I love seed pods! They are often so architectural in nature. They lend themselves to whimsy and stylised drawings so well too.
I love giving them sturdy stems with tops that look like column capitals. The leaves on these are inspired by medieval illuminated manuscripts, something else I absolutely love!
For the panel behind them, I decided to keep the pattern fairly simple – Tripoli, a Zentangle tangle pattern.
I love Halloween; it’s one of the few celebrations in the year that don’t fill me with deep sadness and cause emotional distraught. And, of course, when it comes to me, cute and whimsical, smiley and pretty is my preferred style of illustration.
I thoroughly enjoyed drawing this design earlier today. My whimsical heart was filled with joy as I just a few of my favourite things. I’m sure there’s a song there…
“Hats upon skull-ies and batwings on potions, mushrooms on bottles and bright orange pumpkins, Some stripy tentacles with round eyeballs, These are a few of my favourite things.”
Well, it doesn’t rhyme, but it’s a start!
So whatever you are doing today, however you are celebrating, or not, I wish you the very best!
I absolutely love Halloween; it’s the only yearly celebration that isn’t filled with triggers for emotional upsets. If I could change the date of my birthday, it would be Halloween! It’s not the horror-filled aspects that grab me, it’s the fun and laughter I associate with this time of year.
I love creating whimsical art all year round, but changing the scary for cute is a lot of fun at Halloween. It makes me smile and fills my heart with joy. As far as I’m concerned, skulls and pumpkins, ravens and potions, ghosts and ghoulies and all the other wonderful things associated with Halloween are not just for Halloween!
This week’s colouring page for the Facebook group “Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans” is a Hallowe’en themed mandala. It combines two of my favourite things – mandalas and Hallowe’en!
This design has a whimsical feel, but that is one of my default settings! And adding colour to it makes me feel much happier about the design.
I drew this colouring page for Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans Facebook group this morning. It definitely has a fair few autumnal motifs; however, any kind of colours could be used!
I’ve partly added colour to the design, mainly to highlight some trickier areas with lots of detail.
Today was a day to draw some mushrooms! I do love them, especially the quirky, whimsical and cute ones. These fit the bill, I think, a little resplendent in their autumnal tones.
As far as I’m concerned, I don’t think there is such a thing as too much whimsy or cuteness. Ever. Though I may seemingly stray away from things cute and kawaii from time to time, it’s not long before I feel the pull to add some more whimsy to this worrisome world.
There’s such a huge variety of fungi on the Earth, so much inspiration to draw from. But today, I kept it fairly simple.
To add colour, I used Inktense pencils with a Kuretake Zig water-brush. Oh, and the ‘frame’ was coloured with iridescent gold watercolour paint. And that gave me the perfect excuse, not that I needed one, to scatter some gold dots around the background. Oh, the white dots on the ‘shrooms and foliage were applied with a Sakura white Soufflé pen. Its opaque white ink is perfect for this job, especially as it doesn’t seem to pick up any underlying colours. Must remember to get some more of them.
I thought I’d go with some more abstract, pattern-based templates. The last one I drew, at the top right, just ended up having some seed pods.
Abstract designs like these are great fun to add colour to as there are no pre-conceptions about what the colours should be. Also, they’re great for trying out new techniques, media and colour combinations. And, of course, they’re relatively quick to finish, which is great if you’re short on time.
Sunday morning (and Saturday evening, which was when this page was started) is the perfect time to practice my lettering, a quirky kind of illustrated journal page, and digital art practice.
I had intended to use just three, maybe four, basic colours for this page, but the vegetables threw me a tad!
I drew the page on paper with a fine Zig Mangaka Flexible pen. The Colour was added digitally after scanning the page. And I had a lot of fun as ideas clicked into place to add colour to the lettering.
Admittedly, some of the inking work is a tad clunky, but that could be fixed if I wanted to. It is a sketchbook page, and so perfection isn’t required. Giving myself permission to work with what I deem as less than perfect is an important lesson I’m trying to learn. Expressing myself in this wobbly, wonky, imperfect, quirky, eccentric, whimsical kind of way is a work in progress.
Oh, I’ll still draw detailed, intricate black and white pen designs. But I suspect I’ll do much more of this style of art. I have much to learn about it, using colour with no black lines, for instance. But I know it’s all a process, and I’ll get to where I need to be. I know that I’m really enjoying the combination of traditional ink drawing with digital colour – tradigital?
I’m not sure my Doodleworlds critters belong, but I just couldn’t resist popping them in to fill an awkward space!
I had a very intensive, focused, and interesting time delving into the realms of digital art earlier today. When I’d finished, and had a late lunch/early dinner, I thought I’d do some drawing just for fun.
I had no idea what I was going to draw, not a single idea. I had a blank page in an A4 sketchbook, a couple of pens and of I went! And something whimsical and Doodleworlds-y appeared!
Art is the Adventure 