Inktober 2018

Inktober 2018 Day 31 ‘Slice’ and Happy All Hallows’ Eve!

Angela PorterLeave a comment

Angela Porter Inktober 2018 Day 31 Slice

It’s All Hallows Eve, or Hallowe’en or Samhain as you prefer. It’s also the last day of Inktober 2018. Here is my offering based on the prompt of ‘slice’

Well, it had to be a celebratory slice of cake, complete with a pumpkin candle and all kinds of cutely spooky monsters and critters and so on.

This was, as all have been, fun to do. I quite like the grungy look I’ve achieved with the use of texture brushes and slightly duller colours along with black as a component of the gradients.

I sketched this in pencil on dot grid paper, scanned it in and used Autodesk Sketchbook Pro to draw and colour this dangle design.

Yes, it just had to be a dangle design to round off the month of Inktober!

My Microsoft Surface Studio and Microsoft Surface Pens were my magic tools to help me create this.

Now I see it in a smaller size, I can see where some highlights and lowlights would help to increase dimension in places. However, it’ll do as it is as I do have to finish the templates for my new book Entangled Forests. Yes, the cat is out of the bag on the theme of this coloring book for Creative Haven by Dover Publications. You can pre-order it on Amazon and it’s due for release in July of 2019. I should have all the templates completed today, then it’s just colouring a couple of them as examples in the book.

Before this book, Entangled Butterflies is due out in November 2018 and A Dangle a Day in January 2019.

I said (typed?) it yesterday – I’ve enjoyed Inktober, for many reasons, and I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing what I’ve created using the daily prompts.

Oh, as it’s Hallowe’en, there’s a little event going on over on the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group. I provided a hallowe’en themed coloring template at the start of this month and asked everyone to hold off posting their finished versions until today. I’m hoping for a flurry of postings throughout the day to give a lovely, cutely spooky feel to the group throughout this day! I have my own version of the template to post there in a short while too, and I’ll post it here later on today as well.

However you spend your All Hallows’ Eve, have fun and keep safe too!

Inktober 2018 Day 29 ‘Double’ – Revisited

Angela PorterLeave a comment

Angela Porter Inktober 2018 Day 29 'Double'

I finally got it done! I coloured the drawing I did yesterday ‘properly’ and I’m quite pleased with it.

#createdonsurface #inktober2018

Inktober 2018 Day 30 ‘Jolt’

Angela PorterLeave a comment

Angela Porter Inktober 2018 Day 30 JoltI decided to use mongrams with dangles to form today’s prompt ‘Jolt’ for Inktober 2018. I also wanted to use a bright colour scheme to jolt eyes awake, perhaps.

I started by sketching the design out on Clairefontaine Grafit dot grid paper. I scanned the sketch in then inked it in and coloured it digitally using my trusty trio of Microsoft Surface Studio, Microsoft Surface Pen and Autodesk Sketchbook Pro.

I have absolutely no idea what the designs in the dangles have to do with the prompt ‘jolt’. They just came to me as I was drawing them out, and today that’s good enough for me!

Inktober 2018 is almost over and it’s perhaps time to reflect on it all.

It’s the first time I’ve taken up any art challenge, apart from contracts for work that is. I thought it could be a bit of an onerous thing to do, time consuming and so on. Well there have been days where it has been a bit like that, but I’ve also had days where it’s been a relatively quick process too.

I have enjoyed having a daily prompt to get the creative juices flowing and to encourage me to draw every day.  Not that I don’t draw everyday. However drawing with a prompt is different for me.

Well, I do draw with a theme, such as when working on a book. But that theme is the overarching focus for a series of illustrations. To have a different prompt each day and without the drawings having to fit to a particular size or format and just for fun is something that is different.

It’s had me thinking outside of my artsy box at times, at others it has let me draw styles that don’t usually make it into my books. With that, my mind is working on what I can do with these kinds of images. My mind is working on that…slowly.

I have been wondering if I’m going to take up another challenge in the coming month(s) and I’m not sure about that at the moment. If anyone has any suggestions, please feel free to leave a comment!

I certainly have some ideas listed in my BuJo to think about and work on in the coming days/weeks/months.

