Last two of the six Distress Oxide coloured 14 x 10 cm sheets of paper.
Arts and Crafts
Making stamps and more Autumnly Entangled
Stamp Carving
I woke up the other morning, Thursday I think it was, and had the overwhelming desire to try my hand at carving stamps from rubber blocks again.
I enjoyed doing lino cuts when I was doing my A level in art over a decade ago, well apart from the way my finger and wrist joints would hurt after doing this. So, I thought I’d have a go with soft rubber, and above you can see the first of my efforts.
The weird flower was the first, and I’m not happy with it, though I think it would be fine as a background stamp in mixed media work, maybe.
The other circular stamps followed fairly quickly after that one, but the stylised thistle was one I did this morning. The white rubber discs are made by Essdee, and I used lino and stamp carving tools by the same company.
The leaf, heart and geometric patterns I carved this morning from a different kind of pink rubber: Speedy Carve from Speedball.
Both kinds of carving material were easy to work with, perhaps a little too soft for my liking, but only time will tell. The only other tools I used were a pencil to draw the designs on the stamp carving material and a craft knife to cut the Speedy Carve. Oh, and some sepia Archival Ink from Ranger, and an acrylic stamp block for the circular discs to adhere to while I stamped with them.
Autumnly Entangled
Two more, drawn on paper coloured with Distress Oxide inks, with highlights of white gel pen and metallic gel pens added. Also, the bottom one has had colour added using Zig Clean Colour Real Brush Pens from Kuretake and also some Prismacolour pencils.
I still have two more 10cm x 14cm sheets of coloured paper to draw on… so at least two more to come!
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Autumnly Entangled 2
This morning, I spent time with pens and paper coloured with Distress Oxides, and this entangled creation appeared. I may need to add some shading to it … but that can wait as I think I have a big vector drawing to do and that will take all of my concentration.
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Inspired by Charles Rennie Mackintosh
I do enjoy exploring different genres of art, and the Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau styles of art are ones that resonate with me.
I’ve loved the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh for a very long time, but never really took time to explore the work and to use it as an inspiration for my own work.
I sketched the outline design on paper, then edited and tidied it up in Autodesk Sketchbook Pro. I have used a mixture of gradient fills and colouring as if I was using a pencil or marker in other areas. I’m now adding some typically ‘Angela’ intricate patterns to various areas, so this isn’t finished.
I really do tend to gravitate towards creating digitally these days, and loving it too I am, though I still like to sketch the bones of my idea out on paper, scan it in and then use that as a guide; I’ve still not got my head around the size on the page and the real size of the art that will result.
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Mandala madness?
Another day, another mandala! Also, an unusual colour scheme from me …
Autodesk Sketchbook Pro and my Microsoft Surface Pen and Surface Book.
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Autumn is on the way!
Autumn is nigh and it’s a lot more glorious because…
September has arrived at long last, along with the promise of the fiery blaze of glory that is autumn in a few weeks time.
Cooler mornings and evenings along with warm enough days, the quality of sunlight is softer, more golden too.
I really love this time of year, it’s my favourite!
Even more so that I no longer have the long fear/anxiety of returning to school as a teacher.
I don’t miss teaching one little bit! I miss friends I had. I miss the more social interaction I had and the fun and laughter I had with colleagues and pupils. What I don’t really miss is the constant fear, anxiety, worry, stress, pressure, bad attitudes, poor behaviour and constantly being looked at and assessed. All the things that led me to some very dark places that I found difficult to get out of. No, it’s not ‘I don’t really miss’ these things – I really don’t miss these things, though I still get moments anxiety verging on panic when memories of various situations arise from the depths of my subconscious.
Arty pursuits
I’ve finished all the black and white line art for Eerily Entangled – my latest colouring book for Dover Publications. I have two more to colour in for the book, but I’ll wait to see what my editor and her design team would like me to colour – there are so very many, if not all, I’d love to colour!
As well as this, I’ve spent quite a bit of time starting to organise my ‘pattern library’. It’s something I like to do when I’m too tired to do anything else, when I’m feeling down and need a comforting not challenging activity, and when I’m lacking in inspiration; sometimes the patterns bring the inspiration I’m searching for, sometimes they just allow stuff to well up to the surface of my subconscious mind where my conscious mind can grab them and make use of them.
As a change of focus, I decided to draw some autumn themed mandalas, the one at the top of this blog entry being the first.
I’m a bit rusty at creating them after focusing on other things for a while, but the skills soon come back, often with new ideas or twists to old ideas, as well as new skills learned by my use of Autodesk Sketchbook Pro with my Microsoft Surface Book, which I used to create this mandala.
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Playing with colour
I’ve been quiet around ‘tinternet for a couple of weeks – problems with my mood, instead of starting many new things I’ve been spending time organising a reference collection of my favourite patterns and designs of things like fungi and buildings and creatures and so on and its very much a work in progress! The process of going through the familiar and organising them is comforting to me …
I have done some new drawings for the Eerie project for Dover – not many left to do for the book, then the hard work is deciding which two I would like to colour in the most, always a problem.
Plans are afoot for a change in my online presence too … more as that happens!
The above images show one artwork I started last night and finished this morning. Most probably about 8 or 10 hours of work. Distress Oxides, Cosmic Shimmer watercolours and a Sakura Glaze pen were used. When light strikes the artwork at just the right angle, the metallics and iridescents bring the artwork to life; it’s like it lights up all by itself. A joyful feeling for sure as I look at it.
It was nice to work with colour and the more traditional media rather than digital art, though, yet again, I noticed how drawing with the Surface Pen on my Microsoft Surface Book are having an effect on my work on paper.
One thing I did enjoy was adding the sparkle and shimmer to the artwork, something I’ve not found out how to do digitally (or even if you can!).
So, I now have satisfied a need in me to work with colour and pen and I can turn my attention back to the illustrations for the Eerie book, and on to other things after that is done.
For today, I head off soon for counselling/EMDR, and to have my acrylic nails removed once again as they really do get in the way of me typing, art-ing, using my phone…and no doubt I’ll do some drawing while I have a late lunch between nail removing and counselling.
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Cirque-doodle, mandala, zendala
Sometimes, the simplicity of monochrome is enough! Of course, there’s touches of gold , which don’t photograph very well.
The mandala, cirquedoodle, zendala, design was drawn using Sakura Micron and Uniball Unipin pens on a circle of mixed media paper that is approx. 4.25″ in diameter.
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Cirque-doodle
This is what I’ve done with one of the Distress Oxide coloured circles I blogged yesterday.
It’s essentially finished, though I may add a few metallic highlights, and maybe some drops of 3D Crystal Glaze.
The Distress Oxides give a lovely soft feel to the paper and it is lovely to draw on. The mixed media paper on it’s own is quite hard and bumpy and not a surface I enjoy working on with pen; the Distress Oxides and water spray have changed that.
I still have a few circles to draw on, but shortly I need to turn my attention back to things of an eerie nature.
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New Distress Oxide Colours – I finally have them!
I finally got my happy hands on the new Distress Oxide colours today! I had enough time between appointments to have a quick play, so four sheets of mixed media paper, some circle and tag dies and my Sizzix Big Shot as well as 1″ and 3/4″ square paper punches this is what I’ve ended up with.
The colours are lovely, different, kind of, to the original Distress Inks, but lovely.
So, I now have a lot of bits to doodle and draw on!
Art is the Adventure 