I’ve spent another quiet, calm and contented few hours drawing this mandala. Admittedly some of the shapes look a bit weird around the edges. However, it’s all about me learning and embedding new skills when it comes to drawing digital art.
Microsoft Surface Pen, Microsoft Surface Studio and Autodesk Sketchbook Pro were my tools for this one.
Some of the areas have patterns in them that remind me of Celtic, La Tene art, or of illuminated manuscripts such as the Book of Kells. These are art forms I’ve loved for as long as I remember and I think there are times when those patterns bubble up to the surface of my mind and find their way out through the tip of my pen! It’s nice when that happens and it surprises me!
I’ve had a very pleasant two or three hours this afternoon creating this mandala.
It’s quite different to my usual styles of mandalas and I rather like it. I also rather like the monochrome colour scheme which inspired the title of this mandala.
Drawing in colour is a departure for me from the usual black line drawings which are then filled in with colour and/or pattern. I’m uncomfortable drawing other things in colour without that black line to define their shape/form. But mandalas are a whole different thing. They are a way for me to explore this way of working with colour.
What is exciting is that I carve into bold shapes, removing colour and adding more designs and interest. This is something that working digitally has allowed me to both discover and to begin to explore. The ability to add colour, remove colour, refine by adding more colour, and so on is what makes creating something like this a little easier than with traditional media, but it is what is allowing me to express my creativity in different ways.
I am really pleased with this design. It’s one of those that makes me smile for two main reasons. The first is I like it, lots. The second is the satisfaction of exploring something new and discovering a new, different and personally satisfying way to work.
My drawing tool was a Microsoft Surface Pen. My paper was the screen of my Microsoft Surface Studio. Autodesk Sketchbook Pro provided my colours and other tools so I could create this mandala design, which I think is lovely.
Originally, I drew the original version of this design with pen and ink on paper. I wanted to edit the design and add a dangle to it, so decided to work digitally (Microsoft Surface Pen, Microsoft Surface Studio and Autodesk Sketchbook Pro).
By working digitally, I could edit and amend the design easily, using the original sketch as a guide. You can see that I made quite a few changes. I’m much, much happier with the blue version. The pink one is pretty and a good start, a way to experiment, but the blue one is the more polished, finished version, and not just because it’s been drawn digitally!
For the original sketch, I used a copic marker to draw out the basic letter shape and then used Unipin and Pigma Sensei pens to add the lie details. The copic is patchy, but that’s because it was a quick sketch.
I like the increased amount of white space in the new version – it does add a bit of a stained glass look to the design. I also like the stylised roses inside the ‘B’ in the revised version; adding the patterns inside the rose rather than on the edge helps the rose to stand out from the coloured section by giving a mostly white border.
Once I’d thickened the main beams of the letter, I added dots to carry the lines on. Then, I decided it could be fun to echo these dots by carving out dots in the flared ends of these lines. These dots have lightened those lines up, adding some airiness as well as interest.
Oddly, as I look at them I am minded of a very Old Bridge here in my home town. The bridge was built by William Edwards in 1756. When it was built it was the longest single span bridge in the world. The addition of 3 holes at each end of the bridge allowed it to bear the weight of the stone and not collapse. It is these holes, the lightness they gave to the design that I recalled when I was thinking about those ‘holes’ in my blue B.
I really wanted to add a simple dangle to this monogram – the letter is ornate enough that it could be too fussy if I’d added more than one dangle, or made the dangle ornate. Of course one of the charms had to be a heart! Simple beads and a diamond charm complete the dangle. My dangles often remind me of jewellery!
It’s not very often I show any kind of editing or reworking of my artwork, that’s because I do tend to work very intuitively and don’t really draft my work. Sometimes, I may do a pencil or pen sketch for an illustration for one of my colouring books, especially if it’s a kind of ‘scene’.
Since I’ve been working digitally, however, I do seem to be doing a lot more of the sketching out or working more roughly and using this as the sketch for the digital art.
