I spent several very pleasurable hours drawing the picture below. It’s got a lot more line work in it that I’d add for colouring templates. It reminds me more of art I did pre-colouring book work.
Now, all I have to do is to decide whether to colour or not!
I’ve just spent a few happy hours drawing a piece of ‘doodle art’ after having learned much yesterday from mimicking the style of piccandle. I’v managed, I think, to make it much more ‘Angela’. I may have done similar stuff in the past, but not quite like this.
This has a fair number of design elements that are firmly in the realms of ‘Angela’ art.
It’s now been printed on watercolour paper as well as some alcohol marker friendly paper ready for colouring – my next task.
I had a bit of a surprise package today. Inside were some more stamps and dies that I designed and have now been produced by Hampton Art. They’re perfect for card making, paper crafts, planners, journals and scrapbooks!
I’ve also coloured in the doodle art from yesterday. I used a mixture of Copic Ciao markers, Chameleon markers and some coloured pencils. I’m quite pleased with the colouring, learned some new tricks with the Chameleon markers, which means I’d do things a little differently if I coloured it again.
At the weekend, I finished all the illustrations for the upcoming colouring book ‘By the Sea‘, to be one of the titles in the Escapes series from Dover publications.
So, over the last couple of days I’ve been doing other things, some arty, some not. However, after watching some videos on YouTube by piccandle, I thought I’d have a go at their particular style of doodle art, and this is my homage to them.
I had a lot of fun drawing this I must admit. It’s full size is shy of A4 in size, and I drew it on squared paper, scanned it in, cleaned it up using GiMP, then printed it out ready to colour, most probably with Copics, Spectrum Noir Illustrator markers and Promarkers.
Just like hobbits, I believe there’s only one thing better than mushrooms and that is MORE mushrooms!
In my case that means more needle felted mushrooms.
So, I’ve learned a fair amount about needle felting in making these mushrooms and I look forward to creating more items as time allows. I suspect my own whimsical, doodly drawings will be a source of much inspiration.
It is, however, much quicker to draw and colour things than to needle felt them.
The large mushroom took around 10 hours to finish. The smaller ones have taken between 4 and 6 hours to create.
Now, all I have to do is to decide what to do with them!
The last four hours have been spent happily stabbing – lots of stabbing. All to create my first needle felted ‘sculpture – a mushroom.
The photo isn’t brilliant (it is after 2am here in the UK, and I lost track of time..), and grey isn’t my usual colour of choice; however I used it for the mushroom as I have lots of grey wool and if it didn’t work out, it would be no great loss.
However, it has worked out. It’s been a bit of a learning thing, and I still have lots to learn, learning that can only be done by doing it seems.
I do have a few coloured ‘circles’ to add, and then I’m sure I’ll want to add beads and stuff to add sparkle (that inner raven of mine demands sparkle whenever I can manage it!).
Overall, I’m really quite pleased with the outcome so far!
I’ve not done any sculpting for many, many years, and only then with clay. I enjoyed working with clay, but I don’t have the facilities to do that now, but I can use wool and felt it, and I really have enjoyed the felting. It’s easy on my fingers too (apart from the one stab to my thumb when I missed the mushroom a tad!). It’s sculpting in terms of building the form up, rather than removing material to reveal a form, such as you’d do in stone sulpture. The building up appeals to me far more.
I’ll finish this mushroom, then I’m sure there’ll be more things to be made.
I’m busy drawing colouring templates for a book entitled By the Sea, one in the ‘Escapes’ range of colouring books from Dover Publications.
When I completed this template, I couldn’t resist printing it and colouring it in.
This is now finished! It’s taken a lot of time over the past few days, but I’m happy with it now.
It’s been completed on A3 mixed media paper using a variety of media. Details have been added using coloured pencils and iridescent/metallic paints, hence the shimmery, shiny spot to the left. These details are a nightmare to photograph, but hopefully you’ll get enough of an idea from what you can see in the image.
Adding the iridescent patterns was a bit like using ithildin; I had to have the light at the right angle so I could see what I was doing and that also involved me cricking my neck at awkward angles!
My only problem now is to put a price on my work to sell it; so any sensible help/advice would be greatly recieved! Oh, I also need to find a name for it too…
Another page for you to print and colour, if you wish.
