I had a lovely time this morning adding colour to yesterday’s drawing.
To be precise, I chose to use Arteza’s EverBlend markers. I’m not at all sure about that green at the moment, but it may look quite different when I’ve finished colouring the drawing in.
In the video, I focus on explaining my method of adding colour and showing how I’ll add colour and contrast to each section of the design.
Video to go with the variations on the right.
Video to go with the flowers and variation on the left.
It’s blessedly cooler this morning as I write this blog. There’s been a little rain, but not enough to help out nature. We have the potential of thunderstorms and torrential rain at some point today. I do hope we get some thunderstorms – I love nature’s fireworks and drama! Rain is fine, but torrential rain can cause huge problems.
Anyhoo, to arty things. There are two drawings in the photo. I completed the one on the right on Sunday and filmed a video tutorial. It explores a new fragment shared on day one of Zentangle Project Pack 18. It’s always fun to explore patterns; I get to understand the pattern more and discover variations.
One of those variations came out in my sketchbook on Sunday evening. I used the ideas of the fragment as a way of filling space. What resulted looked a lot like the tangle pattern Diva Dance. you can see this in the drawing to the right in the image above.
It never ceases to amaze me how patterns can segue one into another as variations are explored. Everything, even tangle patterns, is interconnected and related by not that many degrees of variation!
Of course, I filmed the drawing of the flower and tangle pattern tile as a video tutorial. Hopefully, slowly and clearly enough that it’s easy to draw along with me. I hope you give it a go!
Click here to view today’s video where I draw the bottom right panel.
This week’s colouring page is a little different. It has four designs on it. Each one would look adorable when coloured and mounted on a blank or postcard card. They would make a lovely decoration for a bullet journal, journal or diary.
The template is available to Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans Facebook group members.
I had a lot of fun with this sketchbook page. It’s well out of my ‘comfort-zone’ as there are absolutely no black lines, not even the lines that define the basic shapes.
This is inspired by illustrator Kate Sutton, whose Domestika course I started watching yesterday. And there’s another project I have on the go that is inspiring me to explore this kind of drawing.
I’ve tried this before, but felt so uncomfortable with it that I gave up very quickly. Today, I was determined not to use any black lines at all. Instead, I picked a colour palette of just four colours of Arteza EverBlend markers. For each colour, I chose a similar one from my set of Zig Writer pens.
I started by creating the collage of simple shapes using the markers, overlapping them so that the colours mixed. I was careful not to mix the pink and green; I didn’t want to make mud!
Once I was happy with the basic design, I used the Zig writers to add patterns made from simple marks. To begin with, this felt really awkward, uncomfortable, and just plain wrong. However, the more I did, the easier it became, and the more I liked what was happening. I’m so glad that I persevered!
I dug out a white gel pen to add some brighter, lighter marks and to play with the ‘stitching’ to the top right. The idea that I was using pen ‘stitching’ to connect shapes and patterns amused me.
Using the white gel pen reminded me I had other gel pens to use, and use them I did.
I love the translucency of the marker pens and the way that the patterned shapes seem to float. The use of monochrome colours in these shapes, along with white, just gives an airy, delicate feel to them. I can now see the value of this way of using no black line. I have a lot more exploring and experimenting to do. My mind is ticking over how I can make use of this in a project I’m developing at the moment.
As eager as I am to continue my explorations, I have an errand to do first. But when I return home, well, I’m going to try out some of my ideas both on paper and digitally and see where this takes me.
Sunday morning (and Saturday evening, which was when this page was started) is the perfect time to practice my lettering, a quirky kind of illustrated journal page, and digital art practice.
I had intended to use just three, maybe four, basic colours for this page, but the vegetables threw me a tad!
I drew the page on paper with a fine Zig Mangaka Flexible pen. The Colour was added digitally after scanning the page. And I had a lot of fun as ideas clicked into place to add colour to the lettering.
Admittedly, some of the inking work is a tad clunky, but that could be fixed if I wanted to. It is a sketchbook page, and so perfection isn’t required. Giving myself permission to work with what I deem as less than perfect is an important lesson I’m trying to learn. Expressing myself in this wobbly, wonky, imperfect, quirky, eccentric, whimsical kind of way is a work in progress.
Oh, I’ll still draw detailed, intricate black and white pen designs. But I suspect I’ll do much more of this style of art. I have much to learn about it, using colour with no black lines, for instance. But I know it’s all a process, and I’ll get to where I need to be. I know that I’m really enjoying the combination of traditional ink drawing with digital colour – tradigital?
I’m not sure my Doodleworlds critters belong, but I just couldn’t resist popping them in to fill an awkward space!
It’s Thursday, so that means it’s time for a new colouring page (template) for the facebook group Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans.
I was in a bit of a whimsical mood this morning, so spending some time visiting Doodleworlds was just perfect. I also got a tad lost in adding colour to this template.
These are a lot of fun to draw, and to colour. Because of their cute, whimsical and imaginary nature, any colours go! These are drawings I find easy to add colour to; it seems the brighter, more vibrant and varied the colours are the better! Unline a lot of my other art,w which can become confused and incoherent looking.
So, I lost myself in adding colour to this drawing, even though I’ve not totally coloured it in.
Thursday is the day I gift a colouring page (or template) to the members of Angela Porter’s Coloring Books Fans Facebook group.
This week it’s a mandala. Why? Well, I just really wanted to draw a mandala!
I enjoy the calming, meditative process of mandala drawing. And as I didn’t want to disturb that calm space I found myself in by making a right mess of adding some colour, I decided to go with an analogous colour scheme. Soft blue, teal and green are also very calming colours.
As it’s a colouring template, I’ve not added lots of textural patterns. However, that is something I can always play around with at another time. For now, the high contrast that brings a feeling of volume and dimension to the design is good enough.
Botanica. Botanicals. Abstract, stylised and imaginary seed pods. Pen drawing. Entangled, intricate, with a touch of the Zentangle tangle pattern Diva Dance.
All some of my favourite things to draw. No idea how it’s going to turn out, just letting it flow as it needs to. One of my favourite ways to create!
And there’s a video showing how I drew this design, as far as it’s got, over on YouTube, if you want to draw along with me!
I’ve had a funny couple of days, not necessarily in the funny ha-ha way, though!
I had a migraine yesterday, so no video nor post was possible. I’m feeling better today, just still very, very tired.
Today, I had plans. I was awake around 5am, again, and so did some pencil lettering ‘sketches’; the finished result of one is in the photo.
I thought I’d start to digitally ink the lettering in and add colour before turning my attention to a YouTube video. And the phone rang, and it was a friend. So, during the over two-hour-long chat, I managed to mostly get this done! Yup, I can ink in a sketch and so on while chatting. I just can’t chat and sketch, generally.
My plans to record a video this afternoon were then scuppered as I couldn’t keep my eyes open! So, on waking, I completed this particular piece of lettering and doodling.
It really is practice for me. I’m not only practising my lettering skills, but I’m also trying out new brushes and tools and so on in Clip Studio Paint. That is a constant practice for me. I tend to learn how to do something when I need to do that something!
This one is probably as good as it’s going to get. Time to move along to the next mini-lettering project and learn and practice more!
This week’s colouring page (colouring template) is a fun one. From time to time, I like to create a page like this – full of whimsy and cuteness and doodles and tangle patterns.
It’s perfect for trying out new colour combinations, new mediums, or new techniques as each image is self-contained yet part of the whole.
Also, it’s perfect if you only have a little time and struggle with leaving something partly finished. There are so many elements here that can be completed quite quickly.
Art is the Adventure 