This week’s template for the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group members is a typically ‘Angela’ Entangled with Doodleworlds kind of template. It’s full of lots of details, and barely an open space in the design!
I enjoyed drawing this one yesterday, and I vlogged the process. If you’re interested in watching it, here’s the link to the vlog on YouTube. Likes, subscribes and comments are most appreciated.
This morning, I created some backgrounds to draw on. All the paper as Fabriano Medioevalis (3.3″ x 5.5″).
With three of the papers, I used white Posca pen to draw a pattern before colouring the paper with Distress Inks. For the other four, I just used distress inks.
Finally, I chose one of the papers to draw an entangled garden design on. I used a Uniball Eye pen (micro) and a Signo DX 0.38 pen.
It was all a bit of an experiment, especially the Posca pen. I was, however, quite happy with the results, and I now have a little collection of coloured papers to draw on when a large, blank sheet of white paper overwhelms me. And of course, they’ll be useful for the morning vlogs too!
I’ve yet to decide what I’d like to do with today’s drawing. It needs some shadow, highlight and/or colour to bring it to life. I’m going to sit with that for a while.
Of course, I’ve made a vlog of this mornings arty experiments and, here it is:
Now, I need to turn my attention to gathering sketches for my next colouring book for the Creative Haven series.
Yesterday, I used one of my rather mechanical entangled drawings last week to generate some tiles and surfaces in Repper. I figured out my colour palette and how I wanted to add colour yesterday, and this morning I continued to work on the design for over an hour.
Rather than having radial symmetry, this design has two axes of symmetry – horizontal and vertical.
I did record this process, and I found myself talking about some things that are too personal to share. These were some things I needed to voice, to hear with my ears rather than my inner voice. The process was valuable to me, but not something I want to be available to all and sundry.
Instead, I deleted the audio, and replaced it with a brief voice over introduction and some music to accompany the sped up video recording. I condensed over an hour of work into about fifteen minutes.
I also learned that voice over is entirely possible to do, but that I need to find a different way to do this. The function I used in Movavi only gave me a few seconds of voice over time. I’ll work it out for sure.
Yesterday, I worked to add colour to my drawing using Distress Inks as watercolours. I was soon really disheartened and disappointed with the colours.
This morning, I decided to finish adding colour and then to try adding details with a white Posca pen and various fineliners and gel pens to see if I could achieve something I felt was OK. Also, I used it as an opportunity to learn.
I’m still not at all sure of the partly finished artwork, but it is what it is.
This morning, I decided to use Distress Inks to colour a 20cm x 20cm piece of smooth heavyweight cartridge paper and then to draw upon it. I also recorded all of this process as a youtube video (see below).
The paper is a bit more coloured than in this photo – the camera washed the colours out a bit. I will scan it in before I do anything else with this drawing for sure.
It’s always so nice to draw on a coloured background. White is such a stark colour, but a necessary one for so much of my work.
I just wanted to draw for the joy of drawing this morning. I had no fixed idea of what I was going to do or motifs and patterns I wanted to use.
Now, I have a drawing with a background colour that I’d like to add more colour to. That gives me the opportunity to use Distress Inks a bit like watercolours. And as blues form the background, I can use a monochrome palette of some of the blues I used – Tumbled Glass, Broken China, Peacock Feathers and a touch of Evergreen Bough (I know, it’s a green, but it is a blue-green!).
Here’s the youtube video for today
I finished drawing ‘Passion’ this morning. The original is black pen on white paper, but I’ve manipulated it a little for the social media post. I kept to a relatively small number of motifs in the design, which gives it a bit more of a coherent ‘feel’.
Adding colour to the design was on my mind as I completed the design. This can be seen in the larger motifs that I’ve drawn.
In fact, I did start to add colour during my morning drawing vlog – and to a disastrous effect, in my opinion. I’m just so glad that I scanned the drawing in before adding colour. Now, I can work on it at my leisure digitally.
I may very well start another drawing in the series tomorrow morning. I don’t know what word I’ll choose yet. Maybe you’d like to leave a suggestion or two in the comments!
Here’s the vlog I recorded this morning:
This morning, I finished drawing the entangled design on parchment and started to add colour. I did a really untidy job of using masking tape to hold down the curled parchment. It worked though. I’ve not completed adding colour, yet. I may do so through the day today, once I’ve done other errands.
Then, I have to decide what to do with this small piece of art. Do I mount it on black or white? Do I turn it into a card or something else? Or should I just let it live in a sketchbook of some kind of mine? I dunno.
It’s nice, every now and then, to do something a little different. There are things I learn and realise, especially as memories of the last times I created something with parchment come back to my awareness.
All good fun, that’s for sure!
Yup, a video. I’m finding it really useful to think out loud as well as share my art, inspiration, and random ramblings with people.
There are, apparently, two kinds of thinkers – those who are aware of their thoughts, and those who aren’t until they can speak them out loud. I’m the latter.
Being able to speak about my art, albeit through YouTube, is helping me understand more about myself, my art, and bringing thoughts out into spoken words so I can identify them.
These thoughts are different to the thoughts I journal about. That’s curious to me. Perhaps that’s simply because I’m creating art, talking to people who are interested in my art, and that’s the main focus.
This is a work in progress for sure. And by talking about my process, I realise that I’m not ‘doodling’ as such. There is thought, consideration and process going on as I create.
All I can say is thank you to the people who take the time to watch, who let me know I’m not speaking to myself, and that they’re enjoying watching my arty creativity in action.
This is the final installment of the frame/background I’ve been creating as my morning warm up art.
Today, I finish adding colour and also apply Distress Microglaze to bring out the colours.
Thanks to everyone who’s taken some time to watch my videos, leave a comment, like the videos and/or subscribe to my YouTube channel.
It’s nice to be able to share my art in process, but also to share insights into myself, my artistic processes. Indeed, giving voice to my thoughts makes me aware of them. As I work, I’m usually oblivious to the thoughts that happen as I create. Either they’re mostly in my subconscious, or so ephemeral and passing that I don’t notice them.
I know, not another video. But yes, another. In this one I start to add colour to my drawing, and chat about my method and what makes me smile in terms of colour, and the struggles I have in coming to terms with that.
I’m going to go and work on a mandala now, for Mandala Monday of course!
Art is the Adventure 