An added advantage is that this satisfies my need to work with traditional media. Also, by working on paper I get a better idea of the scale of the finished artwork.
I think I’ve said it before that I do struggle with a sense of scale when working on a screen due to the ease of zooming in and out. Paper is a fixed size so I can appreciate the scale far more, and it seems easier for my brain to get a better idea of the whole design.
It’s all part and parcel of my artsy journey, figuring out what is best for me and not trying to work like others or being worried about how others judge me and my process. More than anything though, it’s about me learning not to be such a harsh judge and critic of myself. One negative review, and my inner critic gives itself a rocket boost and any belief in myself is kicked to the outer edges of the known universe. That’s why I don’t read reviews – I struggle enough with my own inner critic without battling others’ opinions.
I’m learning it’s far more important that I appreciate my own work rather than looking to others for approval. It’s always wonderful when people tell me they love my work. It’s always valuable when people, particularly my editors, give me honest feedback on what needs to be changed to improve things – they see things I miss by working all too close to the artwork.
I’m learning that it’s more important for me recognise that what I create is mostly good enough, sometimes I’m really pleased with what I’ve done, sometimes I can see something is truly awful or that there is room for improvement.
Reflection on my work is important as it helps me to learn, grow and develop, and helpful input is always welcome.
When I look at this blue B monogram dangle design, I can honestly say I smile. It’s an example of a design I am pleased with. It’s intricate, but not overly so. There’s empty space within the design
Yesterday, I just felt the need to do a bit of an entangled drawing. So, I started with the lower case b and added designs around it.
Not at all sure this works. The letter just looks ‘plonked’ on top of the design rather than part of it.
I do like the entangled stuff though.
Always something to learn – that’s my piece of Wednesday Wisdom. If you don’t try something, you never know if you can either do it or if it’ll work out. This one isn’t one of my better lettering adventures, but, I can reflect on what I like and what I don’t like and then try again another time.
I’m not at all sure I can ‘fix’ this one, but I can try again.
For this one I used Daler Rowney Bristol Board along with 08 Unipin Uniball and 04 Sakura Pigma Sensei pens.
Two colourful pictures to mark the changing of the calendars and dairies!
I created both for members of the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group, and the colour explosion has already started over there! These coloured templates are set to be added to the group at midnight, so in around 40 minutes time as I tippy tap this blog post!
I drew the top one digitally using Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, Microsoft Surface pen and Microsoft Surface Studio. The bottom one I drew on dot grid paper, then coloured digitally using the same tools.
In both I went for a kind of psychedelic colour scheme – I needed a bit of brightening up today.
However you spend your New Year’s Eve and Day, May I wish you all the very best for each and every day ahead of you.
Yesterday’s black and white, graphic monograms of the letter R now coloured, with added lines and metallic highlights.
For all of the letters I used a combination of Copic markers and Chameleon Color Tones colored pencils to add the colours.
I chose Copics over Chameleon Markers as I really wanted soft, gentle, almost pastel colours for these letters. The only way to get these with the Chameleon markers is through gradients with the colourless blending chambers. I wasn’t at all confident I could get the soft, gentle colours with slight blending. So, I went with something I knew that would work for me – Copic Markers with Chameleon Color Blends pencils .
I think I got way too fancy with the added lines on the lower letter R, but it’s all a learning process.
I am really pleased with the others. The colours I chose or, rather, the pastel nature of the the colours, isn’t characteristic of me, but I think they work really well here.
Of course I had to add some metallic highlights. For the smaller Rs I used Uniball Signo metallic gold and silver gel pens.
Three variations on a theme! All hand lettered and hand drawn on Daler-Rowney Bristol board (A4 in size).
For each I used black 08 Uniball Unipin and 04 Sakura Pigma Sensei pens. Here’s the other media I used for each monogram:
Top – Copic markers, Herbin Copper ink with a glass pen.
