Drawing

Template Thursday and Good News!

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This week’s coloring template

Here’s a partly coloured version of this week’s coloring template for the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group.

This one contains some zentangle patterns, some of my typically entangled designs, and some cute and whimsical elements that are reminiscent of Doodleworlds.

I posted some videos yesterday showing me drawing this coloring template, or colouring page.

Good News!

The good news bit is that Lacy Mucklow, the art therapist I worked with for the Color Me books, alerted me to the fact that our “Be Stress Free and Color” book is one of the best adult colouring books listed by The Independent, a UK newspaper. The book contains illustrations and text from the original books in the Color Me series.

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Template Thursday…On a Wednesday?

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It’s Wednesday, so one of my main tasks is to create a colouring template for the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group. And as I drew this for my morning warm up art, I recorded it.

It took me over 1 hour and 20 minutes to draw the template and the full length video is here.

The time lapse version, which is about 15 minutes or so long, can be found via this link.

Yesterday, I wasn’t at all well. The usual upset stomach followed by a headache that needed sleeping off. The upset tummy had kept me up most of Monday night. What had caused it this time, I dunno. All I know is I slept a bit better last night, though I’ve been awake since 4:15 am and I’m beginning to feel rather tired again and my digestive system is still a bit tender. I’m sure I’ll be tickettyboo once again tomorrow.

It was lovely to spend some time this morning drawing just for pleasure. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy drawing for my publishers, but it’s different as there’s a lot more pressure on me to create templates that fit into a particular theme and their guidelines.

My weekly templates have no of those limits on them, so it’s a different kind of enjoyment.

There’s a lot of whimsical and cute elements to this weeks design, and I think that’s something I need to lift me up as I’m feeling a bit under the weather.

It was also a great pleasure to draw with pen on paper, and I think I’m going to have to do that with the templates for the book I’m working on. I get a much better sense of scale and overview of the design. Even when I scan a sketch in, I’m not all that happy with the digitally drawn version of it, usually.

So, that’s what I’m going to settle down to do for the rest of the day, once all my social media posts are done. Pen on paper, without the frustration I can feel when drawing digitally. Simple tools to focus on drawing ‘life size’ coloring templates.

And lots of tea is called for today, I think. Lots of good tea.

Entangled Frame | Part 2

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My morning warm up drawing was to do some more work on the entangled, abstract frame I started yesterday.

With fresh eyes, I could see I wanted to make the width of the design more consistent around the frame. So, my first job was to do a little bit more pen drawing.

Then, I could carry on with adding colour with Inktense pencils, the same colour palette as I used yesterday.

As is becoming my daily…habit? practice?…I also filmed the process and chattered away as I did so. And my chattering, rather, my thinking out loud actually helped me make some connections between my experiences of art from childhood through to the present day. And that helped me understand my perceived problems with using colour in drawings from real life.

I will need to spend some time with these memories and insights and journal later on. I can then work with them to help, hopefully, to overcome some blocks and difficulties in how I feel about my artistic expression. And then, hopefully I can become accepting of and comfortable with the way that I work.

I’ve been following a few courses on Domestika, and one of the common themes in the introduction by each artist is what has influenced them. Many go back to their childhood passions and how they have influenced their artistic voices.

That, I have discovered today, is so true!

Perhaps I’ll condense my words from today’s video at some point, once I’ve processed them myself. However, if you’d like to hear my thinking out loud while drawing/colouring today, then here’s the link to the video.

Entangled Frame WIP

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Having a bit of a break from the weird fish today. Instead, I drew this abstract, entangled frame and started to add some colour to it.

I’m working on A5 Arteza mixed media paper which has been coloured with Aged Mahogany and Rusty Hinge Distress Inks. The pen drawing was completed with a 0.38 Uniball Signo DX pen, which is both a consistent, fine line and is waterproof. I’m adding colour with Inktense pencils ( Red Oxide, Baked Earth, Crimson, Deep Blue and Sienna Gold).

I may add some more pen work as I work out if I’m happy with the inner space; I hope to add quotes to that space once the design is finished.

As far as the weird fish go, I have scanned them in and re-drawn them digitally using the vector drawing option in Clip Studio Paint. I’ve been experimenting with adding the shadows and highlights first then using different layer to add colour to the sections. I’m bumbling around with this at the moment, but I expect I work out how to get it to work in a way I like.

