A mandala today. Cool, wintry colours over a white-pearl background for the mandala. Just something relatively simple for me to create, but quite complex looking in it’s final form.
I did draw this digitally using my Microsoft Surface Pen and Surface Studio along with Autodesk Sketchbook Pro. I also used a pearl white texture and starry backgroun I purchased via Creative Market.
I have also created a winter solstice dangle design for later in the week (Friday), as I know tomorrow I’ve got a bit of a busy day.
Today, though, is a quiet day for me. I’m not feeling too well. Nothing specific, but my appetite isn’t there, I’m a bit sniffly and I just feel more than a little ‘meh’. Mind you, I do feel a little better than I did yesterday.
Now, it’s time for me to go cuddle up and complete some more amigurumi tiny toys which will go to add to stockings for children spending Christmas in a women’s refuge local to me.
Another mandala resulting from my playing around with metallic textures and drawing to reveal the lovely shininess.
I know I got to the outer circle of the design and just felt the need to draw wiggly lines, like wires, connecting the mandala to everything outside of it, whatever that means.
These are fun to do. Mind you, I say that about all my art! And a bit of sparkle and shine is always welcome!
As a little bit of an aside, this weekend I added two coloring templates to the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group for the exclusive use of members. One is the ‘Noel’ design I posted previously, the other is a design for 2019.
With the new year design, I’ve asked that those who colour it (or another template if they have no access to printers) as close to midnight between 2018 and 2019 at their local time as they can. It will be lovely to see a flurry of colour throughout the day as the world gradually moves into 2019.
A little bit of playing around with textures and so on and I created this fun mandala, more like a concentric series of ‘wreaths’, but it was fun to do and I’m quite happy with the result. It’s fun, whimsical and just a bit shiny.
I used simple foliage and floral motifs, with the odd berry and heart thrown in for good measure, not to forget dots and stars! It’s amazing how simple motifs can result in a fairly complex looking design.
Instead of a black background for the design I went with midnight blues, with some texture added, though it’s rather subtle. Blue and gold is a classic colour combination – rich and opulent. Mind you, I rather like a rich burgundy with gold.
I have no idea how this would look when printed out, however it’s pretty to look at on the screen.
However, the main purpose of me creating these kinds of mandalas is to have fun and to explore more in the way of digital art and how I can make it work for me.
My tools for this were Microsoft Surface Pen and Studio, Autodesk Sketchbook Pro and a gold texture that I acquired in a set from Creative Market.
Yesterday I didn’t do that much in the way of art. I did get a template done for New Year, but I’m not at all sure about it. My mood was ‘off’ yesterday so I just spent a fair amount of the day relaxing and resting up. Sometimes that’s what is needed.
I’m feeling a bit more upbeat today, but I have a case of the sniffles. I know I have things to do later on in the day, but this morning, now I’ve tidied up the house a bit, I’m going to relax and maybe do some arty stuff.
The previous and latest version of the monogram dangle design. The variation is the background paper colour as well as a drop shadow for the design.
I had a lot of fun as well as some frustration when I found it difficult to do what I wanted to do, though I got there in the end, I think.
I certainly have a few more tools in my digital art toolbox.
Autodesk Sketchbook Pro really makes it easy to create art like this. Though this may have been simpler for more accomplished, learned digital artists, for me it was a bit of a process. However, I have managed to create something I could only dream about doing in traditional media, I think.
The skills required are, in my opinion, equally as demanding, whether working digitally or traditionally. Don’t forget, this started out as pen and ink line art on paper – very traditional! I just made use of digital tools to develop it into something that definitely has a medieval feel to it but in a modern medium. Indeed, all the lines/patterns were re-drawn digitally using a pen and the screen as ‘paper’ to arrive at these final versions. I did make use of the color-fill tools to colour these ones in, but the addition of textures makes them less digitally perfect and more ‘perfectly imperfect’.
This certainly has inspired me to create a whole series of such monograms over the coming days, weeks or months. Goodness alone knows what I can do with the digital versions as having them printed wouldn’t result in any sparkle where there’s sparkle. However, I do have an idea about foiling my line art, as well as working with metallic inks once more. Indeed, I had a deliver of Encres A Decorer by Herbin yesterday and dug out my glass pen to use with them. So some experimentation with those is likely (as well as digging out my dip pens and nibs too). I think I have some calligraphy ‘parchment’ or ‘vellum’ paper lurking somewhere in my stash as well.