Bottom left – Copic Markers for the base colour, Chameleon color tone pencils for added depth of colour, gold metallic Sakura Gelly Roll pen.
Bottom right – Chameleon color tone pencils for the colour and a silver Uniball Signo pen for the metallic highlights.
It’s taken me around 5 hours or so to complete the set of three. I’m still feeling my way with this style of hand lettering.
For the monograms coloured with Copic markers I started by drawing the letter with the Copic markers and then added the black line work before adding the metallic highlights and Chameleon pencil shadows. I love having a solid shape to embellish with line, pattern and metallics. However, white space is only possible by adding lines outside of the main shape. Which is fine. I could add white space inside the letters either by leaving some in the design before coloring, or using white ink to cover up the copic colours. These two letters look a lot more solid and heavy.
For the L coloured with the Chameleon pencils I drew the black line work first. The advantage of this is that I can leave white space within the letter. this gives a bit of a lighter, airier feel to the letter, which is helped with the less dense colour of the Chameleon coloured pencils.
I’m not sure if I like the metallic petals in the top monogram; the ink spilled over the black lines and I tried to add them back in to define the petals but it just seemed to sink beneath the metallic pigments.
Also, the glass pen with copper ink that I used to add the metallic highlights to the top monogram was a lot finer than the Sakura gelly roll so it was easy for me to add tiny patterns and shapes. The Uniball Signo silver pen gave a much finer line than the Sakura Gelly Roll so it was easier to add highlights to the bottom left monogram, but I knew I’d not be able to get as much fine details or patterning with it as with the glass pen.
Overall, I’m fairly pleased with the finished results. I’ve learned that I’d like to leave white space in my monograms when I’m hand lettering them in this way. Maybe if I want to use Copics in future I should use a pale colour to draw the shape of the letter and then use darker tones to add dimension and depth to the design, allowing the lighter colour to act a bit more like white space. Of course, I can always draw the design with black lines first and then add the colour. Each has it’s advantages and disadvantages.
I’m not sure which is my favourite. I rather like the one on the bottom right. As it’s smaller in size I’ve not quite managed to go over the top with the embellishment. I like the white space within the letter. I also like the more subtle colours I’ve used.
I think I’ll take my attention to a different letter now, another I’ve not done a monogram for before, well not outside of my soon to be released book ‘A Dangle A Day‘. Of course, the monograms in the book are all dangle designs too. It would be easy enough to add dangles to these designs for sure, well it would be if I’d left enough space for them!
However, my reason for doing these monograms is to add to my repertoire of hand lettering styles. These may not be entirely unique in the realms of hand lettering, but I do want to work with them and find my own way through this to something that people can look at and say ‘that’s Angela Porter’s work that is’ in the same way they do when they’re familiar with my coloring books and my style of drawing there.
This is what I’ve spent the last 2 or 3 hours doing – I lose track of time when engrossed in an artsy project.
After the K monogram yesterday I wanted to try my hand at another letter and I just chose my own initial. I really do need to do some different letters though!
For this one I started by drawing the letter in colour using Copic markers on Daler-Rowney Bristol board. I did do a vague sketch of the letter with pencil very lightly which I then erased.
Black lines to define the letter were next, followed by the lines outside of the letter and the sectioning of the spaces inside the letter.
I wanted to finish some of the lines with some interesting shapes, so naturally I defaulted to hearts and beads!
I used some of my favourite geometric and abstract patterns to fill some of the spaces, along with dots and lines.
The penultimate step was to colour in some of the blank spaces, the hearts and beads using Copic markers.
Finally, I used a glass pen and metallic gold ink from Herbin.
I worked with traditional media to do this one, so I could use gold ink, which is something I’ve not quite worked out how to do digitally.
Having said that, my process for creating this monogram is the same whether I work with traditional media or digitally. The only difference is that some of my ‘overspills’ with the lines in the tiny patterns I have to leave here and accept as it being ‘perfectly imperfect. Also, the colours aren’t as bright and vibrant as they would be digitally, but they’ll do!