Yes, I know there are going to be tutorials out there that will show me how it can be done, and lots of ways of doing the same thing. However, by me bumbling and bimbling around the software, I’m learning more about it on my own terms.

Oh, I also filmed my drawing and adding colour this morning and the video is below. If you do choose to watch the video, then please choose to view it in YouTube as your view then counts to the channel stats, along with thumbs-ups! Cheers!

Weird Fish – Part 2

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I’ve spent some time drawing a third weird fish and intensifying colour on the two original ones.

For the top fish, I used Derwent Colorsoft pencils to increase the colour. The watercolour underneath does add to the colour in a subtle way.

I used Derwent Inktense pencils and a damp brush to add colour to the central fish.

Finally, I’ve been adding colour to the bottom fish with Inktense pencils too.

As pretty as the watercolours were, they were a tad too subtle for my liking with not enough contrast. So, I used them as the underpainting and then added layers of more intense colour over them. It seemed to work out just fine and well.

I’ve kept the color palettes pretty similar for each of the fish.

Also, I’ve re-drawn them digitally as vectors and I’ve just started colouring one of them.

No matter how I add colour – digitally or using traditional media – it takes me a long time. I fuss around until I get things looking as I like.

This is very much a fun project, and I have no idea where it will lead, if anywhere. The important thing, however, is that I’m enjoying working with traditional media and I’m doing something a bit different too that I can learn from.

Here’s the video of today’s art. I’d appreciate it if you open it in youtube as then your views get counted.

Weird Fish?

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Weird indeed are my drawings today. I had a delivery of some ultra smooth botanical watercolour paper yesterday, and so I had to try drawing on it! Yup, it’s nice to draw on. Then, trying out some watercolouring.

Instead of doing rather wet washes, I used the watercolour in a much more controlled manner, adding layers to get some shadow and highlight going. I’m either going to intensify those shadows and highlights with coloured pencils or digitally. But not now. I woke with a stinking headache and I’m just about at the end of my ability to focus enough to function. I’d like to go out for a walk to try to clear my head, but I’m not sure I’m safe to be let out to walk on the pavement let alone drive! This may need some serious sleep to clear. Ho hum.

The colours look different in ‘real life’ – the reds and oranges are more browny, and the yellows are more greenish. My problem in scanning the images in!

I did film my morning art for today’s vlog:

Template Thursday!

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It’s Thursday, so that means a new coloring template for the members of the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group.

This week it’s a typically ‘Angela’ entangled, abstract design. I’ve chosen to use a color palette of bright and cheerful rainbow colours, and that is the colour palette for this month’s challenge too.

If you’d like to print the template and add colour, all you need to do is head over to the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group and become a member! It’s free 🙂

I’ve also made a timelapse video showing colour being added to the template. I condensed 2 hours of work into around 24 minutes I think it was. As I write this, the video is still uploading to YouTube, but when it’s done you can find it by clicking this link!

Template Thursday … on a Wednesday???

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Well the video of myself drawing the template for tomorrow is here today!

Monday Mandala WIP

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I’ve had a busy day so far. First, I got a few sketches done for the next colouring book for Creative Haven. Then, after showering etc, I went out to do a little food shopping. The sun was way too bright for me and my sensitive skin, even with sunblock on! Next, after a mug of tea and some lunch, I turned my mind to creating a mandala and adding some colour.

Sorting out the colours I’d like to use for this design was a bit of a trial. But, I’m quite happy with the succulent kind of palette at the moment.

No YouTube video today. My morning warm up art was drawing for the book, and I don’t show my templates in advance, usually, though I may show a sketch here and there to whet the appetite, maybe.

An Entangled Drawing

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I woke late today after a late night chatting to my friend, the lovely Brett who runs the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group.

So, after breakfast and time to come around, I decided to have a bit of muck about with Affinity Designer – a vector graphics program that’s an alternative to Adobe Illustrator. I wanted to see how text can be added to a line or shape. It wasn’t that difficult, once I’d looked at the instructions. It’s harder to get it looking nice and well done. I used a quote from Terry Pratchett, and though it’s not exactly elegant or even well done, I thought I’d use it as the basis for adding some patterns around.

Today, I decided to use a Tombow Fudenosuke pen and to make patterns with lines of varying width. Right at the end of my drawing (and recording) session, I realised I could have ‘ink’ flow from some of the letters to break up the white edge of the quote.

This really was just me trying out the text thing and playing with line and pattern. And chatting.

If you’d like to see the YouTube video just click on this link!