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recent art and thoughts

Angela Porter2 Comments

The woes of social media…

I’ve been almost totally absent from social media for a while. For a few reasons, I’ve been finding it somewhat overwhelming. I’m seriously considering how many social media platforms I use, deciding which ones suit how I enjoy communicating, and how to sort this out. I’ve not made any decisions other than keeping my blogs, Curious Stops, and Tea Shops.

The realisation has dawned on me about how much time social media can suck from my day, but also how much energy. Also, to be honest, I really don’t get social media. I have the same problems interacting with people on social media as I do with humans in person! Ah, the wonders of neurospiciness! And I’m slowly working out how to balance my energy levels as I learn more about my neurospiciness.

Two YouTube videos and one livestream over Monday and Tuesday depleted my energy levels. I enjoyed creating the content for my YouTube channel, but I had no idea how much this affected me. I had to go back to sleep a couple of times between 7 a.m. and 11:30 a.m.

Postie saves the day with New Noodlers Ink!

It was only a door knock by my friendly postie that got me up and moving. The last time I saw my postie was last week when I was suffering an IBS flare-up with a migraine; I was feeling and looking more than a tad grim. He asked if I was feeling better. I said kind of but migraine-y, which was true. But two mugs of tea, some food and some pain killers has worked it’s magic.

I’m glad it did, as he had a parcel with a bottle of Noodlers Walnut ink for me. After some brunch, I had to clean out one of my TWISBI Eco fountain pens and fill it with this ink. The first try of the ink was disappointing as it looked pale orange-brown; I was hoping for a much richer colour. However, it darkened to a beautifully rich, red-brown colour as it dried. The ink is semi-bulletproof, which means it’s waterproof primarily, but some will dissolve in water. That’s something I want to try!

Oh, and there are more semi-bulletproof inks in the Noodlers range. The green-brown one intrigues me!

A flip-through of my Recent Art…

So, even though I’ve been absent from social media, including this blog, for a while, I’ve been enjoying creating different kinds of art.

One of the videos I released on YouTube was a flip-through of my recent art. This included my more abstract, twiddly, entangled art, creepy-cute drawings, and some whimsical people and animals inspired by the work of Danielle Donaldson.

All of the art I’ve produced I’ve enjoyed for various reasons. Learning how I can ‘overegg’ a drawing with too much texture/pattern and not enough open space is a lesson I have yet to learn.

Working with some of the lessons in Danielle Donaldson’s book The Art of Creative Watercolour is helping me better understand watercolour, colour mixing, and how I like to work with this medium.

I’ve enjoyed drawing ‘littles’ from the same book by Danielle – whimsical people, often with wild hair and fun clothes. Then, I tried drawing cute, whimsical critters in the same manner.

However, I’m so used to drawing with a fineliner pen that using pencil instead of pen to draw the characters and adding colour felt wrong. However, looking back on my sketchbook work, I realised I immensely like it! What a revelation!

So, I tried drawing an ‘illuminated letter’ with pencil and adding colour with soft, pastel watercolours. That still doesn’t feel ‘right’ to me. My love of Celtic, Anglo-Saxon and Medieval manuscripts doesn’t let me use just pencil for such work. That’s not a problem at all!

My creepy-cute drawings bring me joy and laughter as the characters appear on the page! Ink is the suitable medium for these, though I may try the Danielle Donaldson method out of curiosity at some point. I enjoy the more ‘cartoony’ feeling of the black fineliners, but I’m open to experimenting with a different style.

The creepy-cute critters have lent themselves to using alcohol markers and cross-hatching/textural patterns to bring them more to life. I’ve particularly enjoyed using more vintage colours for them.

I’ve made some choices with the creepy cuties that I regret in hindsight. Colour choice really can be an issue for me. Using a limited palette is the best way for me to work, though I sometimes forget that (and I rolled my eyes at myself as I typed that!).

I can’t say often enough that I love creepy cuties! Pure imagination and fun, and they bring out the pink and sparkly goth in me!

Exploring motifs based on a shape.

This was a livestream I did on YouTube. It’s a technique I love to do, and encourage viewers to draw along with me.