Yes, I could add a dangle or three to this design, but, again, I’m happy with how it is…for now! I’m just happy exploring hand lettering in a different way to what I’ve been doing.
If anything, this hand lettering is more about shapes and patterns than it is about letters themselves. I know this is a step forward for me in finding my hand lettering style (or one of my styles at least), and I also know that as I become more comfortable with it and don’t have to work quite so hard at it (working hard is thinking about the lines and working out how to add the embellishments so they feel part of the design and not just plonked there for the sake of plonking them there) I’ll work out how to add to them in a sympathetic way.
What letter will I do next? You’ll have to wait and see!
This is what I end up doing when I’ve fallen asleep earlier in the evening and end up being alert far later than I’d like to! All thanks to that one small glass of port after my lunch. I very, very rarely drink alcohol, so it always floors me either in terms of needing to sleep or in terms of my mood. At least this time it was the nap, so I’ve still got my calm, content mood intact at the end of this day – the first time I’ve felt this way on a Christmas Day for many, many, many years. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever felt this way. Therapy is working! Yay!
Anyways, after I woke, had a huge mug of tea, I picked up a dot grid pad and a 0.4 Sakura Pigma Sensei pen and started to draw variations on the theme of letter ‘k’ as I listened/watched the second part of the Fellowship of the Ring.
I then remembered that I wanted to try something digitally like I did yesterday, so this is the result. I’ve been working on it for over 2 hours (it’s now around 1:30am, so if some words don’t make sense it’s because I’m just about ready for my bed).
I started by sketching out the shape of the letter in Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, using a Microsoft Surface Pen on the screen of my Microsoft Surface Studio.
The next step was to finalise the shape and redraw it and colour it in. After this, I added the black lines round the K, then the curvy lines on the outside edges. The final step was to add the patterns and colour in small sections of the outside embellishments. Oh, and I created a thin drop shadow and plonked the monogram on top of a paper texture background.
What I want to do tomorrow is to add a dangle to the design. I started trying to do that this night, but my concentration is now going. I also want to try to add some shading to the patterns within the K too. I think they could do with a bit more illusion of dimension.
Oh, the knitted stegosaurus is now complete. I may photo and show. Not sure if I’ll be doing any more knitted dinosaurs. I much prefer amigurumi! I have started an amigurumi monster, but I need to remember to limit my time spent crocheting as it does make my finger joints ache in a way knitting and drawing don’t.
First up is the coloured version of Inktober 2018 day 15 ‘Clock’. I got so frustrated trying to color it digitally that I printed the drawing out and used Chameleon Color Tones and Color Tops to colour it.
I’m really not happy with some of the colours I’ve used in some places, however. But I went with it. It’s not as vibrant as I’d like and some of the colours have ended up a bit murky.
I also added some highlights with a white Sakura Gelly Roll pen, and a few shadows/textures with a fineline Faber Castell pen.
It took me most of yesterday and another hour today to complete colouring this image. It does take me a lot less time to draw the outlines!
Today’s prompt is ‘Angular’, so I had to go with geometric designs based on straight lines and point and create a pattern sampler. Some of these patterns aren’t in my pattern directory.
Yes, I have a kind of visual directory for patterns and other images that I can refer to when I need some inspiration. So, some of these will be added to that directory later on today after I’ve run some errands.
It was not easy to draw all straight lines; I miss my curls and swirls and spirals and arches.
Having said that, it was a good workout for my straight line drawing skills.
It took me around 2 hours to draw and it’s only a tiny drawing at 12cm x 12cm in size! That’s a tad shy of 5″ x 5″ for those who work in ‘old money’.
I used Fabercastell Broadline and Fineline pens on Rhodia dot grid paper. I then scanned it in and used Gimp to remove the dot grid, mostly.
Art is the Adventure 