I enjoyed drawing and colouring the previous mandala so much, I thought I’d do another. This was particularly helpful for me as I was rather emotionally drained yet emotional yesterday after doing a couple of anti-stigma talks in my role as a champion for Time to Change Wales, a campaign that aims to end the stigma and discrimination that surrounds mental illness.
I started this yesterday, but it’s taken me much of today to complete it.
Wednesdays are WIP Days over on the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group.
Today, as part of my December/Advent gifts, I created this Christmas themed mandala for them to colour in.
If you’d like to colour this one in, then pop over to the facebook group, join and download and print the template for your own personal use – no selling, sharing and so on, either uncoloured or coloured! Don’t forget, the group members, and myself, love to see how you bring the template to life with colour!
I used my Microsoft Surface pen to draw the mandala on my Microsoft Surface book in Autodesk Sketchbook Pro. I then used the same tools to colour the mandala.
This month, the challenge for the members of the facebook group Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans is a little different. I’ve set them a challenge to use limited palettes of winter or Christmas or holiday colours to colour in any template they wish and to share their results. I’m hoping for lots of sparkle and shine!
The image above is my offering today for the group, the template I created exclusively for them, so if you’d like to get it and colour it, head over to Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans and sign up. You’ll be sure to get a warm welcome there!
I drew the design on my Microsoft Surface Book using my Surface Pen and Autodesk Sketchbook Pro. I used the same tools to colour the image.
#createdonsurface #AutodeskSketchbook
Just a reminder that the Doodleworlds colouring book is available via my Etsy shop, called Artwyrd, and on Amazon.co.uk, other European Amazon sites, but not on Amazon.com yet.
Quickly created this morning – took around 3 hours to do. Lots of gradients used, and working with layers – learning new stuff still, as if that ever stops! Very sketchy kinds of drawings, but fun ones. I used a pencil brush to do that as well as for the colouring, along with a blender brush. I had fun. My cat is annoyed as I wanted to finish this and not go upstairs with him. I have a busy day ahead of me and may not get to do much art after this…
#createdonsurface #surfacebook #microsoftsurface
#autodesksketchbookpro #sketchbookpro
#halloween #samhain #allhallowseve
I’ve been busy the last couple of days adding some digital stamps to my Etsy Shop.
So far, I’ve added eight whimsical flowers, an example of one is to the left.
They do have quite bold black lines, which I quite like as they give a stained glass ‘feel’ to them, possibly a lino cut one too.
The images are simple outlines, which leaves them free for purchaser to add patterns and colours as they wish to. Also, being digital, you can print them on any kind of paper so it’s easy to work with different media.
All hand drawn in Autodesk Sketchbook pro on my Microsoft Surface Book.
Just finished drawing this and assembling it.
I drew and edited the construction lines in Serif’s Affinity Designer. I then opened the saved file in Autodesk Sketchbook Pro on my Microsoft Surface Book and created layers, including a mask as the top layer. Then I doodled. Printed out two copies. Cut one out, scored and folded along the grey construction lines, then assembled using Cosmic Shimmer Acrylic Glue.
Assembly was a bit of a ‘mare, and it wasn’t helped by me not scoring and folding a couple of lines, but when put together, it kind of works. Even where the edges aren’t likely to marry up nicely, the still seem to work.
One thing I will need to remember to do on the next one is to go round the cut edges with a black marker of some kind which will help those edges to blend in a bit more. Maybe.
I do rather like the heavy black lines on this one, and coloured in they’d look like stained glass!
No numbers, so it’d not really work as a d20 (20 sided die), but coloured in that maybe possible with a key of some kind.
All good fun stuff!
Yes, I am being busy with arty crafty stuff today … and it’s not ended yet as I had some soft polymer lino in the post the other day and I haven’t tried carving that yet!
I’ve had a busy couple of days with this and that and the other.
Yesterday and today it’s been learning about vector files, images, graphics and how to get my artwork done as that kind of file and to a maker so she can use them to laser etch her products – more about this when I have photos of the projects!
Lots of head scratching, googling, and finally settling on downloading a program that works in vector graphics. So, a lot of learning to do with that, but it’s easy, intuitive and makes a lot more sense than Adobe Illustrator; I chose Serif’s Affinity Designer. I don’t know if it is as sophisticated as Illustrator, but I can’t see me wanting to get to that kind of level – I love Autodesk Sketchbook Pro way too much for that!
Certainly a different skill set is needed, but I’ll get there as I usually do.
After all the time on the ‘puter, I had the need to return to traditional media, and the photo above is what I’ve spent my evening doing.
First, the paper (approx. 14cm x 21cm), along with a few other sheets, was coloured with distress oxide inks. Then I drew on it using a mixture of pens.
It was really nice to do, the colours of all the sheets are rather autumnal, and I’m looking forward to drawing on the others over the coming days.
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.
Another day, another mandala! Also, an unusual colour scheme from me …
Autodesk Sketchbook Pro and my Microsoft Surface Pen and Surface Book.
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.
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.
Art is the Adventure 