This is part of a mandala design for a colouring page. And it is just part, though this would stand nicely as a design all in itself. Thursday, tomorrow, is the day I’ll release the template for the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group.
Stop Motion Animation
Do you ever wake in the morning with an idea you just have to try out straight away? Yes? I often do, usually for a drawing. Today, however, it involved stop motion animation.
First job was to download Stop Motion Studio and check it would work with the document camera I use for filming. And it does! Well enough for now that’s for sure.
Then I played with the software and decided to do a stop motion drawing. Then I thought I’d animate the paper and pen too. It took me the time it took to drink my morning mug of tea to create a simple little video lasting about 23 s (without intro and outro)
I have some things to think about – lighting, background, keeping my hands out of the way, holding the paper down in a different way, and sound effects perhaps. I’m going to try my best not to run before I can crawl with this. I have no idea what I can do with it, or what to make. But, I’m sure ideas will come to me.
Hmm, I wonder if Saturday’s will be Stop Motion Saturday from now on. Maybe, eventually, I dunno.
It was a lot of fun for an hour or so this morning.
Anyhoo, I like to share the fun, so here’s the video for you to enjoy! I’d appreciate it if you could click on the “Watch on YouTube” button in the video 🙂
It’s going to be interesting to see how people add colour to this design. My example here is the third attempt to find colours that I liked, and even then I really am not fussed on the stuff to the left. I do seem to have an ongoing issue with colours this week.
Drawn with a Tombow Fudenosuke pen, coloured digitally in Clip Studio Paint Pro.
Instead of one large image, I created a sheet of eight, slightly smaller than ATC sized drawings.
ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) are 3½” x 2½” in size. The original idea was for artists, crafters, creatives to make small pieces of art and to swap them with other artists as a way to share and collect art. The idea was to swap and not sell, though people do sell them now, but many more do swap and collect work from other artists.
In today’s vlog, I colour and embellish one of the designs. Then, I turn it and another into first ATC cards and then into greeting cards.
This idea came about through a conversation with a group member who asked permission to create ATCs from my coloring templates for the group.
I do not have an Angel Policy for any of my templates in the group to allow them to be sold in any form. However, gifting or swapping them, or items made using them, is fine so long as the artist (me) is credited and the items are not sold.
For the individual coloring books, terms and conditions are mentioned in the books and should always be referred to.
It’s Wednesday, so one of my main tasks is to create a colouring template for the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group. And as I drew this for my morning warm up art, I recorded it.
The time lapse version, which is about 15 minutes or so long, can be found via this link.
Yesterday, I wasn’t at all well. The usual upset stomach followed by a headache that needed sleeping off. The upset tummy had kept me up most of Monday night. What had caused it this time, I dunno. All I know is I slept a bit better last night, though I’ve been awake since 4:15 am and I’m beginning to feel rather tired again and my digestive system is still a bit tender. I’m sure I’ll be tickettyboo once again tomorrow.
It was lovely to spend some time this morning drawing just for pleasure. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy drawing for my publishers, but it’s different as there’s a lot more pressure on me to create templates that fit into a particular theme and their guidelines.
My weekly templates have no of those limits on them, so it’s a different kind of enjoyment.
There’s a lot of whimsical and cute elements to this weeks design, and I think that’s something I need to lift me up as I’m feeling a bit under the weather.
It was also a great pleasure to draw with pen on paper, and I think I’m going to have to do that with the templates for the book I’m working on. I get a much better sense of scale and overview of the design. Even when I scan a sketch in, I’m not all that happy with the digitally drawn version of it, usually.
So, that’s what I’m going to settle down to do for the rest of the day, once all my social media posts are done. Pen on paper, without the frustration I can feel when drawing digitally. Simple tools to focus on drawing ‘life size’ coloring templates.
And lots of tea is called for today, I think. Lots of good tea.
This week’s template for the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group members is a typically ‘Angela’ Entangled with Doodleworlds kind of template. It’s full of lots of details, and barely an open space in the design!
I enjoyed drawing this one yesterday, and I vlogged the process. If you’re interested in watching it, here’s the link to the vlog on YouTube. Likes, subscribes and comments are most appreciated.
Monday is definitely mandala day! I’ve been working on this mandala for the past week, on and off. It’s taken me lots of attempts to get the colours and brushes to work the way I’d like. I’m quite happy with it now.
I like the combination of warm and cool violets and teal-ish greens. They’re close enough together on the colour wheel to work harmoniously together.
I’m just adding colour at the moment. I will think about adding patterns to the various areas once the colour is all complete.
Although the black lines are quite bold in this design, the colour seems to make them almost disappear. They seem to become, almost, the darkest shadows that separate the different colour areas, deep cuts that delineate the different sections. I’ve never really noticed that before, and I think it’s a nice observation.
I’ve been enjoying, as always, adding shadow and highlight to give that sense of volume and layers to the design. It’s always fascinating to me how such simple use of colour can add so much interest.