It’s been a good thing to do, this Inktober thing, and part of me is sad to see it come to an end.

Will I do Inktober 2019? I don’t know. It will all depend on what’s going on in my life in a year’s time, but if possible I think I will.#

Just a reminder, my book about how to design and draw dangle designs and monograms – ‘A Dangle A Day’ – is available for preorder

Inktober 2018 Day 29 ‘Double’

Angela PorterLeave a comment

Angela Porter Inktober 2018 Day 29 'Double' coloured

This morning I wanted to do something that would be fairly quick to do as I really do have to get all the templates for my newest coloring book done before Wednesday.

So, when I saw today’s prompt for Inktober 2018 was ‘double’, my mind thought of a mandala.

Why? Well, because I used an even number of repetitions for the pattern it’s based on ‘doubling’ the designs, kind of. Maths is not one of my skills in general.

Also, there’s going to be a double take on this mandala – I really wanted to colour it more traditionally, but for speed I used the tools available in Autodesk Sketchbook Pro to create gradients and layers for the coloring.

I did draw this digitally, again using the symmetry tool for speed of drawing.

I will revisit this in terms of coloring, doubling my work on it, once my work for the book is done.

So, with no futher to-do, I will post this and head off to get another mug of tea and then start the day’s work.

Inktober 2018 Day 27 ‘Thunder’ revisited

Angela PorterLeave a comment

Angela Porter Inktober 2018 Day 27 Thunder small

Much happier with my Thunder Kitty!

Re-drawn and coloured digitally. I used my usual digital tools – Microsoft’s Surface Pen and Surface Studio along with Autodesk Sketchbook Pro.

Thunder Kitty had to be ginger! I couldn’t resist some rainbow stars and raindrops either, as well as adding to the dangles on the original sketch.

Nice way to spend an hour or two on a Sunday afternoon after having had a sleep – I really was exhausted after the stress for me surrounding the craft corner at the coffee morning, doing the craft morning and an evening with people, as lovely as all the people were.

The introvert me likes spending time with arty crafty projects.

Inktober 2018 Day 28 ‘Gift’

Angela PorterLeave a comment

Angela Porter Inktober 2018 Day 28 Gift small

Day 28 of the Inktober challenge and I’ve done another kitty dangle design, with a rather surprised looking kitty in a gift box with a party hat on.

How cute would this be as a greetings card for the human of a kitty?

I sketched the design in pencil on dot grid paper then scanned it into my Surface Studio. I then drew the design using a pen brush and the symmetry tool in Autodesk Sketchbook Pro. After drawing, I added colour and texture as well as a bit of a drop shadow.

This image makes me smile just a bit. It was a nice thing to do this morning. I’m tired today.

Yesterday, I was absolutely shattered after the Hallowe’en Coffee Morning and being in charge of the craft corner. The little monsters (read little darlings dressed up in their Hallowe’en finery) kept me nicely busy and they seemed to have a lot of fun making pumpkins on glow sticks and paper pumpkins and other things. I had a lot of fun too.

At the end of the morning, it was lovely to have some help to clear up; thankfully my plans on using glue dots and double sided sticky tape and paper fasteners and staples rather than glue sticks helped greatly with this. As did the washable marker pens and the like.

I came home and had some lunch and then slept. On waking I had time to have more tea, shower and get ready to pop out in the evening.

As lovely as my couple of hours out were, I was glad to get home. It was really chilly last night here in South Wales. The cold got into me even in my short journeys; I chilled right off in the morning too. So, today my hands and feet are a tad achy and stiff with arthritis.

Using the Microsoft Surface Pen on the Surface Studio certainly helps my finger joints – so little pressure is needed. The pen is a tad weighty, but it’s rather well balanced so I can cope. On days like today I could do with a slightly thicker barrel, so I need to find some grippy things that I could slide on my pen for days like this.

I do want to work on my sketch of the viking kitty that I did for yesterdays’ Inktober prompt. I need a quiet day of self-care today. Not only was yesterday a busy one for me in terms of interacting with people it was also the end of British Summer Time and the clocks went back by an hour some time during the night. This means we got an extra hour of sleep, in theory. In practice I slept the same amount of time! The change in the clocks will cause confusion for a while I think.

