Slowly, I’m learning about using colour digitally, and I love it! I’m beginning to understand how I can use layers effectively. Bringing dimension to my ‘flat’ pen drawings is so fascinating!
I realise now that I need to spend more time working with colour digitally. I’m finding getting that feeling of volume in my artwork is relatively easy. But, choosing colours isn’t my best skill for sure! So, once the process of layers is incorporated into my mental “muscle memory”, I need to learn more about how to choose colours.
I’ll get there. It may be that monochrome is the way to go for me. But only time will tell.
For now, I need a bit of a break from the computer as well as another mug of tea!
It’s been a lovely day today. I’ve spent time drawing, which is always a pleasure and relaxing to boot! I had a lovely long phone chat with a pal too, partway through filming. But it was lovely to chat!
I’ve decided that on Saturdays, I’ll focus on arty projects that could be useful or gifted. All about taking time out not just to feed my creative soul, but to share that with others.
A bookmark seemed a good idea for today. It’s a relatively small project. Useful too! I’ll laminate this when I’m happy with it. I already have a recipient in mind.
Of course I’ve scanned the drawing in and I’ll be using it to practice adding shadow, colour, highlights/lowlights digitally.
There’ll be no social media posts from me tomorrow – I have a day with many pleasant online events. I’ll be back on Monday for sure!
I love alliteration! Back in the so-called ‘Dark Ages’, the time between the collapse of the Roman Empire and the Battle of Hastings in 1066, alliteration was used for rhymes. One reason I’d love to learn to speak, write and read Anglo-Saxon.
I’ve decided to have a different alliterative social media theme for each day.
Fragment Friday was a natural choice. I absolutely enjoyed creating variations for each of the fragments in the “Fragments of Your Imagination Challenge” that ran through January. I miss doing these variations. So that led to this particular theme.
For my first Friday Fragment, I decided to use ‘Hearts’ as the theme. Today it’s not so much creating variations on a particular fragment but the use of a particular motif within each variation. Some of the variations are familiar fragments or tangle patterns. Others go off in surprising directions.
I’d started off in an organic Entangled, Zentangle fashion but decided I’d really like to include some cuteness and whimsy in the design. So, enter Doodleworlds through a crack in the space-time continuum. Or maybe just in one corner of the page, for now.
Of course, the template in the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans Facebook group won’t be available until tomorrow, but there’s no harm in having a sneak peek, is there?
Today marks the Lunar New Year celebrated in China and other Asian nations. It is the year of the Tiger.
I thought I’d draw a design based on some of the symbols associated with the New Year celebrations held by Chinese and Asian communities worldwide.
To start, I used various Distress Inks – fossilised amber, ripe persimmon, spiced marmalade and aged mahogany – to colour a 14cm x 14cm (5.5″ x 5.5″) piece of Canson Imagine mixed media paper. Tigery colours!
After marking my border guides in pencil, I drew in the outer border of stylised plum blossoms.
Next, a layer of coins, all with the square hole characteristic of Chinese coinage, but many with imaginative patterns within.
I then realised I hadn’t put a tiger anywhere! So, I popped a cute and whimsical tiger head at the centre, all smiling and happy.
Finally, as far as drawing was concerned, I put some bamboo overlapping in a Zentangle Hollibaugh manner to fill the space.
Then it was time to tackle adding colour. The part that always vexes me. I used watercolour pencils in this instance. I discovered I liked working in a loose, just let the paint and water do what they will, kind of way. I got some interesting textures and patterns, particularly in the spaces between the bamboo.
I’m not entirely sure this was all a good idea, mind you. Part of me really wishes I’d drawn this on plain paper, or maybe coloured paper, but left the colour at that. Some shading.
And I’ve just realised that I haven’t really done any shading in this design! It would be awkward now as I’ve added gold and white gel pens to the design. Oh well.
I’m not all that happy with this drawing. I may spend some time doing a version of it, but on plain white paper. Just to see the difference.
There’s always something to learn from each drawing that is done. Always. However, I don’t always learn those lessons, such as how I feel I struggle with colour when it’s traditional media or the importance of contrast/shadow to bring depth and dimension to a design.
I definitely need to make a list of things to consider when drawing in my commonplace book.
I woke this morning with an idea to create a frame for an art quote using some fo the fragment variations from the Fragments of Your Imagination Challenge. So I did. And here it is.
Some bits of the frame are a tad clunky, but overall I think it’s good enough.
The quote from Ruskin about art is one of my favourites. I don’t set out to create art with any kind of message that may change how people view aspects of the world/society we live in. I don’t set out to record my observations on life, to tell a story. My art is personal to me as I create drawings that contain patterns, line-shapes, motifs that make me smile inwardly. If I make any one other person smile, then my art has done it’s job.
I get a lot of pleasure, contentment, and peace from drawing. And I hope that comes across in my art. I want to draw designs that are pretty, interesting, intricate. Drawings that you have to stop and look carefully at to see all the different things within them.
It’s quite a bit sneak peek as it’s the whole template, with some colour added!
Abstract. Entangled. Zentangle Inspired Art. Putting into practice some of the fragments that have evolved during the Fragments of Your Imagination Challenge hosted by the 7F5RChallenge facebook group.
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.
Kaas, by Emiko Kaneko CZT, is not a tangle pattern I’m familiar with. So, first I had to wrangle with it to understand it’s construction. It’s a lovely pattern, but for some reason these kinds of patterns just don’t compute too well in my head.
Eventually, I kind of worked it out, and pencil lines are definitely needed for me to draw it well! So, go me!
At first look, I really wasn’t sure how I could vary this fragment. But as I started making small changes the ‘what would happen if I …’ thoughts started to come.
I like many of these variations, some not quite so much. There’s a fair few I’d like to see arranged in a grid pattern. Perhaps I’ll spend some of this afternoon/evening trying that out.
Naida, by Stephanie Jennifer CZT, is today’s fragment for the #FYIC2022 challenge run by #7F5RChallenge facebook group.
This is, like all so far, another lovely fragment to play with, and I quickly filled a page with variations.
In today’s YouTube video, I take a look at this page, along with days 1 to 7, before starting a new Zentangle Inspired drawing using Naida and Dream Dex variations to start the drawing off.
Art is the Adventure 