this design. A good decision, methinks!

I’m also feeling well out of sorts after having a very, very weird dream that woke me early, and I was having a conversation in my head with one of the characters in the dream. I really wasn’t at all happy with them and told them a few home truths! Weird, just plain weird. So, it may have a knock on effect on my alertness later today.

Purpose and passion…

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What to do with an entangled design that seems to want to take up just one side of a page? Add a quote!

The design was drawn on Bristol Board with a fine Uniball ‘eye’ gel pen and a 01 Unipin pen for the fine lines. The quote was added in Affinity Designer.

It was a quote that just ‘spoke’ to me this morning. Art is one of my passions and something I indulge myself in daily, whether for work or pleasure. I’m so grateful I can combine my work with my passion. Not only that, my coloring templates and books allow others to share in my passion and expressing theirs through colour.

I do get disheartened at times. I doubt myself often. I often judge myself very harshly, especially if I compare my work to others. It’s not always plain sailing. But, I’ve learned that if I persevere, I end up with work that I’m happy with, including this one.

Little art

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More small pieces of artwork today. These are perfect for when I’m feeling overwhelmed by a large sheet of paper. Also, they are sources of ideas for patterns and motifs for future work. I do need to spend some time with all this art and add some of the newer motifs and patterns to my visual dictionary/zibladone. Or, just stick them all into a sketchbook. At least then I’d know where they are!

It’s snowing outside. It’s cold outside, and warming up inside as I put the heating on a couple of hours ago. I think I may curl up in bed today with Din Djarin and Grogu. I still have three episodes of Season 2 to watch, and that sounds like a good plan to me!

Entangled Monograms

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I’ve enjoyed doing these! The squares are 3.25″ x 3.25, 3.5″ x 3.5″ or 4″ x 4″ in size. The circles are almost 3.5″ in diameter.

The tiles were cut from a variety of papers – watercolour, bristol vellum and heavyweight smooth cartridge paper. I used Distress Inks to colour the paper tiles before drawing on them.

I’ve used Sakura Pigma Micron pens (05 and 01), along with some brown and one blue-green Stabilio fineliner pens.

I like them all, But my favourites are the ones that are much more geometric in nature – my initials and the A in particular. My least favourite is the E; the background to the letter just feels disjointed. I think that’s why I like the more symmetrical, geometrical designs more.

I’ve enjoyed using one or two tones of colour to add variety, interest and ‘dimension’ to the tiles. I’ve not added any shadow or highlight to these. That’s when things tend to go wrong for me as far as traditional media is concerned!

It also occurred to me that if I were to draw these on a different shaped paper, I could add dangle designs to them. (My book “A Dangle A Day” is still available). Maybe I’ll try that out in a while. Of course, I’d like to get a full set of monograms done too.

Tuesday Thoughts

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A little drawing this morning, used to embellish a quote that describes my artistic journey, well part of it.

The quote also describes the long journey I undertook to heal CPTSD enough that I found a touchstone of contentment inside me. That touchstone was something I’d never experienced and it is a very precious part of me.

Part of the healing process through EMDR was learning to trust myself, my memory, my emotions (which I discovered in the process).

The wonky motifs that form the border are perfectly imperfect. The imperfections in my art are part of my artistic expression. I’ve learned to recognise when my art is good enough.

I accept that my art is often perfectly imperfect, much of the time. I’m still learning how to not be so hard on myself, to recognise when something is good enough with me. It’s a work in progress for sure.

The motifs were drawn with Uniball Unipin pens on Canson Marker paper. I used Autodesk Sketchbook Pro and Affinity Publisher to create the ‘meme’.