So, I begin with a shape or basic motif. Then, I work on variations of inner patterns, basic shapes, etc. I drew some variations in ink, left others with pencil lines, and added colour with watercolour pencils and a waterbrush. The brush was used to pick up colour from the tip of the pencils, allowing me to get delicate colours.

I managed to fill a page with variations in my A5 sketchbook. However, I didn’t get to add colour and details of highlights/shading to more than one and a half lines.

I really enjoy YouTube live streams. Interacting with people through live chat is a lot of fun. It’s also nice to know that people are joining in with me and finding inspiration in what I share, both the art and my words.

A Stylised Ammonite

The image at the top of this blog post was created in another YouTube video.

To start, looked back at the page full of the motifs created in the livestream mentioned above. My aim was to use it to make a pattern.

Now, I love ammonites. Indeed, spirals of all kinds have always fascinated me. There’s something so beautiful and joyful about drawing a spiral, or any curved line. Even my ‘straight lines’ have a softer feeling to them than those drawn with a ruler. Curvy seems to be a signature of my art! The imperfections are a manifestation of the way I draw, and I’m good with that. I’m human, not robot or AI!

Anyway, I started with a small ammonite, drawn with an 0.2 fineliner. I filled it with the Zentangle pattern Diva Dance. Diva Dance reminds me so much of the patterns you can see on shells, and it’s a pattern I love to use in various ways.

After that, I used a pencil to draw a guideline for an outer spiral. The chosen motif was repeated to fill the space and to create the pattern.

The next job was to add an underpainting. As I was completing work on the page of motifs, I’d used a Van Dyke Brown watercolour pencil to add shadows to some of the motifs. I loved this so much more than graphite and a tortillon, so I decided to use a burnt umber Inktense pencil to do similar here.

Inktense was chosen because it’s waterproof when dry. This was important as the paper I was using wasn’t watercolour paper.

The next step was to add colour. I decided to use reds, yellows, and pinky oranges for some of the motifs and turquoise and green for others. Complementary colours are one of my favourite ways of using colour. In this instance, I added the watercolour pencils to the paper and blended it with a waterbrush. I should have used a finer brush for the smaller and narrower areas. However, I wasn’t too worried if the colours ran or overspilled; this was more of a sketchbook page to try an idea out rather than a finished artwork.

I can have a tendency to hyperperfectionism. I’m learning that it’s okay not to be perfect in the art I create, that it’s OK to make mistakes or be a bit slapdash. I know I can re-draw the design, improve it, and choose how to add colour.

I often think that I’d be better off adding colour digitally—creating tradigitalart. That way, I can easily change my mistakes. That’s not something I can do on a livestream. But if I decide to redraw this design, I can scan it and colour it digitally.

Overall, I was pretty pleased with how it turned out. I’m painfully aware of all the icky bits of the artwork, but I remind myself that it’s not a finished work.

Closing thoughts

I need to consider and think about a lot of stuff. The biggie is not tiring myself out, so I’m good for nothing for several days. Social media is a constant bugbear for me. I prefer to create and explore art, knit, nap or read. Oh, and cook, eat and sleep and do all the other things that I have in my life.

I have to think about how to increase my income, too, trying to forget about my worries about AI art. So much is overwhelming, though. I will get there.

All I know, for now, is that I really enjoyed creating YouTube videos and doing a live stream. There was something energising about it, as well as tiring, in a good way.

I may be ‘missing for a couple of days, especially as I have something ‘people-y’ to do this evening; as lovely as it will be, it will exhaust me.

But for now I will sign off and do some drawing and get ready to pop out for a while this evening.

Illustrated Journal – 2 Feb 2023

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Illustrated Journaling

For a long while, I’ve been playing around with hand lettering, using my writing in art, and the idea of marrying together writing and drawing. Today, I started a new sketchbook dedicated to this idea and exploration. I woke up this morning with the concept clear in my head, and so I did!

A sketchbook is a perfect place to experiment and try things out. I’ve already got various notes on this page reflecting on what is working and what isn’t. And there’s some reflective journaling too. My handwriting is a mess. That Distress Ink-ed dot grid paper looks really grubby. The Inktense pencils and the use of a water brush may not have been a good idea on the sketchbook paper. However, it is a sketchbook. It’s not meant to be anything other than a place to explore, experiment, and unearth hidden thoughts and ideas.