Finally, I think I’m getting comfortable with my style of hand lettering. It sure ain’t perfect. It’s sure ain’t as slick as that of others. But it’s mine, not theirs.
Of course, some of the ideas/tools/techniques I’ve used here I can make use of in my more usual style of art. For today, I want to work on a design for the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook page to help celebrate the changing over of the calendars at midnight on New Year’s Eve as it turns into New Year’s Day. A liminal point of time between one thing and another. A boundary between the old year and the new.
So, finish my toffee nut latte mocha morning drink I will, then it’s to some hand lettering and drawing, while keeping warm and dry on a chilly, rainy and windy day.
It’s stupid o’clock here in the UK and just as I was getting ready for bed I had an idea that I just had to try out. So, this was a very quick mandala where I used a gold texture background and drew on top of it.
Digital art this time. Had to try it out. My idea kind of worked out. Now how to figure out how to use this with dangle designs! But I think I may have to sleep first!
Microsoft Surface Studio and Pen, Autodesk Sketchbook Pro and a texture I found lurking in my files.
Here’s my take on a dangle design monogram using the Lombardic Capitals lettering style.
I drew the design in pen using Uniball Unipin pens on dot grid paper. After scanning the pen and ink design into my Microsoft Surface Studio I removed the dot grid and created a transparent background.
Then, I coloured the design digitally, using a Microsoft Surface Pen and Autodesk Sketchbook Pro.
The Lombardic Capitals are very medieval in style and so I wanted my dangle designs to reflect this. I spent some time yesterday researching medieval, Anglo-Saxon and Celtic jewellery, floor tiles and ornamentation, which I then used as inspiration for the dangle designs.
I chose jewel-like colours for the design – these colours are often used in medieval manuscripts.
I must admit I’m not sure either about the blue background behind the letter A or the green border to it. Working digitally means I can easily change my colour choices here once I work out what I’d like to do with them.
The final step was to add some texture to the colours, some drop shadows and to create a background in colours and pattern reminiscent of vellum.
I say it every time but I mean it – I really did enjoy creating this one!
A quiet start to Monday morning here with a spot of hand lettering and dangle drawing.
This is my first draft of a design, which is a bit wobbly in places and there are some ink smudges too.
I pencilled in the basic shapes of the letters, inked in the outlines and then added the inner decoration.
The dangles were drawn with pen directly on paper. The use of dot grid paper helps to keep things vaguely level usually, but this morning that’s not quite gone to plan. Of course as it’s December I’ve gone with December themed charms and a Moon for Moonday Monday!
I have a few tasks to do and then I may just re-draw this, or at least colour it in. Colour makes all the difference.
This could be a bit of a big dangle design to use in a BuJo, but just the word with one dangle to the left would make a charming header with dangle for a day. The beauty of dangles is that you can just add to them as you go through the day. If the charms are small enough you could even add ones that will go with your BuJo entries – event, note, task and so on.
I think that would work well for a big and busy day.
I did go away and create this sample BuJo page showing the kind of thing I meant above. The hand lettering has worked out a lot better. I also like the blue gradient I’ve used to colour the letters with. A grey shadow was added to the left and bottom of the letters too. I also like the cute little date box. The ornate ends on the bar through it give it a ‘feel’ that goes with the lettering.
I did have fun doing this. It’s maybe not something I’d do everyday in my BuJo. My BuJo is very much a working one, with lots of mistakes and rubbishy writing going on as I scribble down things. However, I do enjoy hand lettering, especially more so as I’m beginning to accept that I have to accept my own way of forming letters is perfectly acceptable and that I can work with that.
I have to remember that others don’t see my hand lettering (or art) as I do. They see it with fresh eyes, without the close up work that goes into it, without the small flaws that I see and are magnified by my inner critic into hideous blemishes and fatal errors in the work.
I can quieten the crtiic when it comes to my drawings/art, mostly. Except on any bad days I have in terms of my mental and emotional health. Because hand lettering is something that is a new focus for me, the inner critic feels it’s empowered to be hypercritical of anything I do. It’s only by doing, by doing what I can not to ignore the critic, but to check what it’s telling me as being valid or invalid and learning what I can from the valid points to improve in the future.
This one is very much a work in progress. Drawn using a Microsoft Surface Pen on the screen of a Microsoft Surface Studio, I made good use of the symmetry tools in Autodesk Sketchbook Pro.
When ice crystals form they have a symmetry based on hexagonal shapes, so my mandala is separated into 12 sections, though I’m choosing to bring out the six-pointed patterns in different colour schemes.
