Drawing

Motif Monday

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Click on this link to see today’s video.

I love playing around with motifs, letting variations appear on my paper. So, having a day dedicated to exploring in such a way is, I think, a good idea for me!

Today, I chose two templates. One ‘seedling-y’, the other ‘coral-ish’. I ended up with this page (A5) full of possibilities and potential.

I worked in an A5 Arteza plain paper notebook rather than a sketchbook. I’m getting papers all over the place again. As much as I like the discbound sketchbooks I have, I just felt the time was right to dedicate a casebound book to my motif, tangle and fragment pursuits.

The paper reminds me of dot-grid notebook paper, without the dots. I didn’t expect it to work well with the washes of colour. However, as a sketchbook, it’ll be fine for me. The smooth surface of the paper is a pleasure to draw on. Also, I won’t wreck the nibs of my fineliner pens so quickly!

Oh, I also used a matt graphite pencil to add shadows – no tortillon or paper stump, just using pressure and/or layering to increase the depth of the shadow. I also worked with texture in the shadow in the blue seed-pod/sea anemone/round thing. That is something I want to look at a bit more going forward too.

Something Different Sunday – Bots invade my sketchbook…pesky things!

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Click on this link to see today’s video!

A rainy, windy, grey morning here in the Valleys of South Wales. The perfect day to cwtch up in the warm and dry and work on some art.

I’ve been drawing robots, or bots, in my sketchbook lately. I blame Bill Making Stuff on YouTube. I stumbled across his channel a lil while ago, and it seems his insidious bots and makes have found a corner in my creative mind to lurk. It’s inevitable, I suppose, that they should creep out.

But my drawing style has exerted its muscle …and these are typical ‘Angela’ style drawings! Actually, I had started to work on some new bots and characters for my Doodleworlds style of cute and whimsical art. But Bill gave me, unknowingly by him, the push to have a go at drawing these creations.

Fun. Whimsical. Cute. Different. Just what I needed to do on a rainy, windy, grey morning.

Pattern Explorations #1 | Day 3

Angela Porter1 Comment

Day 3 and the first page of my Pattern Exploration sketchbook is about half full.

I’ve used Carbothello pastel pencils with both a water-brush and tortillon to add colour to some of the elements on this page.

Thoughts, ideas about how to embellish the individual motifs on the page are starting to wander through my head.

Of course, I filmed this mornings half-hour of art and here’s the video on YouTube:

Inktober Tangles 2021 | Day 29 “Tree Leaf” by Debbie New CZT

Angela Porter3 Comments

Tree Leaf is a lovely tangle pattern by Debbie New CZT . It is, to me, an unusual way of drawing a branch of leaves, but it works out. I have to say that I fell into my way of drawing branches where I use the gaps to attach the leaves. Either way seems to work just fine and dandy for sure.

The branch I kept fairly consistent in my drawing today. However the leaves…it was fun to use my favourite shapes of leaves, and a few others. A couple of berries and acorns have sneaked their way in as well.

This tangle pattern makes it really easy to layer leaves; very useful for me in my work creating coloring books!

To add colour to the leaves (and berries), I’ve used a whole host of media – Pitt graphite matt pencil, Graphitint pencils, Graphitint paints, Inktense blocks used like watercolours, and Sakura metallic, starlight and moonlight gelly roll pens. I also used white Gelly Roll and Posca pens to add the higlights.

I’ve not done much in the way of shading. There comes a point when I really need to take a break from the work. I’ve reached that point with this page. I may return to add shadow and more highlight, I may not. Regardless, this page is a great reference for me going forward. In fact, I have an idea to incorporate it into one of my other drawings I’m working on at the moment.

Tomorrow, I’ll film my thoughts and reflections as I look back on my week in art. But for today, I have filmed a video of the drawing and colouring of the small branch in the top left.

Inktober Tangles 2021 | Day 27 “Trelina” by Eni Oken

Angela Porter2 Comments

I came across this tangle a goodly while ago. I tried to draw it, but without much success, like Fengle.

However, watching a video by Zen Linea, as well as having cracked Fengle meant I think I’ve successfully drawing Trelina, with some variations as well.

I realised, soon enough, that I wanted to keep the basic structure of Trelina, but focus on ‘channels’ that could be used to house other patterns. Indeed, the very first Trelina I drew was the one in the top left and I wanted a wider ‘channel’ to put a pattern in.

The bottom right version has a big nod towards Fengle. After all, if I’d not worked out how to draw Fengle, I doubt I would have managed to draw Trelina.

Inktober Tangles 2021 Day 25 “Round Square”

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Round Square, by Karin Guzzetta CZT, has turned out to be an interesting pattern to try variations out on.

At first sight it seems a rather, well, boring pattern. However, with just a little creativity, it’s become fascinating rather than boring. From adding ‘auras’ and patterns, to threading laces through the pattern, to inverting the dark and light areas, and even changing the shape from square-ish to triangular, this has become a pattern full of possibility.

I’ve just realised that I didn’t try adding white (or coloured) patterns to the darker borders in some of the patterns.

Will it make it’s way into my artwork? I don’t know. I can see some interesting optical illusions going on in places. A bit more forward planning with the ‘laces’ running through the pattern could have a really interesting effect, maybe.

However, these will have to be shelved for now as I do need to turn to other work for the day.

It’s Template Thursday!

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Here is this week’s template for the members of the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group.

I’m in need of cute whimsy at the moment, so a Doodleworlds style design is just what my emotions needed.

Drawn with a Uniball Eye micro pen. Coloured digitally in Clip Studio Paint.

Sketchtember Day 13

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It’s Day 13 of Sketchtember, and another seed pod style drawing, with lots of variations today. But there’s also a Zentangle style drawing using one of these seed pod variants.

Drawing the more traditional kind of Zentangle of design was actually fun to do. It helped it was on a smaller scale, I think.

I used it as an opportunity to play with a dimensional feel to the design, using black and white drawing pencils and a tortillon. The paper was already coloured; it’s a small piece of the Faber-Castell Toned Drawing Paper, which is really robust as it has 15% cotton in it.

I messed up in the bottom right area and tried a fix. Ho hum, I tried. I know ‘there’s no mistakes in Zentangle’, but it was irking me I’d messed up on the repetition of the patterns.. Still, it’s in a sketchbook and so is a reminder to me to pay a bit more attention in future.

I do need to bring out the layers by adding some more shadow. I may do that with either alcohol markers or Pitt Artist Pens. The graphite pencil really isn’t dark enough, even though I added layers of it.

Nevertheless, it’s all a valuable experience and opportunities to learn, grow, develop and practice my artistic voice.

I wonder what will appear from the tip of my pen tomorrow – day 14 of Sketchtember.

Sketchtember Day 12

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I’m still on the seed-pod kick as far as Sketchtember goes. Today, I sketched out some lovely heart-shaped nuts/seeds.

After drawing and adding colour to the first couple with Arteza EverBlend markers, I re-drew more stylised versions. Finally, I had a go at designing some Zentangle style ribbon patterns. I particularly like the one on the bottom right.

A quiet Sunday morning has been had, and the afternoon is likely to be pretty much the same.

Sketchbook Saturday | Sketchtember Day 11

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In today’s vlog I show you my artwork of the past week or so, good and not so good!