This morning, as I had my first hot drink of the day, I wanted to continue drawing the entangled frame. So, I thought I’d better film it, and so there’s yet another video of me drawing and wittering today.
I talk about art, the elegance of limits and how they also encourage creativity. As I talk, I have some ‘ah-ha!’ moments when I realise how my art has developed as it has.
The drawing is now finished. It took just a teeny tiny bit over an hour to do. Now, comes the addition of colour to create shadow and highlights and bring the background to life somewhat. The trick will be to make sure that photo is still very much the focal point, the rest is just a background. Tricky, very tricky!
But before I do that (and I’m likely to film at least some of the process of adding colour), I’m going to scan the entangled artwork into the computer so that if I do mess up, at least I still have a digital version to work with!
What do I do when I wake with a headache? Draw and film it for another YouTube video.
Today, I decided to colour a piece of cartridge paper, add a vintage photobook photo, and draw a frame around it that will, eventually, fill most of the paper.
I recorded the first fifty minutes or so today, but the artwork isn’t finished yet! I don’t know when I’ll get the next part done, but I’ll be sure to film it too.
For this week’s template, I asked the members of the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group to suggest things they’d like to see in a coloring template. I had 20 unique suggestions. So, I numbered them, rolled 1d20 (that’s one 20 sided die to those who aren’t RPG-ers!). The first roll suggested I create one of my templates with the smaller pictures as part of it. The second roll suggested different shapes. So, I did just that, using suggestions from the list!
I just couldn’t fit in three of the suggestions – a mandala, a train on a bridge and jungle baby animals (unless the cute toucan-like bird counts). So, I think I did pretty well.
It was a different way for me to create a template. I was conscious of needing to get as many suggestions in as I could, so I drew the picture frames first. That means there’s not so many layers in my design as I like. Still, it probably worked out just fine.
It’s going to be interesting to see how people manage to colour this one in, particularly all the small patterns around the little pictures.
The design was drawn with a medium Uniball Eye pen on squared paper. It was scanned in to clean up and edit the design and add colour.
Friday is youtube video day. So, today I started a new drawing, called ‘passion’, and waffled on a bit about my passions.
I’m not entirely sure I should’ve, but it crept out that I have complex PTSD, though EMDR has helped me to be ‘good enough’ to live my life and cope with life’s ups and downs.
This isn’t a surprise to anyone who’s read/followed my blog. I’m not ashamed that I have experienced mental and emotional ill-health since childhood. In the past few years I’ve gradually healed from the traumas that caused it with the help of EMDR. My experiences in life, all of them, have contributed to the person I am, and I can’t hide from that, nor should I. Nor should anyone who has, or is, experiencing mental or emotional ill-health. It’s something that can strike anyone at any time, sometimes with a reason, sometimes for no apparent reason at all.
I believe that the only way to break a stigma down is to have open and honest conversations about it, and that includes mental and emotional health. After all, we all have physical health and we’re not usually embarrassed when we’re physically unwell, and physically unwell people don’t usually experience stigma surrounding their illness.
So, whether I’m right or wrong for mentioning this in the video, it’s now done and I’m sure people will leave comments if they think it’s inappropriate, or quite appropriate.
If you do take the time to view the video, I thank you. I also thank you if you like the video and/or subscribe to my youtube channel.
I woke this morning and something had filtered through my unconscious mind about why I couldn’t get the record screen app in Movavi to work. I had to set my computer into tablet mode. And all worked well, including recording my voice as I worked.
I was a bit flustered and more than usually waffly, but if you’d like to see how I add colour digitally, then you can see the screen, and hopefully the ‘mouse’ pointer.
I can now calm down that I know I can do this!
If you watch the video and enjoy it, like and subscribe. If there’s any helpful advice you can give, or suggestions for future projects, then please leave a comment with them.
I’ve spent much of the day so far adding colour to my ‘Serendipity’ drawing that I completed yesterday. The whole process of drawing has been videoed and is available on my YouTube channel.
I thought it would be an idea to try to record a timelapse of my process in Clip Studio Paint Pro, which has a tool that does it for you. This just didn’t work, it caused everything to freeze up.
So, I thought I’d try the record screen tool in the Movavi Video Suite. It didn’t let me use my digital pen on the screen. So, I’m going to have to spelunk through the settings to see if I can resolve that issue, and the one with Clip Studio Paint Pro. A couple of things to sort out along with how to add a voice-over to a video!
So, after getting another mug of tea, I settled to starting colouring the image digitally. I wanted to use the rich colour palette I’d used for this week’s ‘Template Thursday’ design.
I’ve only got part of the design done. It’s taking me a little longer to add colour in CSPP (Clip Studio Paint Pro) than in Sketchbook as I’m not familiar with the tool layout yet.
Again, I’m taking this as an opportunity to learn more about CSPP, in very tiny, tiny steps. I seem to have found a watercolour brush I like that adds an interesting texture to the colour. Usually, my work is characterised by rather smooth colour gradients. To have such a textured finish is unusual for me, but I quite like it.
I have a lot more of this particular drawing to do, and as I’m working digitally I can always try a different colour palette or way of working.
I think I’m going to take some time away from the computer now, and return to ‘analog’ forms of art. If you’ve watched my video, I gave a short look at one of my collections of patterns and motifs. That notebook is almost full, so I had a new Leuchtturm1917 A5 notebook delivered yesterday. It turns out I’d managed to order a square grid rather than a dot grid. No problem. If anything it may work out better.
I’m not going to transfer the entirety of the nearly full notebook to this new one, just the motifs/patterns I use the most, and start to add others. They really are books full of inspiration, mostly images but sometimes words/notes too.
This week, I finish this particular drawing, apart from a few bits and bobs.
Partway through the video, the microphone just stopped recording. I have no idea why. So, for the last part of the video, I’ve sped my drawing up 5x and just put some music to go with it.
Guess I’m going to have to learn to do voice-overs as well as learning the new digital art stuff!
I’d appreciate likes for this video, as well as new subscriptions to my channel.
It’s Template Thursday once again. This week’s template is an entangled sampler kind of thing. Sometimes, the whole image is overwhelming, or perhaps there’s just not enough time to do a large area. These kinds of samplers have lots of smaller designs within them. Choose one of a size you can manage or for the time you have. Complete it one motif at a time, just as a stitcher would complete a sampler one stitch or motif at a time.
If you’d like to access this template, for free, then you need to be a member of the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group. The group is free to join and the members are lovely. There’s a monthly color palette challenge and I’m trying to get my head around time zones to organise some get togethers on zoom.
The template was drawn with pen on paper. I’ve added colour digitally.
Nature – an entangled artwork. It looks like batik, silk painting or stained glass!
The design was drawn in pen on bristol board and then coloured digitally in Clip Studio Paint Pro using a textured watercolour brush.
I’m determined to find my way around this piece of software, along with Affinity Designer at some point. The effects are the same as Sketchbook, but just not quite so easy to find the tools I want to use at first. It’s all a case of familiarity and I’m definitely outside of being familiar with the software at the moment.
Having said that, all that I’ve learned about layers, the various effects that can be applied, brush settings and so on, apply to all digital art platforms. It’s just finding my way around the software and learning more about it.
The one thing that’s top of my list at the moment is setting up a custom colour palette.
I’ve discovered that Clip Studio Paint has symmetry tools – phew! And these tools do a thing or two not available in Sketchbook as well as working slightly differently (and making certain things a lot easier for sure.
Art is the Adventure 