BuJo Monthly Spread

May – entangled hand lettering

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May ©Angela Porter 2019 Artwyrd.com
May ©Angela Porter 2019 Artwyrd.com

BuJo Cover for May

This morning, I’ve spent a pleasant four hours or so drawing this A5 design for the month of May.

It combines some hand lettering along with my signature style of entangled art. I’ve included plenty of floral motifs as here in the Northern Hemisphere the world is filled with flowers, especially on the trees.

Of course I’ve included more abstract motifs that are inspired by seedpods and patterns found in nature and architecture and so on.

I drew the design on white Bristol Board by Winsor and Newton. My pens of choice today were Tombow Fudenosuke, Sakura Pigma Sensei 04 and 0.1 Unball Unipin. Also, I’ve used some digital wizardry to add coloured paper as the background, along with my watermarks.

This would be lovely in a BuJo I think. I think it would be lovely in a planner, a journal or diary.

It’s perfect for colouring, as long as you’d be happy to colour across sections that have fine lines in them.

I think if I was more confident with metallic inks and either dip nib pens or fine brushes I’d’ve liked to do the lettering in metallic gold or copper. Of course, I could’ve done the lettering, scanned, laser printed it and then added the patterns around the lettering. I didn’t think of that until now though! Duh!

I’m fairly happy with adding ‘auras’ around the lettering to separate it from the entangled design around/below it.

I’m not sure I’m happy with the design spilling out over the edge as it has done; it doesn’t feel balanced to me, but other than that I’m quite happy with the design. Of course I could edit the image to even up the edges, but it is what it is for now.

Post EMDR

EMDR was quite gentle yesterday but lots of body work occurring. During EMDR stored trauma is released through pains and other sensations in the body. Yesterday I had eyes that hurt, part of my head, my throat, my thumbs and wrists. I had a lot of pain where I broke my leg when I was six. Lots of prickling as well as electric shocks in various parts of my body.

I actually felt quite upbeat, if a little tired, when I left the session. But by late evening I was really tired and feeling a bit teary and lonely.

I’m tired today. I didn’t sleep too well last night. I had hoped to go out for the day today, but I really wanted to stay home and draw and I think I’ll be back in bed before too much longer. I really am tired.

One thing that I was asked about, without me mentioning it first, was what I was going to do about getting out and about a bit more! I’m sure my therapist must read my blog. Just joking, I know she doesn’t!

I need to make a list of places I’d like to visit. Familiar places to revisit to ease me back into getting out and about by myself. Then ones not so familiar that could involve some time away from home too.

I will be going out later this week. I have something to do this evening and tomorrow, however. Another reason I am having a quiet day today. I’m not just tired; I know that I’m also emotionally fragile still.

I am determined to heal as much as I can from the CPTSD and to do the things I’d like to do that the inner critic sabotages way too often.

October’s Bujo Spread

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Angela Porter October BuJo Spread 2018Can you believe it? September is just about all and over with. Time does seem to be flying by at the moment.

This was a really quick bujo spread due to me being away last week.

It’s also a very messily coloured one. I can tell I’ve barely wielded a pen in the last week! Talk about shaky and wobbly and lacking the fine skills I had.

Goes to show you gotta keep working it daily, even if it’s for a short while.

Mind you, I have new glasses and getting used to them is going to take a little while. For work, I have ‘occupational varifocals’. This means the lenses gradually change from intermediate distance at the top to reading distance at the bottom. I didn’t get to use them much last week, so it’s going to take a little while and some practice with them.

I also have varifocals of the usual kind (distance, intermediate and reading). They’re great if I’m sitting down and out sketching, or drawing, or knitting and watching TV. I find them a bit disconcerting for walking around and going up/down hills or stairs or twisty turny ways they cause me to feel a bit dizzy. I know my problem is that I have really good peripheral vision and there’s a part of the varifocal lens on the outside and innermost areas that causes fuzzy vision.

So, yesterday I took my favourite pairs of glasses which double up as sunglasses (they’re very cleverly designed to have removable polaroid lenses that look like they’re part of the glasses, which essentially they are) to have single vision distance lenses put in them so I can use them for walking around and driving. I can drive with the varifocals, but that fuzzy bit bothers me.

