Artist

Sketchbook Saturday | Sketchtember Day 4

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Link to today’s vlog on YouTube – A flip through of my sketchbooks and this week’s art.

I’ve had fun creating art this week. Here’s some highlights.

The rediscovery of how much I love my Chameleon markers was a wonderful thing. I love the way I get a smooth gradient of solid colour from them. Such a stark contrast to my bumbling, chaotic attempts with other media.

Taking up the Sketchtember challenge was a good idea to dust off some of my neglected drawing/sketching skills and ways of adding interest to a sketchbook. It’s also made me try to think differently to how I would when creating entangled art.

Hand lettering, and some typographic art today, has made a reappearance in my work. That’s a good thing; it’s something I would like to do more of.

Adding a rectangle of colour behind a drawing and adding handwriting to create texture is something I’ve not done before, but I like the results.

Thyme is the herb for today, day 4 of Sketchtember and my offering is in the photo at the top of the page.

There’s been some real lowlights too. Colour choices, mediums and doing things that seemed like a good idea when I started them! There’s a lot more about this in today’s vlog on youtube.

Even with the facepalm moments, it’s been lovely to spend time just drawing with no expectation of a finished project, polished work, or even perfection.

It’s hard work trying to convince myself that it’s ok to make mistakes, to mess up things as long as I learn from them.

Sketchtember Days 2 and 3

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Link to today’s vlog on YouTube.

Here are my sketchbook pages for days 2 and three of Sketchtember. I’m using DecayingDots’ list of herbs and spices for this one.

I’m enjoying working in a different way to my usual entangled art. And, I’m making some awful mistakes/art in these pages. However, these are learning moments, not least of which it’s ok to do things that are grim, mainly my use of colour. But, if I didn’t try things out and learn from the mistakes I’d not progress at all.

What I think it shows me is that pen drawing, with just shading or monochrome colour is my strength, colour my weakness. As if I don’t keep saying that, yet I keep going back to using colour.

Today’s vlog focuses on Day 3 – Saffron. Tomorrow’s vlog will be a look at all the art I’ve worked on in the past week.

Sketchtember 2021 | Day 1

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Link to today’s vlog on YouTube.

I’ve decided that it would be quite nice to take part in a monthly art challenge, perhaps as a warm up to Inktober next month. Maybe.

So, I looked around at the challenges I could find, and settled on one from @DecayingDots on Instagram and Twitter. Their list of prompts is all herbs/plants. That, unlike others, inspired me to take up the challenge.

It’s been a long time since I used a sketchbook truly as a sketchbook. It may take me awhile to get back into such things. I do have some lovely, pre-coloured pages to make use of as a start.

Not only will I practice my kind of sketching – which is usually with a pen – I can practice hand lettering and handwriting. My idea is not only to sketch the day’s plant/leaves, but to add notes and information. Those notes may be about the plant, or about the colours I’m using, or even recipes/uses for the particular herb.

As it’s a sketch challenge, there’s also no pressure to complete every drawing, or even to do perfect drawings. It’s all about observational drawing for me.

Now, as i don’t have green thumbs (I can kill any self-respecting plant in a matter of hours, well days maybe) and I’m not feeling able to visit shops or gardens at this time ( social anxiety is a heckofa thing), photographic references will have to do. But that’s ok.

So, here’s my page for day 1, which is all to do with sage. In today’s vlog I talk about this page, the media I’ve used, and I add some drawings to day 2’s page – Rosemary.

I’ve got some work still to do on both pages I think … but that’s the fun of a sketchbook. It’s not meant to be finished at one go, pages can be revisited and added to as needed!

Template Thursday…on a Wednesday???

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Link to today’s time-lapse drawing on YouTube.

Here it is, the sneak peek at tomorrow’s coloring template for the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group.

This week, I was asked to create a mandala by Brett, who runs the group. So I did. And this one has a very autumnal theme to it. It is the first day of September and summer is waning away with autumn starting to make it’s way from the wings.

I’ve chosen a rather subdued palette for today’s addition of colour. No doubt I’ll have a different version for tomorrow’s posting!

Chameleon Color Tones Coloring

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Link to today’s vlog on YouTube.

After filming yesterday’s vlog, I decided to try using marker pens with a drawing I’d done on a Distress Ink background. The drawing on the left is the result of this experiment.

To add colour, I used Chameleon Color Tones marker pens. I chose colours that would be similar to those in the background.

I really enjoyed adding colour to this drawing. I’d forgotten how much I enjoy using the Chameleon pens and the ease of achieving gradients with these pens.

I completed the drawing with embellishments of white and yellow Sakura Soufflé pens, muted Sakrua Gelly Roll Moonlight pens, and some shiny areas of clear Sakura Glaze pen.

I was so happy with the result, that I started work on the drawing to the right, some of which I do in today’s vlog.