All I ask is that you please respect my copyright to the image; it is for personal use only, not for any commercial projects either in it’s entirety or in part. If you share the image, please share the link to this page instead! Of course, I’d love to see how you colour it!
Happy New Year to you all, and may it be a year full of colouring and creativity, peace and love to all.
I know, it’s a little early, but I thought I’d post this today, as well as a bit of a personal review of the past year.
2016 has been an interesting year for me, one of some major changes in my life.
It started with me being a science teacher, off again on long-term sickness due to a recurrent bout of intense anxiety and depression. I was so distressed about having to return to work as a teacher, about what else I could do. I couldn’t think straight. My capacity to read and understand what I was reading or remember it was severely impaired. I had trouble going out of my home. Anything to do with my job caused me an intensifying of these symptoms and the most distressing nightmares I’ve ever had.
Teaching has changed so much in the 28 years I was a science teacher. The pressures have increased, both in terms of workload and behaviour/attitudes of the students that is a reflection of how society has changed too. All of this resulted in triggers for my depression/anxiety/low self-esteem/low confidence.being overwhelmed by even little things. No matter how well people told me I was doing as a teacher (senior teachers, colleagues, inspectors (I never had less than outstanding in the last two inspections I was seen teaching in), I never believed them and thought it was just a fluke.
Because of this, I kind of knew that I’d have to leave teaching, but didn’t know if I could do so financially. I’m single, responsible for all my bills and so on, so whatever I did I had to make sure I had some kind of financial security.
Eventually, I made the decision to leave teaching and to become a self-employed artist/illustrator based on the success of the adult colouring books I’ve done (of which there are now many – listed on my amazon author page), and that happened in the early part of the summer, officially.
This was, arguably, the best decision I’ve made for a long time. The difference it is making to my mood/mental health, as well as progress in counselling is quite remarkable. My only worry at the moment is my first tax return and tax bill in the early part of next year!
I know I have a lot to do to create a portfolio and to come up with projects that will keep contracts coming my way, but I do have some breathing space at the moment, with just one book to be completed asap.
On the back of this decision, my home had a major clear out, again in the early summer. Though it’s not entirely finished, enough progress has been made for now. I now need to have a major de-stash of art materials to make space for either new, or just easier organisation of the materials i use most often.
I also discovered I have quite strong views politically about how our society should be a lot more caring of those who need help, for whatever reason, and how important the British NHS is and how much more it should be valued by those in power in the country, and not just seen as a cash cow for their buddies and supporters. It took me a long time, but I finally worked out that my beliefs/views politically mostly aligned themselves with the traditional Labour Party (not ‘new Labour’, which seems to me just a lighter shade of blue than the Conservative Party). So, I joined the Labour Party. Yet to make it to my first meeting, but no doubt I will do.
I also have become involved with Time to Change Wales as a Champion. This is an organisation whose campaign is to end the stigma and discrimination that surrounds mental illness. I’ve yet to tell my story at an event, but that’s on the cards for sometime in the early part of 2017. Again, this is something I have strong feelings about, especially the self-stigma that prevented me from recognising and accepting I had a mental illness (complex post traumatic stress disorder(cptsd)) and seeking help.
I am really grateful that I did recognise the cptsd, and have made the major change of going self-employed as a way of looking after myself and being happy in how I earn a living, and it doesn’t even seem like work most of the time!
I’m grateful for those who have stuck with me through thick and thin, offering me the support and encouragement that they are able to.
I’m grateful to those who have created difficult circumstances for me, and those circumstances have either shown me how far I’ve come along in healing, or where I need to focus some attention on as my counselling continues.
So, thank you 2016 for moving me forward in my life with the challenging events, for showing me how far I’ve come along in my healing journey, and for the fun and laughter that have helped me keep going.
Thank you to all those who have believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself, who have given me amazing opportunities to create and share art with others via the medium of adult colouring books, and I look forward to all the opportunites that come along in 2017 for me to continue to create and share with others.
Here, as promised, is the line art for the image above. If you’d like to download/print and colour, please do so. All I ask is you respect my copyright, you use it just for personal use, not for commercial gain, and if you share your coloured image, please link back to my blog.Enjoy, and thank you!
Art is the Adventure 