Anyways, I have a lot of practice to do with drawing in the next day or two before I return to my next Entangled Coloring book. I’m half-way through the templates and I have some lovely reference photos from my trip for the next ones, including some ideas inspired by Forbidden Corner, maybe.

Back to the BuJo spread. I drew the design on dot grid paper using Sakura Pigma Micron pens and coloured in with Chameleon pencils.

I like the design, not fussed on my colouring skills today that’s for sure.

What theme should I go with for November? Remembrance, bonfires, fireworks…feel free to leave suggestions!

Dangle Day Friday 21 September 2018

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Angela Porter Dangle Day 21 September 2018

It’s Friday, so that means it’s #dangleday!

A simple, elegant design with a sweet sentiment for this week’s dangle design. I like the symmetrical nature of the dangles.

I did sketch the design out in pencil on dot grid paper which I scanned in to ink in digitally and make use of the symmetry tool in Autodesk Sketchbook Pro. I also coloured and added texture with various brushes in Sketchbook. Naturally, I made use of a Microsoft Surface Pen and Microsoft Surface Studio to do this.

I kept to a really simple colour scheme, using just one pink, golden, blue and green colour gradient for the design, with the exception of the rainbow beads in the central dangle.

It would be really easy to put a different sentiment or greeting in the box, but I like this one.

A different colour scheme, of course, would result in a very different ‘feel’ to the card, matching all kinds of seasons and occasions.

This would make a lovely greetings card or note card. I think I’d like to use it for the beginning of each month in a BuJo, planner or diary, changing the colour scheme as appropriate for that month. I do like playing with themes for my BuJo, but there’s something in me that likes a cohesiveness in design/style.

What would you do with this design? Let me know by leaving a comment.

Of course, I could print the uncoloured version out and colour with different media. It would be no great chore to re-draw the design on paper more suitable for, say, watercolours, where my printer doesn’t cope with decent quality watercolour paper.

Just a little reminder that my book ‘A Dangle A Day’ is available for pre-order, just click on this link. In the book I give help, guidance and advice on creating your own dangle designs, as well as providing many examples of monogram dangles and dangle designs that you can use for your own projects.

BuJo September 2018

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Angela Porter Bujo Sept 2018

It’s nearly the end of August so it’s time for my BuJo pages for this month.

I used Tombow Dual Brush Pens and a Chameleon Detail Pen for these pages in my Leuchtturm 1917 dot grid notebook.

My colour scheme is quite autumnal as September is the month of the Autumn Equinox here in the Northern Hemisphere.

I’ve used a simple dangle design for the Monthly Cover Page. My tutorial book, A Dangle A Day takes you through dangle designs step by step and has lots of ideas for charms and dangles. It’s available for preorder now.

I kept the monthly planner simple as that really suits my needs.

For my mood tracker, I used leaves, acorns and seeds, perfect for an autumn theme. I’ve not added colours to my key yet, but I will. I may add more leaves and seeds as the month goes on and I fill in the elements I’ve already drawn. Or maybe I’ll add some autumnal quotes instead. I’ll let my mood and the events in the month dictate what I do.

Dangle Day Friday – new BuJo spreads for August

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August BuJo Spreads

Angela Porter 27 July 2018

The last days of July are upon us, which means it’s time for new BuJo pages.

I’ve settled into a kind of pattern for myself as far as a BuJo/Planner goes. It’s really minimalistic in terms of what I keep track of, but not so minimal in terms of artsy-ness!

I have two designs for the monthly cover page. One, a dangle design, the other one of my zentangly, entangled style drawings. Yes, I hand lettered these ones, not like the quotes where I am printing out the words before drawing on the paper.

Like my dangle designs? You can pre-order ‘A Dangle A Day’, my book where I take you through how to draw your own dangle designs!

I like both of my monthly cover spreads, but I know the more complex one may never get completely coloured in – it would need a lot of time invested in it.

I like to have a monthly overview page for my events and appointments, and I’ve added dangle elements to that, though I do like a simple layout for the days.

The final planned-out page I like to have is a mood tracker. As you may be aware if you’ve been following my blog for a while, I have CPTSD and keeping track of my mood is useful. For August, I’ve decided on some bunting. The spaces are large enough that I can, if I wish, record different moods throughout the day.  Also, I like to keep the key for my moods simple, with just five different ones.