I am an introvert, though people seem to assume I’m an extrovert. I learned at a young age that I had to be loud and seemingly outward going like my very loud brothers to have even a chance of being noticed or listened to (that didn’t happen often). I have a fairly extrovert mask I wear when out and about and with people, until I get to know them and then the introvert can relax and come out. I like people, but I also recognise that I need alone time to recharge my batteries. Being with people both lifts me and drains me. So, today is a day for some quiet time, before I have to head out this evening for a couple of hours to be with people again.

 

Inktober 2018 Day 27 ‘Thunder’

Angela PorterLeave a comment

Angela Porter Inktober 2018 Day 27 Thunder

A very quick one today. No finesse, No refining. Just Thor the thunder kittie…

Why very quick? I have a busy day. Soon to head to shower to dash out to run a craft corner at a Hallowe’en Coffee morning. I’m really nervous about it and scared that what I’ve chosen to do in terms of crafts won’t be good enough.  I’ve most probably bought way too much in the way of materials and so on..but I hope it will be good enough.

Then it’ll be home for a bit before heading out this evening to do a talk.

I’m also feeling really tired – that’s down to the stress involved in the craft corner. I’ve not done anything like this since I was a teacher and that was over 3 years ago now. As well as worrying about  not being good enough, I’m worrying about being overwhelmed, finding it all too noisy, having too many demands made on me by too many kids or adults at the same time.

I want to do this. It’s for a good cause. But I also worry that I may have volunteered too quickly without thinking through things taking into account my introvert nature and the CPTSD.

I suspect this afternoon will involve a long, long nap.

Anyways, I drew a Kitty Thor as it was just what popped into my head when I saw the prompt ‘Thunder’. It’s following on in the theme of whimsical kitties. It’s also a bit of a dangle design with an Angela ‘take’ on the design of Thor’s hammer, with another nestling behind the kitty sparking madly!

I did sketch quickly in pencil and inked in with a Faber-Castell broadpen.

You can still see the dot grid!

Inktober 2018 Day 26 ‘Stretch’

Angela PorterLeave a comment

Angela Porter Inktober 2018 Day 26 Stretch

If there’s one thing that kitties know how to do extraordinarily well it’s stretch. So, that just had to be the drawing that went with todays Inktober Prompt!

And as it’s Friday, that drawing had to be a dangle design too.

I really do need to work on my kitties in different poses – this one’s head looks a little strange, a little flat.

But, part of the inktober challenge is to draw without editing.

I did use a pencil to sketch the dangle design out on dot grid paper from Clairefontaine. After inking it in and erasing what I could of the pencil lines it was scanned into GiMP. I use gimp to remove the dots of the dot grid and then produce a transparent background.

The drawing with a transparent background and no dot grid I then plonked into Autodesk Sketchbook Pro and added some colour and texture as well as a drop shadow.

I kept the colour palette fairly simple so I had a more cohesive look to the design.

Even with the problems with the cat’s head, I think this is cute – I couldn’t resist adding a sleeping mousie on the kitty’s tummy.

Of course, Friday is #dangleday and my book about drawing dangle designs, monograms and more is available for preorder. It’s called ‘A Dangle A Day‘.

Inktober 2018 Day 24 ‘Chop’ and Day 25 ‘Prickly’

Angela PorterLeave a comment

Angela Porter Inktober 2018 Day 24 Chop and Day 25 Prickly watermarked

Catching up time today for Inktober 2018!

Yesterday I was shattered both from the trip to Worcester the day before and by giving and anti-stigma talk for Time To Change Wales. The talk left me very emotionally exhausted and I was good for nothing the rest of the day.

This morning when I thought of the prompt for yesterday – Chop – I just had this vision of a cute Viking kitten with a big axe (the chop!). It seemed quite natural I should turn that little image into a bit of a dangle design. I tried to draw a round shield beneath the Viking kittie, not sure that’s worked out at all. I like the way the ears poking out of the helmet have ended up looking like horns with some protection around the ears!

In keeping with the theme, I did a prickly looking-cat along with a bunch of cacti. Again another dangle design.