The last paragraph had a lot of negatives in it. I do like the border, and this is something I’ll continue to do. The idea of collating notes onto a page intrigues me; even adding pockets and other things from junk journaling could be an idea. Places to store notes about ingredients and so on. I enjoy researching all kinds of things, including foods, ingredients, spices and condiments.

Food illustrations

What is new is me drawing food! I don’t know if I’ll ever draw a plate or bowl of food, but the ingredients or various elements interest me. So I’ve written a note to myself to see if I can make patterns or motifs for my more abstract, non-representational work from them.

I also must learn that colours can be imperfect; close enough is good enough! The ginger jam (more correctly, ginger preserve) was troublesome. But it’s good enough for now.

Soothing fraught emotions and thoughts

I’ve been relatively open with my mental and emotional health challenges, to a degree at least. And I thought it would be an excellent idea to combine that with food, and maybe more.

Art and food are two ways I can soothe and comfort myself. On good days, I’ll be adventurous with cooking. It may be a takeaway delivery or something quick and easy on bad days. On the in-between days, comforting food is the go-to, often more traditional recipes.

Cooking is always a challenge as a singleton. However, the motivation to cook and feed me wholesome and healthy food can be a considerable challenge, especially on my fraught and frazzled days.

Where will this lead?

I don’t know. I know it’s a personal project, but a friend and I have talked about collaborating on a project about cooking. So this may be a way of kicking the project off, even though I am still determining where it will go. If nothing else, it will give me a way to draw new and different things, explore various techniques, both in art and cooking, and reflect on all kinds of things. I’ll get to practice my handwriting and hand lettering as well. And perhaps work out how to create a pleasing layout!

This will, I trust, encourage me to take more care of myself in terms of nutrition. In addition, adding daily entries for at least one meal will hold me accountable.

A variety of meals/dishes will be required too and so will stop me from eating the same old things again and again! That’s a rut I can get stuck in. Also, if I find something I enjoy, I will eat it again and again, day after day, until I become sickened by it! That is not good either!

Am I overloading myself with projects?

I have a book to do for Creative Haven by the end of June. There are some self-published colouring books that I’d like to do too. Then there’s my creepy-cute monsters project. YouTube. Writing. And more!

I often can’t see the wood for the trees. Being able to prioritise has never been a strong skill of mine. However, I do need variety and options of what to work on. Otherwise, the work can become stale and uninspiring to me. And I can so easily get overwhelmed by the enormity of the task, or tasks, to be done. And then there’s the fear of failure, of not being good enough, that results in procrastination.

Also, I know that at the moment, my emotions and, thus, my mental state isn’t the best; new challenges in life outside of art and creativity. But that means that art and creativity are more important to me to help me calm, relax, get in the flow and give my mind and emotions a break!

I’m sure I’ll figure it out. I’m not one for schedules of work day by day and hour by hour. That may be something I need to look into.

But not now. Now I need a mega-big mug of good strong tea! I’m British (Welsh), and we think tea will solve everything!

With a little help from a friend…

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What’s going on here, then? Some of my cuties caught in action… Sometimes we all need the help of a friend to dispel the emotional storm clouds that gather. This little, cute, pink critter seems to be spreading lots of love and a helping hand and I’m sure he’d be happy if he made you smile too!

Tradigital art – drawn with a ‘hard’ Tombow Fudenosuke pen on SeaWhite of Brighton All Media paper and colour added digitally in Clip Studio Paint.

Happy New Year! Blwyddyn Newydd Dda!

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A mandala full of radiating light to wish each and every person, living thing and the Earth itself a better future with the changing of the calendar. May love and compassion, peace and understanding, tolerance and acceptance increase with each and every day, and may there be a huge increase in basic human decency towards humanity, our fellow animals, and the plants and other living things we share this planet with. And let’s not forget the Earth too, the only place we know of in the vastness of the Universe where we can exist.

Entangled and Zentangle Inspired Art | Drawing Practice

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Pen drawing. Alcohol markers, white gel pen and Emott everfine pens.