Hearts and stars are the theme for this month, which are common with me. They are two motifs that I really, really like.

The stars this month represent the Perseid meteor shower which happens around my birthday each  year, natures own fireworks. Hopefully the skies will be clear this year so there can be a good view of them.

A little about the materials used

  • A Leuchtturm 1918 A5 dot grid notebook
  • Unipin pens from Uniball and a mechanical pencil to sketch out the letters and so on.
  • Chameleon duotone pencils for colouring
  • A metallic gold Sakura Gelly Roll pen for some metallic highlights on the cover page.

Furbaby Friday and a new facebook group

Today it’s #furbabyfriday over on the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group. The members love to show their beautiful furbabies, especially when they’re ‘helping’ with their colouring! You’d be most welcome to join the group and share your beautiful furbabies.

One of the admins of this group has started a new facebook group called Pet Love, Care & Happiness. If you love pets and animals you’d be more than welcome to join in. I believe they have a competition at the moment to win some Amazon gift vouchers.

 

 

What a heck of a time, and bujo update

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Angela Porter May Bujo1

The saga of my little car continues

Roller coaster rides abound here.  I’m very anxious, fearful today, but there’s also a calmness there too, which is well weird.

Yesterday I picked up a loan smart car from the garage, and not long after I got home I had a phone call to tell me that after trying what the experts had suggested, the conclusion is that something has broken inside the automatic gearbox.  It would cost over £4000 to replace the gearbox, and the car really isn’t worth it.

So, I had the panic and fear and worry about sorting out a new car. I’m going to try buying a new Smartfortwo first through the garage. I need to trust my car; I have to travel around a fair amount with the talks that I do.  Breaking down causes me huge stress, and not being sure of a car I’m driving does so too.  Having a second-hand gearbox fitted wouldn’t fill me with that kind of trust. There are other options, including buying a cheap runaround until a few things come together for me.

I know things will work out fine.  That this too will pass.  It makes settling down to focus on anything difficult for me, and when I’m like this one of my coping strategies is to sleep, lots.  Which I can’t do at the moment, though I really want to sleep, just sleep.

I need to run errands while I have the loan car, to make the most of it. I have editing work to do for A Dangle A Day.

Other stuff has gone out of the window. I did set up my monthly spread for May in my BuJo, along with my monthly trackers this morning; I couldn’t believe how shaky my fingers were.

May Monthly BuJo Spread and a large disc-bound format

The picture shows my monthly spread for may as well as the pens I used as well some pictures of my new disc-bound journal.

My monthly spread and trackers are decorated with hawthorn blossoms and leaves.  May blossom, as we call it here in the UK, is usually out around now, but it seems to be delayed this year, but it is a flower I associate with May time.

I included a little quote about May below the header:

May, more than any other month of the year, wants us to feel most alive.                          – Fennel Hudson-

I’ve moved to a large disc-bound planner because I like the larger format as well as the flexibility of what paper I can use and the ability to rearrange pages as I understand my needs more without having to re-draw/re-write everything I have in my collections.

As I’ve said before, my BuJo is more like a Zibladone, where I collect all kinds of ‘stuff’ that interests me that I want to reference, including collections of patterns and drawings on various themes.  With the addition of the planner elements that are useful to me, I turn it into a very basic BuJo, where I include yearly, monthly and weekly diaries/calendars and also a journaling section, which is more important to me than having a page for a day with planning and so on in.

The eagle-eyed of you may have spotted that I’ve used quadrille/squared paper in this spread.  The simple reason is that I can cut down on the number of lines I need to draw for the tables! I particularly like it for the tracker.

Yes the lines are more obvious than the dots on dot-grid, but I’m happy to work with this in this instance.

I haven’t done my weekly spreads yet; and I don’t think I’ll get them done today as I have so much to do in terms of errands and also a nearly 3 hour round trip to make to give a talk tonight.

I do need to find time to meditate and let some of this anxiety/fear bleed off and to let the calmness that is under it become stronger.

Pre-orders

A Dangle A Day is available for pre-order.  I will be having a give-away for those of you who do pre-order, so check back for details of this once I’ve set it up.

Eerie Entangled Art is also available to preorder from Amazon as well as anywhere that stocks the Creative Haven colouring books from Dover Publishing Inc.