In today’s vlog I show you my artwork of the past week or so, good and not so good!
abstract art
Template Thursyay!
Here’s the link to today’s vlog on YouTube.
As the calendar turns to Thursday once again, it’s time for another coloring page / coloring template for the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans Facebook Group members.
This week, I ran with a kind of request from a member and created two drawings which feature a rectangular area into which a photobooth photo would fit. Or anything else you can think of putting there – a precious button or coin mounted on card, a single earring kept for sentimental value, a ticket, a clipping from a magazine or newspaper, a tiny piece of embroidery, or needlefelting, or polymerclay, or fossil, or a tiny envelope containing a precious note/letter, or, or, or. You’re only limited by your creativity, and the sizes of the nested rectangles!
I’m going to be intrigued to see what people produce with these. I can be tagged in posts as @Artwyrd on Instagram or Twitter. And as Angela Porter on Facebook.
I’ve also added a geometrical pattern in the middle of the sets of nested rectangles if you don’t want to add anything to this space.
Both images would fit on an A5 card (metric/UK size), or a folded letter sized sheet of card for those of you in the US. They also could be mounted on card and framed if wished.
I’ved used Arteza Ever Blend markers from the Gray Tones set to add colour to the designs. And, for the design on the left, I’ve added white highlights with a Sakura Soufflé pen.
In today’s vlog on Youtube, I talk about the designs, and add the highlights to the left hand design.
Share this post
Template Thursday…on WIP Wednesday?
Link to today’s vlog on YouTube.
Wednesday is the day when I create the coloring page / coloring template for the members of Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group. And I film and upload the process of drawing to YouTube.
This week is another page that is different. Someone said that they’d love it if I could create a drawing with a space for a photobooth image. So, I’m creating two such designs, in my signature Entangled art style.
I only have photobooth images from the Tim Holtz Idea-ology range, which I have in my stash. I’ve looked on Amazon Uk, and there are a few sets left, but not the pack I have. I think I’m going to have to trim the photo of the bloke down a bit.
Of course, if you don’t have photobooth images, you can use other photos, trimmed down, magazine or book images, stickers, or even buttons, coins, jewellery, and more attached to a sturdy piece of card sized to fit the frame. I’ll show some ideas, hopefully, in tomorrow’s video.
Share this post
Entangled Art and Sketchtember
Entangled Art WIP
Adding more colour to the entangled drawing on the left has taken quite a bit of time this morning. As well as using the Arteza Ever Blend markers, I used some of my Chameleon Color Tones pens too. There were some colours that I wanted to use that aren’t in the Arteza set.
It’s going to take quite a few hours more to finish adding colour to this drawing. That bright green section in the bottom left is going to need toning down! But that’s easy enough to do by ‘glazing’ with a duller colour. I also went over the pods on the bottom right with the colours again to intensify them a little, and added some deeper shadows as I did so.
It’s coming along nicely, apart from that bright green! Ho hum, I really do need to pay more attention to which colour I’ve actually picked up to use rather than just assuming it’s the colour I wanted to use.
Sketchtember Days 7 to 16
Yesterday evening and this morning, I spent time drawing small drawings featuring various seed pods. I’ve decided to take a different direction for Sketchtember and abandon the prompt list I’ve been following.
Why? I was a bit bored with drawing leaves, the occasional whole plant, the odd flower and various enlarged views of the various parts of flowers.
I love plants. I do. But I really love capsules, pods and seeds! So, I went with this idea
After splitting the large 9″ x 12″ sheet of Arteza marker paper up into smaller rectangles and squares, I used Copic Multiliner, Tombow fudenosuke and Uniball Unipin pens to draw the designs.
When the drawings were complete, I went to scan the sheet in and realised it wouldn’t fit on the glass plate of my A4 scanner/printer! Duh! But not a problem, I just split the page up into smaller pieces.
Next, I spent some time adding colour to a couple of the designs using the Arteza Ever Blend markers to test out the Arteza marker paper.
This paper is noticeably thicker than the Canson XL marker paper I’ve been using. But it works just as well with markers. It’s also as nice to draw on with the various pens I used.
The only thing I wished is that I’d remembered my scanner takes paper that is a little bigger than A4, but not this big! Not a problem though.
Share this post
Template Thursday…on a Wednesday???
Link to today’s time-lapse drawing on YouTube.
Here it is, the sneak peek at tomorrow’s coloring template for the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group.
This week, I was asked to create a mandala by Brett, who runs the group. So I did. And this one has a very autumnal theme to it. It is the first day of September and summer is waning away with autumn starting to make it’s way from the wings.
I’ve chosen a rather subdued palette for today’s addition of colour. No doubt I’ll have a different version for tomorrow’s posting!
Share this post
Chameleon Color Tones Coloring
Link to today’s vlog on YouTube.
After filming yesterday’s vlog, I decided to try using marker pens with a drawing I’d done on a Distress Ink background. The drawing on the left is the result of this experiment.
To add colour, I used Chameleon Color Tones marker pens. I chose colours that would be similar to those in the background.
I really enjoyed adding colour to this drawing. I’d forgotten how much I enjoy using the Chameleon pens and the ease of achieving gradients with these pens.
I completed the drawing with embellishments of white and yellow Sakura Soufflé pens, muted Sakrua Gelly Roll Moonlight pens, and some shiny areas of clear Sakura Glaze pen.