Vlogging
I’ve worked out that all the youtube videos I’ve been creating are really vlogs. I can be incredibly dense at times about such things. I do talk about different things in them than I do on this blog. My thoughts are different when I write and when I talk it seems. Or perhaps the process of writing slows my thoughts down in a way speaking out loud doesn’t.
Anyway, I’m enjoying creating the vlogs. As I draw every morning just for fun and to warm up my muscles, joints and creative mind and heart, it’s nice to share that process with others. I hope people gain inspiration and insight from the vlogs.
It’s been heart-warming and humbling for the lovely comments people have left there. I really appreciate every like and new subscriber.
In today’s vlog, I draw on vellum, and then paper when the vellum curls too much to be easy to hold down.
Zoom get togethers
Saturday I hosted a Zoom get together for any members of the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group who’d like to join in. Last night, I was chatting to Brett, one of the founders of the group and the person who keeps everything running smoothly there. She often has trouble getting onto Zoom, and so we decided to give it a go and we worked out the best way for her to join in.
So, after a short chat, we both suggested about the same time that we could open the meeting up to the group. One member joined us and we chatted until just past midnight for me.
I’ve also set up a meeting for Tuesday tea-time, UK time and the details will be posted in the group for members to join in.
Anyway, I didn’t really settle down to sleep until around 2 am, and I’m really feeling the lack of a good night’s sleep now. I suspect another nap will be on the cards sooner rather than later. However, I do want to get out for a walk again today. I’ll be trying to time it to dodge the heavy rain showers we seem to have.
At the start of each month, there’s a color palette challenge for the members of the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group. The palette can either be used with the first template of the month, or any template from any of my numerous coloring books.
I’ve been adding colour to the 01 April 2021 template, and my image today is of a part of that template. It’s all cute, doodly, kawaii and the colour palette is a pastel rainbow. Not colours I’d choose nowadays, but it goes with the cuteness of the template.
It’s Template Thursday once again. This week’s template is an entangled sampler kind of thing. Sometimes, the whole image is overwhelming, or perhaps there’s just not enough time to do a large area. These kinds of samplers have lots of smaller designs within them. Choose one of a size you can manage or for the time you have. Complete it one motif at a time, just as a stitcher would complete a sampler one stitch or motif at a time.
If you’d like to access this template, for free, then you need to be a member of the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group. The group is free to join and the members are lovely. There’s a monthly color palette challenge and I’m trying to get my head around time zones to organise some get togethers on zoom.
The template was drawn with pen on paper. I’ve added colour digitally.
I thought it would be a nice way to further explore Clip Studio Paint Pro and to become familiar with the tools. Also, it’s useful to try to get a way of organising various menus on the screen that suit me. I’ve still not found the right positioning, but I will!
I’ve just realised I forgot to save my work on this particular template. Ack, that means I’ll have to start over again. Typical, given the kind of day today is being.
Weird start to Wednesday
I was awake around 4:30 am and didn’t try to go back to sleep as it’s delivery day for my Abel & Cole organic produce. Today, the delivery was much later than usual – close to 8 am! By the time I’d put my order away and had my Wednesday treat of a cinnamon and raisin Danish for breakfast, it was time for me to go back to bed.
And I slept through until around midday. I really didn’t want to leave the warmth and comfort of my bed, but I had to as an Amazon delivery was due.
The long sleep, and the need for more has me feeling a bit spaced out today. Hence why I forgot to save the full template.
Domestika course
Yesterday evening, I finally settled down to start the Character Factory course by Patricio Betteo. I think the unexpected way I was forced to change art software has also forced me to shake up my art a little and to try and learn new things.
I always struggle with characters in my art. I’m OK drawing cute, kawaii characters, but I’d like to develop my own style of drawing rather stylised characters. To do that, I need some help and I reckon this course will help. Not only will it give me ideas, but it will shake me up a bit and help me out of the rut I sometimes feel in to a broader, more solid path.
In fact, I’ve signed up to a few new courses lately, and I’ll gradually work my way through them.
The rest of the day…
Not that there’s much left of the day, but I do need to have a late lunch/early tea soon. And as I’m feeling dazed I may spend some time with the course I mentioned above. That would be nice.
Also, when I feel a bit more focused, I completed this week’s coloring template for the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group this morning while waiting for the Abel & Cole delivery. I need to scan it in, edit it and then partially add colour. I need my mind to focus while I’m doing this. It may be a job for tomorrow morning instead of this evening.
It’s a lovely afternoon here. The sunlight is tinged with gold and the rust on the roof of a garage opposite me is a beautiful colour. Someone’s put bread on it and there are plenty of birds, jackdaws and magpies, paying it a visit to gather the harvest.
I would’ve liked to go out for a walk, but … the social anxiety I now have when outdoors coupled with the spaced out feeling won’t make a good combination.
One day soon, I hope, I’ll get myself into gear and go for a walk in a familiar place where I know there won’t be many people. One day. Just not today it seems. Today is a day for some self-care and accepting that I could go for a walk and accepting that I’m not in the right place to do so at this time. Tomorrow, things may very well be different.
Angela Porter 