It’s template Thursday! As it’s December, my templates will have wintry, themes, all with the emphasis on bringing light and colour into our lives during the last weeks of the year.
As I live in the Northern Hemisphere, we’re in the last few days of autumn. However, no matter where you live in the world, there are always starry night skies, and I suspect stars will feature a lot in the templates. Not just because I love stars, but because I’m working on Entangled Starry Skies.
This is just the start of what will be a bigger drawing. It’s my way of warming-up, artistically, this morning. Rotring Rapidograph pens on bristol paper.
Warm-up is something that is appropriate again this morning as it’s a cold start to the day. A hard frost greeted me as I opened the curtains, glittering in the dawn light. The sun is now well up, and there’s a haze in the air. Frost lingers on the north-facing roofs and shadowed pavements. Properly autumnal morning.
The sunshine is making my heart and soul smile gently. Solar energy always lifts my spirits, my mood, which is most welcome after a series of days filled with fatigue and brain-fog once again.
I did get out for a walk yesterday, and it was lovely to be walking in the chill air and sunshine. I twisted my knees, however. Age doesn’t come by itself and arthritis in my knees is causing me some issues. My plan is to look after my knees, take it easy at home and focus on getting work done. Mind you, the pull of a sunny afternoon, the need to be out and moving around may make me get out for a short and easy walk on the flat. I’ll see how i get on.
I create templates for the members of the group as my way of saying ‘thank you’ for supporting my work. I am thankful that I am able to bring some joy and peace into others’ lives through my colouring books and my art.
If you’d like to download and print the template for personal use, head on over to the facebook group. Some simple terms and conditions of use apply.
I’ve chosen warm, autumn colours for my version of the template. How would you bring yours to life with colour? I love to see how people colour my templates, and I can be tagged on twitter and instagram as @artwyrd.
Today in South Wales
It’s a beautiful late autumn day. A hard frost this morning has now melted. The dragons-breath mist flowing down the valley has dissipated leaving the air filled with a silvery mist that diffuses the bright sunlight beaming from the pale blue sky. Trails of smoke and steam trickle through the fairly still atmosphere, making a statement that the colder months are now upon us.
Once I’ve completed all my social media posts, I’m going to put some sunblock and boots on, wrap up warm, and go for a much needed and long-put off walk. It’s time for me to face some of the social anxiety that has built up in me during another lockdown.
Then, it’ll be settling down to ink in some coloring templates for Entangled Starry Skies. I was going to do some yesterday. Unfortunately, I was overcome by the intense fatigue that plagues me from time to time, which hasn’t been helped by a few insomniac nights. I slept lots yesterday, and fairly well last night, so feel better today than I have done for a while.
I didn’t sleep all that well last night. I’m still not feeling quite right. My abdomen is still uncomfortable, though I have eaten. I’m still tired and I can feel my brain starting to get a bit fuzzy.
I had wanted to settle to drawing for the next colouring book, but other things happened and my mind is a bit scattered. I thought some art for the sake of art may help and this mandala was the result.
I had no idea what I was going to create, but warm, autumnal colours were calling to me, along with evergreen leaves and bright red berries.
It’s simple, stylised and I’ve not spent a lot of time adding shadow/highlight. It is really just a play around before I do my best to settle to drawing. It’s achieved a bit of calming and focus, though I could go back to bed.
World Kindness Day
Kindness is the thread that connects all sizes and types of communities and families. It’s what connects us all, one to each other.
This year has been a difficult one and kindness has helped people through it.
A big shout out to all those who have made the world a nicer, kinder place in such a time.
My favourite day of the year in my favourite season. I shall be observing it in my own way later on.
However you celebrate this day, as usual or changed as a result of the pandemic, have fun, be safe and be well and may your ancestors watch safely over you all.
It was an All Hallows’ Eve tradition in the UK to lay out places at the dinner table for those who had passed away during the previous 12 months as their one last meal before they finally go to the world of spirit, heaven, or whatever else you may call it. It was this night as it was believed that the veil ‘twixt the living and the dead was at its thinnest and loved ones could return to spend time here on Earth with their families.
This year, sadly, too many have done so as a result Covid-19, which has swept around the world taking far too many needlessly. While we no longer lay places for those who have passed, we can take time to honour their memory, their presence in our lives, how important they were and continue to be to us.
I actually finished colouring in one of my templates for this day. It has turned out both dark and colourful, and cutely spooky. While colouring today, I have been listening to a Hallowe’en playlist on Spotify.