I really love the way that the background tones down the brighter colours of the marker pens. Which shouldn’t surprise me as marker pens are transparent! But it did surprise me!

Something else that I was struck with was how similar using markers is to how I add colour digitally. I haven’t made that connection before, but it is likely to inform me on my way forward in adding colour to my artwork. I may be trying to force water-soluble media and coloured pencils into behaving like markers, which is something that they’re not meant to do. I find it hard to work with the looser, possibly more chaotic water-based media, even though I love the effects that other seem to achieve with them. No matter what I do, I’m never totally happy with the end result, something I’ve blogged and vlogged about an awful lot.

Working with alcohol markers has shown me that I can work well with colour, with the medium that matches my artistic style – precise and controlled. The more chaotic, loose, aspects of this work come from the Distress Ink coloured backgrounds.

Now, if only I can accept this and focus on using markers in my work more than other media. Well, apart from digital coloring that is!

Pink and Purple Entangled Art

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Link to today’s vlog on YouTube.

I realised that the pinks and purples I added to this drawing were just a bit too bright and vibrant for my current tastes. I decided to use an aubergine Graphitint pencil with a waterbrush to tone them down somewhat. And I think it’s worked. I’m much happier with this now. I even like the areas where I’ve added just graphitint.

I’m not quite sure how I’ll finish adding colour. Do I add some Carbothello to the graphitint areas? Do I just continue with Graphitint alone? I don’t know for sure.

Sunday Morning Entangled Art

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Link to today’s vlog on YouTube.

A late summer, rather cool and sunny start to the day is something I’m luxuriating in, and that means arty pursuits.

I’ve completed one drawing, which I kind of review at the start of today’s vlog over on YouTube. I’m not too happy with the colour I’ve added at all. I started with Ecoline watercolour inks, but they felt too bright and jarring with the distressed, grungy, quite dark background. So, I then tried out distress inks, but I’d already gone down the rabbit hole of poor colour choices. When I’d finished adding colour, I had some rather dull, uninspiring colours that really didn’t fit in with other parts. So, I tried using coloured pencils to lift the colours, with not much success. Finally, I tried some chalk pastels, which helped somewhat. Finally, I added embellishments with a variety of gel pens,w hich helped to lift the colour somewhat, bu kind of seem over the top.

So, to shift my disgruntled arty mood, I thought I’d go back to an earlier drawing and use a really simple set of colours – cerise and purple – to add colour and shadow to the drawing. And white to help bring out highlights if needed, though I will use various gel pens to embellish this when I’m done. This is the drawing you can see at the top of the post.

I’m liking what’s happening with this drawing. I do have to layer the chalk to get an intensity of colour when using the tortillon to blend the colour out as well as working the chalk into the paper. I’m enjoying the way the different colours will blend nicely with each other. And I like the simple colour choices too.

I keep saying I’m going to complete drawings with monochrome, or nearly monochrome colour palettes. And I keep forgetting to do this when I leave a host of colours near me!

I shall persevere with this particular drawing, and see how I feel about once it’s all coloured.

As to the other one, well it’s being put to one side for a few days so I can return to it with fresh eyes and a fresh mind. Perhaps I’ll see it in a different way then.

Pen Drawing and Distress Ink Background

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Link to today’s vlog on YouTube.

I woke to morning sunshine and the lovely coolness of an autumn morning. I feel so much more alive on mornings like this. The coolness is so refreshing, invigorating. Although we’re not quite into autumn yet, there are hints it is on the way. Hints of leaves changing colour. Sunlight is much more golden rather than the bright quality of summer light. It really is wonderful!

It put me in the mood to create a coloured background (or two) to draw on. This time, I’m using a vintage brown gel pen from Arteza. Usually I’d use black, but I’m starting to explore the possibilities of other colours, particularly on such distressed, grungy backgrounds.

Today’s vlog starts with the creation of two coloured backgrounds, then starting to draw the design. This drawing isn’t finished, yet. When it is complete, then it’ll be time to add colour and/or contrast and highlight. Finally, it’ll be time to add embellishments.

I know that when these gel pens are dry they are water resistant, so the world of coloured media is open to me. I am likely to keep the colours with in the green and brown palette of this background, however.

Template Thursday | ATCs and Cards

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Link to today’s vlog on YouTube.

This week’s coloring template / coloring page for the members of the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans Facebook group is a bit different.

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.

Color Palette Challenge for August 2021

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Link to today’s vlog on YouTube. In it I draw some of the coloring template for tomorrow.

It’s the last Wednesday in the month, so it’s the end of this month’s color palette challenge.

I chose to add colour to the first coloring page of the month for Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group. The colours are bright, cheerful and tropical. I always enjoy a limited palette, though I also mix colours to add some variation in colours, particularly the greens.

I spent the morning drawing this week’s template for the facebook group. If you’d like a sneak peek of some of it, have a look at today’s vlog.