After a day of focusing on inking in colouring pages, I needed something a little familiar and soothing to calm some overwhelmed emotions. So, I chose to make a little tag for my accordion journal. To decorate the tag, I created a monogram, a Zentangle style embedded letter A.
As I was drawing it, It struck me how much the folded patterns remind me of metamorphic rocks. That made me smile for sure!
I enjoyed the graphic black and white of the finished design, so I chose not to add any shade.
I’ve been very busy getting all the colouring templates done for Whimsical Houses. That has meant my time fir social media and so on has been limited.
However, when I have time, i live to draw for fun. At the moment it’s these weirdies! They make me smile, at the very least. I do hope they bring a smile to you too.
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.
I’ve created a mandala that has a definitely starry theme. There are many ways of picking the starry shapes out for sure. I thought that stars radiating outwards would signify light and hope and good things spreading out around the world, a world that needs so much good now.
I’ve spent the few waking hours of this morning adding colour to the mandala design in my previous post.
I found some contentment and peace when I got into the flow, that meditative state. Contentment and peace are very much needed at this time, and not just by myself, but so many around the world. And if my art gives one person a little smile, a lift in their heart and spirits, then it’s done a good job.
This mandala has been unconsciously inspired by the work of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement artists and artisans. Medieval illuminated manuscripts inspired the colour palette. These are huge sources of inspiration and wonder and joy to me, and have been for a long time. Only recently, I realised how much they influence my artistic style. I’m embracing this, as well as combining other sources of inspiration and my own particular twist.
I still find myself bothered by wanting to do things the ‘right’ way when it comes to adding colour or putting a design together. But slowly I’m figuring out that the only ‘right way’ is to do it my way. In this mandala, you get a little snapshot of what has fascinated me in the past three or so months, if not for the whole of my life! Sometimes you have to circle around and around and around until the blinding obvious is, well, obvious!
I say just about my whole life. Since I was nearly six years old, I’ve lived a few miles away from Castell Coch, a Victorian castle in a fanciful medieval and arts and crafts style that lies on Cardiff’s outskirts. The Third Marquis of Bute engaged William Burges. He designed and built the castle, built upon the foundations of a 13th Century medieval castle built by the ruthless Marcher Lord Gilbert de Clare. Burges had free reign to design the castle as he wished and to decorate and furnish it too. Money was no object for the Marquis of Bute.
It is an imaginative, romantic view of what medieval castles were like, but it is absolutely glorious! Burges was one of a number of artists who heralded the birth of the Arts and Crafts Movement.
As a child, I remember many Sunday afternoons spent wandering the castle in awe of its structure, the decorations and more. Although I don’t often visit now, it is always a wondrous time for me.
Wishing each and every one of you the very best of the season’s blessings, not just for the seasonal holidays, but for each and every day ahead of you.
This week’s colouring page is cute, whimsical and silly. It’s one in my Doodleworlds style. Although it has a kind of wintery, Christmassy kind of theme, Hallowe’en has to make an appearance too! After all, the mushrooms, monsters and drunken party skull would be most upset if they didn’t ‘art bomb’ the drawing!
It’s been a long time since I drew some Doodleworlds art, and I’m tad out of practice. But I think it’ll do.
If you’d like to print the colouring page, then you need to head over to the Facebook group called “Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans“. It’s available for free there.
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.
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.
Art is the Adventure 