This week it’s another mandala. I’m still not feeling too well, so mandalas are great to create when under the weather.
This one is full of comforting items – a hot drink, cake (or ice-cream!), flowers, hearts and a lovely star. Well, I think the star is lovely!
I am feeling better today, just not quite well enough to do much. I did get a video posted yesterday. Today, I don’t think there’ll be one as I really need to sleep soon.
Then, I turned my attention to drawing this week’s template for the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group. I did video the process, but realised close to the end of the drawing I’d mostly worked out of view of the camera. Duh! I got so engrossed I forgot to check the part of the page I was working on was in frame.
Members of the facebook group suggested things to include in the template. I’ve included a fair number of them, but others will have to be included in future templates.
This was a really fun drawing to do. I pushed past the various points where I wasn’t sure about what I was drawing. The end result is something I’m quite happy with.
I’ve been awake since before 5am, UK time. It’s now nearly half past midday (UK time again!) and I’m so tired! I think a nap is in order very soon.
Yesterday, I set up a poll in the group so members could vote on options or make suggestions for this week’s template. As you can see, a mandala with a hallowe’en theme, including cats and spider webs, is the result. Of course, there’s some drunken skulls – no party hats this week!
As I created this digitally, I didn’t film the process. I do have, however, a short vlog where I show the uncoloured template and a couple of other pieces of art and waffle on a bit!
This week’s template has a bit of everything that is ‘Angela’ in style. Entangled art, Zentangle patterns, florals and botanicals, cute and whimsical. Something for everyone. The template is available to members of the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group.
Unusually, it’s in landscape format, and a strange set of dimensions too. I can only say I wasn’t feeling too well yesterday – upset digestive system, extremely tired. That meant I didn’t pay much attention to the size of the paper I decided to draw upon.
I am feeling somewhat better today, but still incredibly tired after another disturbed night with an upset tummy.
I know I’ll be getting my sketchbook page for Inktober Tangles 2021 Day 14 done after I’ve had a very late breakfast. I’ll post that later in the day.
This morning, I recorded drawing the final part of the template. I did some drawing yesterday evening, but didn’t record it, so there is a gap in the process. Here it is:
Mushrooms. Lots of mushrooms. A sketchbook page full of simple line drawings of mushrooms drawn from memory and/or imagination, some brightly coloured with Ecoline watercolour ink.
This page was a lot of fun to draw. I wasn’t aiming for realism or detail. It was all about drawing simple, stylised, imaginary mushrooms. I planned to add colour to bring volume to the drawings.
As I used imagination to draw these whimsically wonky mushrooms, it was easier to give myself permission to forgo the pressures I put on myself to be realistic in adding colour. I could use whatever colours I wanted to for each mushroom, I could be as stylised as I wished about the colour too.
Adding colour in this way is easy when I add colour to my coloring book pages/templates. As these pages are stylised, I can add colour in a simpler, more fun way. This is especially true for my Doodleworlds style of art.
Transferring that mindset to my drawings from nature, architecture and so on isn’t quite so easy for me. I still hear that critical voice of ‘It’s not good art if it doesn’t look like photograph or like the real thing’ in my head. This is a message that is repeated to us time and time again from our earliest days of starting to draw. It was these critical messages that led to me having a belief that I was no good at art, and those messages were seared deeply into my view of myself.
In fairness to myself, I have overcome some of these critical beliefs foisted upon me by others. However, some linger and rise up from time to time. I suspect their influence is most noticed in my lack of confidence in myself when it comes to colour.
Identifying these ‘inner critics’ is the first step to dispelling them. This is a multi-step process as the inner critic is armed with many weapons to destroy my self-confidence. I’ve disarmed this critic time and time again, but it always seems to find a new weapon. Eventually though, it will run out of weapons to use.
It’s a process, a long winded process, but it’s one that’s worth doing, step by step.
I’ve had a few days of periods of intense anxiety/stress. The come down from each of these has left me exhausted and my mind unfocused. I’m much better now that all the appointments related to the anxiety are over, and all is well. I knew it would be, but my mind and emotions have other ideas about that at times!
Anyhoo, as I had a bit of focus yesterday afternoon/evening, I decided to draw a few buttons for Sketchtember Day 17. A few turned into a whole page full of pen drawings! And some really not good hand-lettering, ho hum.
So, I thought I’d spend some chilled out time this morning starting to add colour to some of the buttons.
Ecoline and an insight..
Ecoline Brush Pens were my medium of choice this morning. A lot of the details on the drawings were just a bit too small for marker pens to cope with. Also, I thought a change of medium could be good for me, and it was!
To start with, I scribbled some colour onto a palette and then picked it up with a damp brush and worked with it like watercolour. However, as the areas dried, the intensity of colour faded.
So, I decided to brave trying to directly add colour to the page and then spread it out with a damp brush. It worked! I suddenly realised that I have a much more illustrative way of adding colour, rather than realistic. It’s about time I accepted that and embraced it too!
A page full of different objects, rather than a single illustration, has helped me to realise this, as well as put it into practice.
Now, I just have to remember this insight, which isn’t as easy as you may think!
Perhaps I should write a list of Angela’s Artwork Insights to refer to before I do any work, as well as while I’m working.
Bright and cheerful!
The other thing I really loved was working with these really bright, vibrant colours. I’ve been using a lot of more muted and vintage colours of late, and I love them. But these bright colours were just what I need during a post-anxiety funk.
I’m still exhausted after a stressful couple of days organising routine appointments, then having the first yesterday. The rest of them are tomorrow afternoon.
As the stress hormones leach from my body, as I start to come down from the intense stress/anxiety I’ve experienced around the appointments, I’m left exhausted, with brain fog. Today, I’m not so brain foggy, but I am still really tired. I had a poor night’s sleep which didn’t help.
So, today is going to be a quiet one. I want to get this drawing finished, maybe my drawings for Sketchtember – Day 15 done too. But I’ll see. I think I need some more tea first!
Today, I felt the need for some cuteness and whimsy in my arty pursuits. So, I’ve drawn a Doodleworlds style template, with some ice-creams and an ice lolly included. It’s still blisteringly hot here today.
There is a time lapse video showing the process of drawing this template.
Today, I’m aching after my fall yesterday. At least the headache has gone! I’ll be glad to retreat to the downstairs rooms in a little while. It’s 26ºC outside according to the ‘puter. That means it’s rather warm inside too. It’s forecast to be cooler tomorrow, with the high being 25ºC, which will be manageable. Just.
Time to finish my social media postings and then to get more tea!
Art is the Adventure 