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Tuesday Tip

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Angela Porter 24 April 2018 small watermarked

My #tuesdaytip is to do just this – create every day!

It doesn’t matter for how long – 5 minutes, 10 minutes, an hour, longer.  Just take time to create.

You can create something new.  You can work on practicing, say, your hand lettering. You could re-work or add to something you thought was finished.  You could try a new skill or technique or medium. You could doodle aimlessly.

There’s just so many possibilities, so many ways to be creative – art, crafts, cooking, gardening, wood-turning, sculpting, decorating, sewing, colouring, are just a few of the possibilities.

Just create.  Have fun.  Play. Relax.

Take a break from the worries, stresses and strains of everyday life by focusing on being creative.

I use art to help me find my inner calm and stay there.  My whole body exhales, calms and relaxes when I ‘art’. It’s a daily practice for me that has a similar effect as meditation and mindfulness does. Even if I don’t meditate every day, I ‘art’ every day, just for pleasure (as well as for my work).

When the days are very trying for me, as they have been lately due to a nightmare of a car breakdown and recovery that took 8 hours Saturday night into Sunday morning, I find creating collections of doodles and patterns for my BuJo or hand-writing quotes or words really soothing, especially if they are familiar to me.  That’s what I needed at that time, something I could do automatically, that didn’t cause more stress for me.  The rhythm and flow soothed. Just the process of repeating the drawings and drawing of letters involved practice and improvement of my favourite motifs, patterns, words; and when calm, I could move on to create something new.

Being creative isn’t just about making great works of art or craft, or any thing else.  It’s also about feeding your heart, your soul, your being and finding calm and joy in what you do.

 

 

Dangleday!

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Angela Porter 20 April 2018 dangleday coloured smallFriday means dangle day!

So, here’s my dangle for today.

It’s been rather warm and sunny here in the UK.  Spring flowers are blooming.  Trees are beginning to show their fresh-green finery. The birds are busy nest-building and singing their hearts out at dawn and dusk.

So, I wanted to reflect this in my design for today, along with some nice words, and to help me get those #weekendvibes going.

If you’d like to learn more about creating dangle designs, my book ‘A Dangle A Day’ is available for preorder now.  Just click on the link!

Over on the Angela Porter’s Colouring Book Fans facebook group it’s #furbabyfriday.

Wednesday Wisdom

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Angela Porter 18 April 2018

What does research mean for you?

For me, it’s trying out new materials, new methods, new styles of drawing, colouring, lettering, using my art in different ways, most recently that includes Bullet Journals (BuJo) and these little quote illustrations.

It’s looking at how other artists and illustrators work and letting what I see spark creativity in me, not to copy them, but to inspire myself to broaden my artistic ‘vocabulary’, to try those new things that develop my skills, to still do things in my own way but adding techniques to my toolbox of artistic expression.

This quote is also a work in progress, I’ve yet to work out what to do with the entangled drawing at the bottom – to leave it as it is in plain black, to add shading, to add colour.  At the moment I don’t know what to do with it, but I suspect it will come to me eventually.

Talking of work in progress wednesday, it’s the day the members over at the facebook group ‘Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans’ share their wip’s.  Why not pop along and join in? They’re lovely people, very friendly.

Tuesday Tip

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Angela Porter Mandala 17 April 2018 My #tuesdaytip is to experiment, and not be afraid to make a mess of things.

If things don’t turn out as you’d like, learn from them.

Question what you like and why you don’t like bits.

Ask yourself if there’s anything you can do to fix what you don’t like or work with what you don’t like.

Sometimes it helps to put what you’re not happy with to one side for a goodly while and come back to it with fresh eyes.  Often, what you think is a mess up is actually a nice part, even if it doesn’t fit in with the whole and could be useful in a different project.

Think of these areas as creative opportunities, experiences you can learn and grow from.

If you’re not going to use your creation as a finished piece, write notes on it about what you like and why you like it, what you don’t like and why you don’t like it in this piece but consider how you could use it more successfully to your tastes in the future.