I always have a lot of fun with Hallowe’en themed designs, and this one is no exception. Lots of skulls, potion bottles, eyeballs, ghosts, monsters, pumpkins, toadstools, gravestones, and more!
It’s taken me several hours to colour in just a portion of the design. I’m going to try to finish this one off in time for Hallowe’en.
Drawn with pen on paper, digitally coloured.
The template is available for members of the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group – free to join, and free to download. Terms and conditions for use apply.
A fun, quirky, cute Hallowe’en themed mandala was what was needed on Monday morning.
I started with the skull, without any clue as to what I was going to do with it. Then I thought about adding a mandala around it, and I wanted it in eerie, almost glowing colours.
As I drew the skull without any outlines, I thought I’d do the same for the rest of the mandala. I also kept a pretty simple colour palette – violets, teals and blues.
It’s worked out OK. It certainly is a bit different. The most important thing is that I enjoyed drawing it, and that is most probably the most important thing of all.
Sunshine and mood
Today, there’s some sunshine and that helps to keep my mood up. I did feel a bit better yesterday – sleep and Star Wars really helped! I may have felt better, but settling to art just didn’t happen yesterday.
I’m still so tired. I think it’s all to do with some anxiety at this time. There’s nothing specific for it, just general anxiety. I think it was triggered by my boiler breakdown and then the engineer fixing it, and the increasing cases of Covid combined with a national lockdown in Wales.
I’m not sure I can drive less than a mile to the cemetery I like to walk around. I feel safe there in a way I don’t walking around the streets and town I live in at this time.
Of course, worrying about whether I’ll be breaking the rules to take a walk adds to my anxiety.
What a pickle!
It may be that I baulk and just stay home, and check the rules carefully before I do venture forth for a walk.
Pumpkin knitting
Knitting pumpkins while watching Star Wars. Guaranteed to reduce my anxiety. And knitting, unlike crochet, is something I can do without having to look at my fingers.
Also, I’ve found it really relaxing and the feel of the knitted fabric in my fingers is soothing and pleasurable. As I’ve been kintting in stocking stitch, it’s a very smooth fabric. Crochet tends to have more texture to it. I think I’ll be doing more knitting and less crochet for a while.
Today I’m feeling a tad ‘meh’ to say the least. I’m tired despite sleeping plenty last night and yesterday. The weather is gloomy – leaden grey skies and rain. At least the autumn colours are glowing a little in the gloom.
So, today I just needed some arty fun. Nothing too big and overwhelming, something with a little whimsy, and no pressure for anything other than making art for art’s sake.
Hallowe’en is my favourite festival, so that’s where I started, along with pen and paper.
The drawing isn’t all that big – 8cm x 10 cm approx (3.25″ x 4″),s o it was relatively quick to complete. I scanned it in to tidy it up, but decided to add a spooky border around it, which I did digitally.
Then, I set to colouring the image, in Hallowe’en colours, mostly.
I played with texture brushes and how I can work with colour. I’m pleased to get some areas that seem to glow eerily. My brain won’t let me fully process that or go back to the image to add this effect to other design elements.
It was, after all, a few hours of fun, arting for art’s sake, and to do what I can to lift my mood.
Polymer clay
I spent sometime yesterday afternoon playing with polymer clay. The Sculpey clay I purchased is soft enough to work with almost straight out of the packet, which is a good thing.
I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to work with it. What I thought would work just didn’t for me. So, I’m going to let the ideas rumble around my subconscious and come up with how I could work with the clay my way.
I was disappointed with myself, but worked hard be easy on myself as this is a new skill to learn and develop. It won’t happen overnight. Also, there’s no rush or panic to get it done either.
In the meantime, I’m wrangling with myself as to whether I should invest in a pasta machine to roll out the clay or whether that’s a decision that can wait until I work out if polymer clay is for me or not.
This week, it’s a hallowe’en themed mandala design. Lots of cuteness and whimsy in the design, as well as a geometric background and a funky border.
I enjoyed drawing this, and I’ve enjoyed the partial coloring. Sadly, I don’t have time for more colouring today. I have a chap coming to sort my central heating out in a short while and my anxiety is heading through the roof now I need to get showered and tidy up the house a bit.
I have some social anxiety at the best of times, but the increasing prevalence and transmission of Covid19 and having contact with anyone is having it skyrocket. Hopefully, I’ll be able to calm down quickly enough after he’s done what he needs to do.
Anyways, if you’re not a member of the facebook group you’d be made most welcome. Membership is free, as are the templates I create for the members of the group.
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.
Art is the Adventure 