Here’s a plethora of small drawings I’ve done over the past couple of days when I’ve woken up repeatedly through the night and needed to cool down before I could sleep again..
The various sizes are : circles – 8.5 cm and 10.5 cm diameter squares – 7 cm x 7 cm and 7.5 cm x 7.5 cm rectangles – 12.7 cm x 7.7 cm
Media used : Sakura pigma micron and sensei pens Distress Inks to colour the backgrounds Inktense pencils and Kuretake Zig Clean Colour Real Brush pens – colour spread with a damp brush Claire Fontaine Mixed Media Paper and St Cuthbert’s Mill Bockingford watercolour paper.
I sure do have a lot of colour, shadow and light to add to these! It takes me a lot longer to add colour and so on than it does to draw them!
Also, I have a larger drawing that is a work in progress. I think I’ll turn my attention to that one for a while.
These are two drawings I’ve been working on over the past three or so days. The whole page is A4 in size.
To draw them, I’ve been using Pilot Kakuno fountain pens with black ink. To add shadow and colour I’m using a mixture of Stabilo Carbothello, Daler-Rowney Artist’s Drawing and Prismacolor Ebony pencils. Along with some paper tortillons to blend the colour out. I’m also keeping the colour palette pretty limited – graphite black, two green Carbothello and Sanguine and Sepia Drawing pencils.
It’s fun to draw with a fountain pen. It’s also a lot of fun to use graphite and colour to bring depth and dimension to the drawing on paper rather than digitally for a change. I like to work both digitally and traditionally. Art is art!
I suspect the rest of the day is going to be filled with artsy pursuits, including finishing adding colour to these drawings.
We had snow overnight and the air is filled with a white fog too. Even though the layer of snow is just a couple of centimetres thick, it’s enough for me to want to stay inside. Snow is pretty to look at, but my sense of balance means it’s safest for me to stay cwtched up in the warm!
Do you know the kind of days where it’s hard to get out of bed? Days when your body and soul need a day cwtched up safe and warm in bed? Well that was today for me.
A day spent doing very little. A bit of art. Watching geology videos on youtube. Playing games on my phone.
I’m now vertical, at my desk. I’ve scanned in one of my little drawings (approx 3¼” x 4″, or 8cm x 10cm) and digitally added a background, shadow and highlight. The shadow and highlight are a tad patchy, but they do help to bring the drawing to life.
Simply because sometimes drawing small is just what the soul needs.
The original drawing is about 3¼” x 4″ in size. I used 05 and 01 Sakura Pigma Micron pens in a Seawhite sketchbook. Background colour and colour added digitally.
Today I’ve been busy with administration, inking the illustration for the cover of my next book in the Creative Haven series, so my blog was pushed down the list of ‘to-dos’ a bit. But I’ve got here!
What isn’t typical is, perhaps, the colour palette. I chose the colours rather intuitively, letting my emotions guide me. I started with cool, calming blues and greens in the centre. All the colours are quite soft and gentle, until I got to the outside border where I used brighter yellows and oranges and complementary blues and purples. The brighter colours appeared as my anxiety ebbed and the clouds parted to let some sunshine through.
I had a weird night’s sleep with both hot flashes and disturbing dreams. I often feel out of sorts for a long while after such dreams and they may be the source of my anxiety. I’m feeling calmer now though. Art has worked it’s magic, and the intermittent sunshine is helping.
I think it’s forecast to be cloudy with sunny breaks for the rest of the daylight hours, so I may very well get myself out for a walk in a short while.
I realised that I haven’t drawn a mandala in quite a while. So, that’s what I did! Intricate, geometric and organic repeating patterns. It was a pleasure to do.
I’m quite happy with the highlights and shadows on this one, and keeping it all monochrome works for me today as well. A calm and soothing green – just what I need today as I’m still recovering from the stress from earlier in the week.
Tools – Microsoft Surface Slim Pen, Microsoft Surface Studio, Autodesk Sketchbook Pro.
I spent yesterday colouring yesterday’s drawing in. That was an interesting experience!
I started out with graphite and coloured drawing pencils. But, as I coloured more and more I got frustrated with them
So, I switched to Inktense pencils and paints and a water brush. That was better, but the results were rather chalky and obscured the black lines a little. So I tried some watercolour paints. Better, but still weren’t feeling right.
Finally, I dug out my set of the Kuretake Zig Clean Colour Real Brush pens, and they hit the spot!
With each type of media I did my best to remain true to the limited colour palette of earth tones, but the more organic parts really did need that muted olive green for some variety. That decision really has helped to tie everything together in this design.
Surprisingly, The whole variety of media seems to work well together. I expected a whole hot mess from my messing around with media. Whatever I did, it’s brought the drawing to life, and there’s a lot of interest in the variations of intensity and vibrancy of colour throughout it.
I’d expected the mixed media paper to be a bit difficult to work with Inktense, watercolours and the brush pens. It wasn’t, it worked really well! Perhaps because I didn’t do much in the way of working in colour layers.
I still have some work to do to this. I want to add some gold accents in places, as well as using a white Gelly Roll pen to add dots of bright white here and there. Oh, I need to remove the margin guidelines, as well as that pesky bit of dirt that is on my scanner!
I really am smiling when I look at this piece of artwork. There’s lots of open space, yet it works. I think it’s done, though I may add some ‘ruins’ peeking above the froth of vegetation. I’ll see what happens over time.
This is the result of last night’s attack of the insomnias as well as this morning.
I’ve been drawing with a Sakura Pigma Sensei 04 pen on A4 natural coloured Claire Fontained mixed media paper.
I like both the Pigma Sensei and Micron PN pens for their much more durable plastic nibs. The texture of this paper makes quick work of the the fibre tips of Unipin or Pigma Micron pens.
I’ve started added some colour, shadow and highlights using a mixture of graphite and coloured drawing pencils, as well as a white Gelly Roll pen. Just the grey and sepia toned pencils start to add depth, dimension and life to the drawing. Oh, and a Tombow Mono micro eraser to remove the pencil from where it may have strayed.
I could’ve done this digitally, but at the moment digital coloring is just irritating me. I have no idea why; it just is. I go through phases like this. It’s the ups and downs, twists and turns of both my emotional health and my creative instincts and needs. At the moment, it also means I’m really limiting myself to the colours I can use, something I do tend to struggle with when I have the infinite digital colour palette available to me.
Adding colour as I work lets me bring out particular areas of the design, as well as finding ways to make areas I’m not happy with either work or fade towards the background.
There’s plenty more work to do with this drawing, mostly in the bottom right area. I like the light and airy features towards the top and want to keep them that way.
Art is the Adventure 