Never throw anything out, there is a lot more to learn from your mess ups than from you successes!

BuJo May 2018 Cover Page

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dav I know, I know – a second blog post of the day.  However, I thought you might like to see my cover page for my BuJo for May 2018.

I’m well ahead of the BuJo game here I think, but I needed a bit of sparkle and shine today, and the colourful background I created just cried out for golden stars.

I had fun doing this, but now I have to focus on the other pages for this month, which will have a starry theme, or perhaps just golden, who knows yet?

Motivation Monday

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Angela Porter quote _15April2018

And hand-lettering is something I need to practice a lot!

I did draw the daisies and leaves on the background with a Unipin pen.  For the lettering, I sketched it out, scanned it in and then worked on it digitally.

I’m going to have to learn to embrace the human imperfections, as well as balance the weight of the black lines in the writing relative to the drawing.  It looks very heavy-handed, and not all that even.

Perhaps that actually suits the quote…

Don’t forget, you can pre-order my book A Dangle A Day, due out in September.

‘Believe’ bookmark

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Angela Porter believe bookmark 15April2018Believe … in yourself.

I thought I’d spend sometime today finishing off this bookmark design.

I’m not too happy with the colours, a bit too dark, but I can always re-colour at some point.

Digitally drawn and coloured, though I did sketch the writing out and scan it in to help me write it on my Microsoft Surface book with my Microsoft Surface pen.

#fundaysunday #sundayfunday #weekendvibes

 

Mixed media wip

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davI’ve been working on a mixed media piece and this is as far as I’ve got.  It needs a focal image or quote or something.  I just don’t know what to add…

Feel free to make suggestions!

As it’s #supplysaturday to create this I’ve used :

  • Distress oxide inks from Ranger
  • Paper Artsy Fresco paints
  • Distress inks
  • Stencils
  • Gold paint from Cosmic Shimmer
  • Texture paste and gold acrylic paint
  • Perfect pearls and water spray

Dangleday

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dangledayfriday angela porter 13 April 2019Friday means it’s #dangleday!

I thought I’d created a little dangle for this particular hashtag.

#createdonsurface #autodesksketchbook #microsoftsurface

A Dangle A Day, my upcoming book, is available for pre-order now.  In the book, I will take you, step by step, through drawing dangles, along with lots of charm and dangle designs you can use to create your own, just like this one!

If you’re already drawing dangles, I’d love to see what you create!

WIP Wednesday

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Angela Porter Wednesday 11 April 2018 This is my current work in progress, with a little bit of wisdom thrown in.

I planned the lettering out on Rhodia dot grid paper before scanning it in. I then re-drew the letters digitally.

I did a blog post with tips for hand lettering  yesterday, but there’s also some in my upcoming book A Dangle A Day, available for pre-order.

The patterns around the quote were also drawn digitally, using my faithful Microsoft Surface pen, along with my Microsoft Surface Book and Autodesk Sketchbook Pro.

I’ve started to add colour, though there’s quite a lot to do, including adding textures. It’s a pleasant way to spend time.

What I’m quite pleased with is the stone background behind the letters.  It’s not perfect, but I got my head around how I could achieve this.  Working in layers means I can do things I can’t do with traditional media, try as I might, but it involves working out how I can use layers to do different things as well as becoming aware of what I could use layers for.

Yes, I could watch and read tutorials, but there’s something satisfying about working out for yourself how to do things, and creating things in your own way.  That’s the sheer bloody-minded independence I have at times.

Perhaps I could learn quicker with tutorials, but I also know I can become quickly overloaded with information and instructions and ideas (something that frustrates me as before my two episodes of severe depression and anxiety I had no trouble at all…) so bit by bit I discover what I need to be able to do at any one time. Then practice using it until it’s easy to do and natural.

I do love how I can flip-flop between traditional media and digital work, as well as combining the two, whether it be a sketch that is then worked on digitally or using traditional media backgrounds to draw upon digitally. It also takes me a little bit out of my ‘comfort zone’ too, but in an enjoyable way.