Quotes

Quote by Kandinsky

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Last night, I went to bed a bit earlier; I wasn’t feeling all that well again. I wasn’t ready to sleep, but I wanted the comfort of being in bed, as well as the comfort of drawing.

So, I sat in bed and just let my pencil take a walk on the page. No preconceived ideas. No idea of what to draw in my head, only the desire to draw before settling to sleep.

This design was what appeared. In pencil on off-white mixed media paper. It reminds me of the designs on the Nazca Plains of Peru, but also some hints of Hundertwasser trees. Maybe even prehistoric rock art.

It was nothing other than a bit of self-soothing and self-care.

This morning, I knew I wanted to re-draw it digitally and make it look like it was kind of carved into rock. I’m not sure I’ve pulled it off, but I’m happy with it as it is, for now. I think I used too smooth a pen to re-draw the design. I’ve not got the right settings for that illusion of depth and dimension.

I wanted to add shadow and highlight to the design, but I’ve run out of steam again and my brain is fogging over. I think I’ll be returning to this design (along with others) in the coming days, weeks and months. This is something I don’t often do – create iterations of designs and artworks to put into practice observations, ideas as well as to try out new things with the same design. Perhaps this is what I’ll do in the next couple of weeks as I focus on completing a contract, but still make time for personal projects. I’ll see how I feel.

The design is purely abstract. As my favourite abstract artist is Wassily Kandinsky, I thought I’d add a quote from him. This one seemed to fit my drawing today. It’s not meant to represent anything other than what brought me peace and comfort when I wasn’t feeling too grand last night.

Quote

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If the quote applies, I have no idea what my morning drawing says about what my art says about the world! Perhaps it says more about my inner world – imagination and emotions. I’ll let you decide that one.

All I know is that my Tuesday morning art has been influenced by the drawing I’ve been doing for the coloring book I’m currently working on. Cute. Doodle-y. Fun. Using colour for the sake of colour. Lots of colour.

I drew the design with an 0.5 Rotring Rapidograph pen on Rhodia dot grid paper. Next, I scanned it in, cleaned the drawing up and added colour digitally. Finally, background, texture and quote were added.

A nice way to spend the first three hours or so of my day before I turn to other things, like breakfast, shower and maybe even a walk if the weather keeps dry.

Strata 02

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I had so much fun making an abstract design based on strata yesterday, I thought I’d do another today, this time adding a quote.

I’m not so sure I’ve done a good job on either the typography, the background or the artwork. I may have too much contrast, but also shrinking the size of the image for posting to social media along with the games WordPress plays with colours has affected how it looks here.

No matter, I enjoyed the process of creation, so that’s all that matters. It’s all about experimenting, trying things out.

It was a quick bit of art as I was up early for my weekly organic food delivery, to find it was already delivered. So, after breakfast, I went back to bed.

I have other things that I need to focus on today, so a quick project was in order.

Autumn

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How true those words are. How I look forward to a walk where trees are dressed in their fiery autumn finery. How much the colours glow in sunlight and against a leaden grey sky. They lift my heart and fill my mind with warm memories to last the long, dark nights of winter. The bright colours are a reminder from nature that spring will return again, after the well-deserved rest over winter.

My clunky arty design today is just that – clunky. Awkward. But it will do for now.

Wednesday Wisdom | Paleotober | Drawtober

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Wednesday is a day when I’m up extra early for an organic food delivery. I usually spend the time awaiting the knock at the door drawing. Today was no different.

I had an idea to try to work in layers of patterns and to add a quote to one side. The first layer contained some ammonite-style shells, surrounded by little bubbles that could represent the sediment.

The next layer has seed pods, but the pattern they create reminds me of the fossilised stems of plants found in the carboniferous coal of the South Wales coalfield.

The third layer reminds me of the limestone beds exposed on the Glamorganshire Heritage Coast, particularly Southerndown and Nash Point.

The fourth layer reminds me of some kind of fossils or sea plants, the name of which I just can’t bring to mind.

I thought a quote about fossils would finish this off nicely.

Drawn with 05 Pentel Energel and 0.38 Uni-ball Signo DX pens on marker paper. Background, shadows and quote added digitally.

Soul Shine

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Sunday morning is always a time to breathe, relax and create something easy and pleasurable to do. Comfort art. Today, that meant a mandala and a quote that is quite appropriate for this morning.

Mandala creation makes me smile inwardly. It’s a familiar process and I can create a mandala that is complex and detailed, or simple, and the calming, relaxing effect is the same.

I do draw my mandalas digitally. By using Autodesk Sketchbook Pro’s symmetry tools, it streamlines the process for me. There’s also the removal of the frustration that is caused by an error or a smudge. I can focus on the relaxing, soothing process and on being creative.

In that vein, I decided to draw the mandala in black on white. But when it was finished, I wanted to use a background and a monochrome colour scheme.

I love kraft paper. I don’t know why. I think it’s that colours seem to almost glow against it. So, I chose that for the background. Then, I created a layer of creamy, orange-yellow tones to highlight the line art. Nice warm, comforting, gently glowing colours.

Finally, I created some drop shadows for the text and mandala.

I look at the finished mandala and I smile, gently. I feel my heart fill with some warmth and a sense of lightness.

Creating art, including mandalas, lets my soul shine. What makes your soul shine? Take time today to indulge your soul in activities that let it do so.

Hand-drawn typographic quote

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Today, I’ve been practising my hand-drawn typography (hand lettering). I seem to have Aneurin Bevan on the brain at the moment, probably because I’m working on a typographic portrait of him. So, I chose a quote by him.