I drew these, with some rough pencil sketchlines, on Clairefaintaine Graf it dotgrid paper using Uniball Unipin pens.

I’ve not cleaned the images up or removed the dot grid. I’ve just left them black and white line art.

Of course, these are quite simple dangle designs in terms of the dangles used. If you’d like to learn more about dangle designs and get loads of ideas on how to draw your own and designs and dangles and charms you can use, you’ll find my book ‘A Dangle A Day’ most helpful. It’s available for preorder and is due out early in 2019.

I know that colour would bring them to life; maybe I’ll do that later on.

It’s not often I get ideas for funny cats to draw. Or funny critters and so on – ones that relate to a particular theme like these. They’re actually fun to draw, give me a smile. and perhaps it’s something I can work on developing as time goes on.

I think everyone knows I love cats and I still miss my companion of over 16 years – the white purrfurrball called Cuffs. I’m not ready to let another pusscat into my life for many reasons, but I do donate the money I would’ve spent on Cuffs’ food, kitty-litter, medication and regular vets bills to the Cats Protection League so that I help other kitties to be looked after until they find their forever homes. It’s the best I can do at this time.

Dear goodness, I’m crying about that now. I’m still emotionally tired out after yesterday and so today is likely to be a day of some self-care.

Bullet Journals

Earlier this week, I had Ryder Carroll’s book ‘The Bullet Journal Method’ –  delivered to my Kindle on it’s release day. I’ve spent some time reading it and have found it a really interesting read so far, not just about bullet journalling.

As I’d started a new bullet journal at the weekend, I thought I’d try out some things, particularly the daily log and the system of symbols used for notes, events and tasks. It all finally makes sense to me, well the daily logs do and seem to be something that will be useful.

I’ve also worked out that dividing pages for the daily logs up into pretty sections and so on isn’t going to work well for me if I use a bullet journal as it’s meant to be used by me. The sections limit the space available for daily notes etc – Some days I need to jot down a lot, other days not so much.

I’m certainly still going to pretty up the Monthly logs and the future log for sure, as well as any collections I create. But the daily logs are going to be far more basic, though I suspect colour will become involved at some point!

I finally get the idea of ‘threading’ after seeing examples in the book.

I certainly can recommend this book (it’s available in other formats) – not just for people wanting to learn about bullet journalling for the first time, but for more seasoned/experience bullet journallers.

I can also see my viking kittie being redrawn in my bullet journal as a cute page I can look at to make me smile. The same for any other cute kitties I have – and I do have a few drawn already! Mind you, they’d be quite nice printed out, coloured and used as markers/inserts in the BuJo too. But I’d like them as greetings cards and notes cards.

Ooooh… I need to make some notes about these ideas in my BuJo!

 

 

Inktober 2018 Day 23 ‘Muddy’

Angela PorterLeave a comment

Angela Porter Inktober 2018 Day 23 Muddy colored

Day 23 dawned slowly for me today it has to be said and I’m still trying to get my brain out of the sleepy fugginess that I woke with around 5am. Far too early to be awake.

Still, before I head out for the day – a trip to Worcester with my friend Liz – I wanted to get Inktober done.

The first thing that came into my head when I read the prompt for today (which is muddy) was the buddhist quote about lotus and mud. I had to look it up – thank goodness for the magic of the google!

After hand lettering the quote (hand lettering is a bit better today, but some of the word spacing is a bit iffy) I turned it into a dangle design! (Quick plug – My book ‘A Dangle A Day’ is available for preorder should you fancy some guidance and ideas on drawing your own dangle designs).

Had enough time to chuck the scanned image into GiMP to remove the dot grid and any remaining pencil guide lines and then to create a transparent background. This was followed by a quick visit to Autodesk Sketchbook for the image file so I could add a coloured background and my watermark.

I have enough time to write this blog, do the other social media stuff before diving into the shower and heading over to Liz’s to start the day’s jolly journey to Worcester (which no doubt will appear on my other blog – Curious Stops and Tea Shops).

The quote speaks to me both of the feeling I get when I meditate, but also about my journey from the mental and emotional ill-health of cptsd towards a healthier state of being.