I was so happy with the result, that I started work on the drawing to the right, some of which I do in today’s vlog.
I really love the way that the background tones down the brighter colours of the marker pens. Which shouldn’t surprise me as marker pens are transparent! But it did surprise me!
Something else that I was struck with was how similar using markers is to how I add colour digitally. I haven’t made that connection before, but it is likely to inform me on my way forward in adding colour to my artwork. I may be trying to force water-soluble media and coloured pencils into behaving like markers, which is something that they’re not meant to do. I find it hard to work with the looser, possibly more chaotic water-based media, even though I love the effects that other seem to achieve with them. No matter what I do, I’m never totally happy with the end result, something I’ve blogged and vlogged about an awful lot.
Working with alcohol markers has shown me that I can work well with colour, with the medium that matches my artistic style – precise and controlled. The more chaotic, loose, aspects of this work come from the Distress Ink coloured backgrounds.
Now, if only I can accept this and focus on using markers in my work more than other media. Well, apart from digital coloring that is!
Share this post
Pink and Purple Entangled Art
Link to today’s vlog on YouTube.
I realised that the pinks and purples I added to this drawing were just a bit too bright and vibrant for my current tastes. I decided to use an aubergine Graphitint pencil with a waterbrush to tone them down somewhat. And I think it’s worked. I’m much happier with this now. I even like the areas where I’ve added just graphitint.
I’m not quite sure how I’ll finish adding colour. Do I add some Carbothello to the graphitint areas? Do I just continue with Graphitint alone? I don’t know for sure.
Share this post
Sunday Morning Entangled Art
Link to today’s vlog on YouTube.
A late summer, rather cool and sunny start to the day is something I’m luxuriating in, and that means arty pursuits.
I’ve completed one drawing, which I kind of review at the start of today’s vlog over on YouTube. I’m not too happy with the colour I’ve added at all. I started with Ecoline watercolour inks, but they felt too bright and jarring with the distressed, grungy, quite dark background. So, I then tried out distress inks, but I’d already gone down the rabbit hole of poor colour choices. When I’d finished adding colour, I had some rather dull, uninspiring colours that really didn’t fit in with other parts. So, I tried using coloured pencils to lift the colours, with not much success. Finally, I tried some chalk pastels, which helped somewhat. Finally, I added embellishments with a variety of gel pens,w hich helped to lift the colour somewhat, bu kind of seem over the top.
So, to shift my disgruntled arty mood, I thought I’d go back to an earlier drawing and use a really simple set of colours – cerise and purple – to add colour and shadow to the drawing. And white to help bring out highlights if needed, though I will use various gel pens to embellish this when I’m done. This is the drawing you can see at the top of the post.
I’m liking what’s happening with this drawing. I do have to layer the chalk to get an intensity of colour when using the tortillon to blend the colour out as well as working the chalk into the paper. I’m enjoying the way the different colours will blend nicely with each other. And I like the simple colour choices too.
I keep saying I’m going to complete drawings with monochrome, or nearly monochrome colour palettes. And I keep forgetting to do this when I leave a host of colours near me!
I shall persevere with this particular drawing, and see how I feel about once it’s all coloured.
As to the other one, well it’s being put to one side for a few days so I can return to it with fresh eyes and a fresh mind. Perhaps I’ll see it in a different way then.
Share this post
Pen Drawing and Distress Ink Background
Link to today’s vlog on YouTube.
I woke to morning sunshine and the lovely coolness of an autumn morning. I feel so much more alive on mornings like this. The coolness is so refreshing, invigorating. Although we’re not quite into autumn yet, there are hints it is on the way. Hints of leaves changing colour. Sunlight is much more golden rather than the bright quality of summer light. It really is wonderful!
It put me in the mood to create a coloured background (or two) to draw on. This time, I’m using a vintage brown gel pen from Arteza. Usually I’d use black, but I’m starting to explore the possibilities of other colours, particularly on such distressed, grungy backgrounds.
Today’s vlog starts with the creation of two coloured backgrounds, then starting to draw the design. This drawing isn’t finished, yet. When it is complete, then it’ll be time to add colour and/or contrast and highlight. Finally, it’ll be time to add embellishments.
I know that when these gel pens are dry they are water resistant, so the world of coloured media is open to me. I am likely to keep the colours with in the green and brown palette of this background, however.
Share this post
Template Thursday | ATCs and Cards
Link to today’s vlog on YouTube.
This week’s coloring template / coloring page for the members of the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans Facebook group is a bit different.
Instead of one large image, I created a sheet of eight, slightly smaller than ATC sized drawings.
ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) are 3½” x 2½” in size. The original idea was for artists, crafters, creatives to make small pieces of art and to swap them with other artists as a way to share and collect art. The idea was to swap and not sell, though people do sell them now, but many more do swap and collect work from other artists.
In today’s vlog, I colour and embellish one of the designs. Then, I turn it and another into first ATC cards and then into greeting cards.
This idea came about through a conversation with a group member who asked permission to create ATCs from my coloring templates for the group.
I do not have an Angel Policy for any of my templates in the group to allow them to be sold in any form. However, gifting or swapping them, or items made using them, is fine so long as the artist (me) is credited and the items are not sold.
For the individual coloring books, terms and conditions are mentioned in the books and should always be referred to.
Art is the Adventure 