I am still healing from the damaged intercostal muscles, but I’m so much better. Not quite at 100%, but noticeably better for sure.

I’m able to draw for quite a while, when sat in my comfy chair, which isn’t at my desk/computer. But I’m keeping my hand-eye coordination well practiced and my creativity flowing somewhat too.

This was a design I wasn’t sure about at first, but the colours I really like and they bring the design to life. I never would’ve thought I’d use colours that remind me of old china – blue, white and antiqued ‘gold’. Yet I have and I really love the colours, and that has surprised me, greatly!

In today’s YouTube video I show this and some other pieces of art I’ve worked on over the last couple of weeks and talk through them for 15 mins. Then, I start drawing an entangled art kind of design that you can, hopefully/ follow along with.

Entangled Drawing Practice

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I’ve been slowly working on this drawing over several days. Little by little, it’s been finished and brought to life with colour.

I’m not quite finished yet; I’m still adding white dots as highlights! That’ll take me a goodly amount of time, no doubt.

Slowly is the correct description of my ability to work, slowly and a little at a time with breaks in between. This muscle healing process is very slow and I’m really learning I can’t push myself too hard. But I really do feel I’m making some kind of progress, which is all that matters.

Hallowe’en DoodleWorlds Colouring Page

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I had a lot of fun drawing this one earlier today. Hallowe’en is my favourite time of year, along with autumn. I love the ability to celebrate it in a whimsical way.

If you’d like to print this template, it’s available to members of the Facebook Group “Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans”.

Draw With Me | Stylised, whimsical, imaginative seashell No.3

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Click on this link to view the YouTube tutorial video.

Day 3, shell 3. This time a little more complicated, or so it seems. I took some imaginative liberties with this one, and that’s fine! I’m not trying to accurately draw these shells, just get the essences that make the shell identifiable. Then, I want to add my own ideas of patterns and colours and alter things a tad.

Making those imaginative changes was an enjoyable thing to do. I hadn’t realised how much I do this in my art generally. Sometimes, it takes a while for me to have that kind of insight – this one took about 20 years!

I’m also really chuffed that my YouTube channel has hit 750 subscribers! I was amazed and humbled when I achieved one subscriber. 750 is beyond what I imagined. I’m both amazed and humbled by this. So a huge thank you to all who have subscribed.

Draw With Me | A sketchbook page of oyster shells – Part 3

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Click on this link to view the video tutorial for drawing the fourth oyster shell on YouTube

I’m about halfway through filling this slightly smaller than A5 sketchbook page with different kinds of oyster shells. Today’s even has a pearl in it!

I’m using the same peachy-pink and warm grey alcohol markers, but with the addition of a pale dusky kind of mauve colour for the shadow inside the shell.

I never claim to be an expert at colouring. However, using a very limited colour palette works in my favour, that’s for sure! The end result is good enough, which is what I always aim toward these days. Perfection is something that is unattainable. So good enough is just great!

I’ve been wintering on, both in speech and typing, about the purpose of my YouTube channel. Synchronicity struck today as two quotes about art appeared on my Facebook newsfeed today:

“Go into the arts. I’m not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”

Kurt Vonnegut

“The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So, write and draw and build and play and dance and live only as you can.”

Neil Gaiman

These two quotes eloquently sum up what I think I want to bring to YouTube, my social media, and to you.

Confidence to create art just for the pleasure of it and in your own way too.

Building self-confidence is the first step, and sometimes that needs help, instruction, step by step methods, and suggestions for variations and making it your own.

We all can draw. We just have to unlearn that drawing isn’t always about photographic representations. It’s about self-expression, and each of us expresses ourselves differently. Maybe in a similar way to others, but uniquely our own.

To have a bit of confidence to do this, in a sketchbook, where no one else has to see until you’re ready to share in a supportive environment, is all that is needed. I wasn’t lucky enough to have a supportive environment for creating art until I was in my 40s. If I can provide a supportive environment here, around social media, on YouTube, and perhaps in a closed Facebook group or some such place, then I will.

It’s nice to find a purpose, don’t you think? I do, and I’m glad I’ve found that purpose for YouTube at the very least.