To create this, I started off with squared paper, a ruler and a pencil. I marked out an area that was 24 cm x 12 cm. Before doing any lettering, I drew in some wavy guidelines. Then, I added the lettering. It took three attempts before I ended up with a design I was happy with.

Next, I scanned the sketch into Autodesk Sketchbook Pro and re-drew and inked in the letters.

Black on white was very stark, very graphic. However, I had a hankering for some colour. So, I chose reds. I used some digital wizardry to invert the black letters and white background. I created the coloured and textures background, and then used some layer options to get the effect I wanted.

Final steps were to ad my little copyright notice and watermark. As well as resizing the image for social media.

Taking a break

It’s always nice to have a change of pace and intensity in art work. I spent a couple of hours this morning getting my mind around how I could change the shape of letters to give a feeling of volume to a portrait. The fist in my portrait of Aneurin Bevan was looking a tad too flat.

I didn’t want to do any more work on the portrait today, wanting to give myself a break from the changes I’ve made so I can go back to it with fresh eyes and fresh mind.

Thoughts ticking around my mind

I do have an idea for creating a more abstract kind of typographic art from quotes and descriptive words now I’ve completed this mini typographic art quote. Not today, though I will note my idea down in my journal.

I often wake up in the morning, with ideas for art projects, as well as suggestions for solutions of problems I’m having with a current artwork, such as the flatness of Nye’s fist in his portrait.

It seems my subconscious mind works on these issues while I rest and sleep.

Perseverence

I really am persevering with the typographic portrait. That’s a surprise to me. Not all that long ago, I would’ve easily given up on it and decided that it wasn’t for me.

But not this time.

This time, I’m sticking with it, as well as the use of typography in my other styles of art.

This one isn’t coming as easily to me as other forms of art have, but it’s one that I seem to want to really succeed at.

What is making the difference is being able to work digitally. That makes editing, altering, trying things out a breeze. I don’t have to completely start all over again, I can keep what I like, and then rework what I don’t like. I can even keep what I don’t like in case it turns out that it is actually what I do like!

Remembering to work in layers really does help this process. That’s something I don’t always remember to do. However, I will get there. Just not today.

Sunday mornings…

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This morning I created some tall, thin (or short and wide) backgrounds using Distress Oxides on some Arteza Mixed media paper. The paper is 8.25″ x 2.87″ (21cm x 7.2 cm) in size.

I chose this one to draw on for no other reason that it was the one that appealed to me at this time.
I started with the seed pods and foliage at the bottom, and worked my way through some hand lettering / hand-drawn typography to more abstract line-art.

I drew with a M Pitt Artist Pen from Faber-Castell, though I added the stippling with an XS Pitt Artist pen.

No glitter or glitz on this one, nor any highlights. Not yet. I’m not in the mood for any, not today.

Wednesday Wisdom

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This was a perfect, small and quick project to do this morning as I was waiting for my weekly delivery from Able & Cole.

Some practice of hand-lettering /hand-drawn typography practice, starting with roughing the design out in pencil on dot grid paper. Then, inking it in digitally in Autodesk Sketchbook Pro.

The addition of a rainbow background was the perfect way to bring a smile to my face this morning. When don’t rainbow colours cheer a person up? The bold, black letters on top of it really make the colours glow bright.

The quote is a perfect bit of wisdom for Wednesday, not that it’s a bad day for me at all. Apart from me suffering from a lack of sleep once again. The morning sunshine has lifted my mood, and the cool air flowing in through the open window is both beautifully fresh and wonderfully refreshing. I have bright and happy music on as I work, just to add to the upbeat start to the day.

Hand-drawn typography practice

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This morning, I decided to leave portraits alone for a little while. I woke with the idea of using typography to fill some typography!

So, I drew the outlines of ‘Nye’, for Aneurin Bevan. I then used wavy lines to split the outlines into interesting sections. Then, I pencilled in some quotes by Aneurin Bevan. This let me adjust size/ spacing so that the quotes fit and made sense. In some places I’ve stretched the letters as there wasn’t enough space for the next word. I could’ve made all the letters in the line wider, but thought the wider letters would add some interest and flow. Of course, I now realise I could’ve stretched some letters at the start of the lines too, but I can always do that as I ink in the lettering.

Anyway, my next step was to scan the sketch into Autodesk Sketchbook Pro so I could do the inking digitally, and you can see what I’ve done so far. I do need to adjust some letters, like the B at the start of the line I’ve started to ink. I will also need to go back and clean up some of the edges of letters.

It’s a nice project for me to do today. I didn’t sleep at all well last night; I was up and down to the loo. I had a sudden attack of anxiety yesterday, a really intense one. The pilot light on my boiler had gone out and I couldn’t light it, so I had to arrange for a breakdown visit. There was the stress of ‘what if they can’t fix it’ as well as a stranger in my home for the first time since most probably February.

Panic mode! And it didn’t abate all day, no matter what I tried to do. This kind of anxiety/stress always hits me in my digestive system, so it was an unpleasant night for me.

All needless of course. The gas engineer arrived this morning and he lit the pilot light first go. And it’s stayed lit. I felt like a right numpty. However, all is well, as I have now booked it for a service too.

I’m still feeling on edge, as well as really tired. So, working on a portrait wouldn’t be the best idea for me as at the moment they are frustrating and overwhelming me.

So, I thought I’d go for some hand-lettering or hand-drawn typography practice. Just practice. No pressure. However, the idea I had may turn out to be a fairly good one. Maybe.