Abstract botanical drawing

Monogram D entangled design (with some little dangles)

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I had a day or two of subconscious reflection on how to pattern around a letter after not being all that happy with the lower case b design. So, I wanted to put my vague ideas into practice.

Yes, they were vague ideas, no clear idea of how I wanted things to look, but I just wanted to try them out and see where they led.

I started with a faint pencil outline of an uncial style letter d, and then used a fine nibbed Rotring Art Pen with black ink to draw the design with.

I used the pencil line as a guide to where the entangled designs would either butt up to the edge, spill over the edge or curl over it and I just let the designs flow and grow. I also left the design in an organic shape rather than working to a square or rectangular shape.

I did work on a piece of A4 paper, but the design is a little over a quarter of the size of the paper. I can’t believe I did such teeny-tiny drawings again! I really enjoyed it!

In some places I’ve made the edge too hard, too linear. In one place I tried to correct that (lower left of the d) by adding more bits to the pattern, but that linear line is still evident. However, it’s all learning.

After scanning in, I wanted to add some texture and a bit of colour to that letter to help it stand out more. I may try doing the reverse as in colouring the design in and leaving the letter plain later. I may even try using some watercolour brushes in Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, using my Microsoft Surface Pen and Microsoft Surface Studio.

I have designated friday as #dangleday, and I did add some tiny, fine danglesto the design. Dangles don’t always have to be big and fancy or a prominent feature of designs, like in my book ‘A Dangle A Day‘.

Inktober 2018 – Day 7 – “Exhausted”

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Angela Porter Inktober 2018 Day 7 - Exhausted

Exhausted is how I feel today, so the prompt is very apt!

I woke with a migraine-type headache, and it’s only recently begun to lift, after quite a few Anadin Extras (it’s ok – I kept within the recommended dose!).

Headaches like this leave me exhausted afterwards; it’s only a good sleep that helps to remove the last remaining vestiges of them. Maybe I’ll nap in a while.

What hasn’t helped is yet another day of hammer-drilling next door. I’d’ve gone out if (a) I could see to drive properly and (b) I wasn’t expecting a delivery of a new printer.

My Epson printer died on me on Friday. Terminally died on me. It’s not been used that much. It has been used for scanning more than printing, but it just refused to work, no matter what I did.

I wasn’t very happy with it. The ink jet thingies didn’t work well after a while and I got streaks in the printing – no matter how often I cleaned them. I only ever used genuine Epson ink cartridges.

The scanner was really slow too.

So, I’ve returned to a Brother printer; this time a mono laser printer, and it arrived today and I managed to set it up relatively easily.

So, my Inktober drawing for today is above. I drew it on paper with a black Papermate Ink Joy gel pen. I scanned it in (didn’t check the settings so bits of top and left are cut off).

Then I threw it into Autodesk Sketchbook pro to change the colour to one that looks more washed out and exhausted, just how I feel – blue and grey and pale at the moment.

I wanted to add colour to the hand-lettering, but the headache means I couldn’t be arsed to do so at the moment.

My drawing skills aren’t brilliant on this one. The headache has affected my vision a tad as well as giving me slightly wobbly fingers. As the headache goes, all will be well again – and it’s nowt to be worried about; I get these headaches from time to time and I’ve not had one for more than a month now I think.

So, once I’ve finished this post, I’ll be off to make the great restorative – a good mug of Yorkshire tea! I think I may be able to face a little something to eat too, which could help too to lift some of the exhausted feeling.

Abstract Botanical 16 September 2016

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Angela Porter 16 September2018

Another abstract botanical. Here are the steps I took in creating it.

  1. Draw the black and white line art design on dot-grid paper from Rhodia using Sakura Micron pens.
  2. Scanned the drawing in, removed the dot-grid, removed noise and created a transparent background in GiMP opensource photo editing software.
  3. Imported the image with a transparent image into Autodesk Sketchbook Pro and added colour and texture.

It took a couple of hours to draw the design and several hours to colour and so on.

My digital tools are a Microsoft Surface Pen and Microsoft Surface Studio.

I love the way many of the elements seem to glow against the dark green-blue background.

Many of my latest works like this seem to have an ocean, watery background going on. So, in the one I have on the go at the moment I’ve done a kind of sunset background. I’ll see how that turns out. Working digitally means I can alter my backgrounds really easily for sure.

I’ve been creating backgrounds digitally, but I want to create some on paper with Distress Inks and scan them in to use instead of the digital backgrounds.

I also made use of a more limited colour palette in this work – going for a more cohesive look/feel. These aren’t colours I’d normally choose to go together, but they seem to work fine.

I now have a fair few of these images and so now really need to try to work out what to do with them. I may try to import them into Repper and create repeating patterns from parts of them; that could be an interesting exercise for sure, but a fun one!

If you have any ideas of how my artwork could be used, leave a comment – I’d love to hear!

 

#wednesdaywisdom

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Angela Porter 5 September 2018 small watermarked

Another Goethe quote today, this time hand-lettered.

The design was drawn using Sakura Pigma Micron pens, and then scanned in and the black and white line drawing altered to this.

Abstract Botanical 27 August 2018

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Angela Porter 27 August 2018 small

Started yesterday, finished this morning. Another intricate, abstract botanical

I coloured the paper first and worked with the patterns made, mostly. Intuitive drawing with detail and intricacy and black lines is my favourite to do. Botanical things, abstract motifs, from my imagination are also some of my favourite things to draw.

My colour choices are a bit different for me, the way I blended the colours resulted in some unusual, subdued, almost grungy tones. I think I like it.

 

Abstract botanical drawing

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Angela Porter 8 August 2018 coloured 01

Happy times drawing! I drew this one with a Lamy Safari fountain pen with black ink on some mixed media paper from Claire Fontaine.

The colours are digitally added after scanning the drawing in, just for a bit of fun. I have ideas I want to try out digitally, but I’m going to wait for my Surface Studio to arrive for those explorations.

My own piece of wisdom for #WednesdayWisdom is that when you get to a point in a creative project where you think it just isn’t going to work out, don’t give up. Push past your own doubts. It can help to put the project to one side and come back to it later with ‘fresh eyes’ and a ‘fresh mind’, but don’t give up on it.

When you think you’ve finished the project there may be bits you don’t like, but there will be parts you really do like about it. The bits you like are ones to take forward and work with further.

What I’ve noticed over the years is that sometimes it’s the bits I wasn’t sure about that are the ones I really like when the project is completed. Often, the bits that are ‘mistakes’ end up being ‘happy accidents’ or ‘creative opportunities’ – discoveries of new things to try out again in the future.

I’ve most probably said this before, but I’ve been getting a lot of self-doubt lately in work I’m doing. As I often work directly in ink on to paper, my mistakes are permanent, so I have to work with them and incorporate them into the design. That’s what happens when you’re an intuitive artist; I’ve learned to trust to the process and that I can work with whatever happens.

You too can do this! I promise you, you can!

It’s also #wipwednesday over on the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group. Plenty of people show their works in progress, but there is always, always room for more! We all love to see what people are up to.