I’m not sure if that makes sense – I know what I mean!
Of course, there’s only so much pointy-ness I can have in anything I draw, so curves have to make an appearance. And this is very much apparent in the fine detailed patterns within each section. Here I’ve used simple line patterns to more complex pattern fills using spirals and swirls. I’ve played around with adding a drop shadow and a highlight to these patterns to add a sense of dimension, not that it’s easy to see in a low-resolution image for the web.
I do like my colour choices of cool purples, blues and aquas so far. I think I’ll go with a more blue-purple to complement the purple in the design so far.
I do have an idea or two as to what I can do about the black lines as well, though they may not work out. As I’ve said often before, I do like black lines in my art; I like the way they define spaces and patterns and often give that feel of ‘stained glass’ to my work. However, sometimes I think they look a tad childish too, but that’s mostly on days where I doubt myself an awful lot, rather than the usual little to a lot.
The design isn’t quite as open as perhaps a snowflake is considered to be, but I rather like filling spaces in, though I may leave some of these spaces open so the background, when I add one, can shine through. That means I may end up erasing some of the colour I’ve added already to created a more open feel to the design.
It’s a lovely way to spend a Sunday morning, especially now I’ve finished downloading all the Amazon invoiced for the last financial year in preparation to getting my accounts to my lovely accountant, Leah.
I did use some circle, oval and hexagon templates to help me design the wreaths and snowflakes. The dot grid paper helped me draw mostly straight lines for the dangles.
I did sketch them in pencil first before inking them in with a Uniball Unipin pen. Colouring was done with various Tombow dual brush pen markers and some sparkly elements added with Uniball signo sparkle gel pens.
These would look lovely as greetings cards. In fact, I’m thinking of redrawing them digitally and using them to make my own christmas cards this year. Printing out the black line work and then colouring them with traditional media. In the past couple of years I’ve designed my christmas/winter/yule cards digitally and had them printed professionally. This year, I think I’ll do it the way I suggest in my book ‘A Dangle A Day’.
They’d also look great as note cards or as pages in a BuJo, planner, scrapboook or journal. They’d lend themselves to cute bookmarks too.
These relatively simple and small dangle designs are perfect for practicing hand lettering too. And in these four dangles I’ve used four different lettering styles.
I’ve also kept the finished designs simple by not adding any drop shadows, except around the ‘HO! HO! HO!’. Not only that, a lot of the colouring is very simple too.
I do hope you’ll have a go at designing your own, maybe using these as a bit of a guide. If you do, I’d love to see what you’ve created.
Today’s hand-lettering is just a variation on the one I posted on Monday.
For this one, I’ve used simple patterns to fill the white space in the letters and added a ‘line shadow’ to left and below the letters. To do this I used a Uniball Unipin 0.5 pen.
I like the graphic nature of just black and white as well as the intricacy of the patterns.That intricacy is something that warms the cockles of my artistic heart.
I didn’t only add details to the letters – I’ve added details to the dangle too! Simple additions but add a feeling of complexity.
I feel at the moment I’m in a position both in terms of demands on my time but also in how I feel about myself and my artistic nature to explore hand-lettering so it’s an ‘Angela’ thing that I’m comfortable with.
Not just comfortable, confident in my skills too. So, re-working a fairly open hand lettered word like this in different ways.
So, it’s possible you’ll see variations on a word appearing on this blog, my Instagram, deviantART, Twitter and facebook accounts as time goes on.
We’re rapidly approaching December so it’s time for a number of personal artistic pursuits :
my christmas/winter cards for 2018 need to be designed and printed
‘freebie’ templates need to be designed for the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group.
BuJo spreads and design elements
I’m sure there’s some other things that need doing, but this morning they escape me. Of course I’m going to note these things in my BuJo.
I’ll also be starting work on a new book for Creative Haven by Dover Publications.
So a nicely ‘busy enough’ time ahead.
Yesterday, I had a lovely day out to Aberglasney Gardens for lunch with my pal Liz. It was hammering down with rain during our journey there, but the rain cleared up by the time we’d finished a leisurely lunch.
It had been many years since I’ve visited Aberglasney and I’d forgotten how interesting it is. I’ll return sometime soon with sketchbook in hand for sure!
My evening and night until well past midnight were taken up designing a birthday card for someone. The design was finally uploaded to Moonpig ready for posting today near midnight. To say I was, and still am, shattered could be an understatement today! Still, I can have a semi ‘self-care’ day today to recover.
Art is the Adventure 