Artist

The purpose of art…

Angela Porter1 Comment
©Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

I often wonder about the purpose of art, the purpose of my art, and can never find the words or ideas to express. So, I’ve fallen back on a favourite quote of mine from Picasso.

It embodies how I feel about creating art. Being creative helps me to dust myself off, find myself back in the present, and to find my sense of balance and contentment. Being creative is so important to me each and every day, more so during the Covid-19 crisis and lock down.

I unashamedly make art that is a reflection of what makes my heart sing – line, pattern, abstract shapes, stylised forms, colour, intricacy. I soak up inspiration from all kinds of things and process it all unconsciously and intuitively to draw and paint things that are pretty and show what I find fascinating visually and that give me a sense of wonder and awe.

My art is, and will always be, a reflection of my heart, soul and mind.

I do, however, sometimes worry that my art hasn’t anything to say about the world, that makes people think about things. That my art is just … pretty.

What the world needs now, however, is some prettiness and beauty in it to dilute the worry and fear and ugliness that abounds. I’d like to think that my art helps in that process just a little.

Today’s mandala and typography were created digitally. I usually use a background from one of the collections I’ve purchased online, but today I used one I created. I used Affinity Publisher to produce the typography and Autodesk Sketchbook Pro for the artwork. My tools are by Microsoft – Surface Slim Pen and Surface Studio.

Sunday Mandala

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Sunday Mandala ©Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

I’ve been working at this mandala intermittently over the past week or so. I was determined to stick to a limited colour palette of three colours, though a fourth one crept in to the outer ‘ring’ of the design.

Also, I wanted to use a lower contrast betwixt the edges of the various sections, something that I think I’ve mostly managed to do. It still has that illusion of dimensionality.

It was nice to work on something digital this morning. I’ve been focused on more traditional drawing over the past few days. I knew I had this mandala to finish, and I think it now is. I may very well spend some more time today playing around with digital art. I’ll see. I also have a hankering to knit or crochet, or both, but not at the same time.

So much fun!

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So Much Fun ©Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

I had so much fun making these little abstract art creations! They really do go back to my roots, but in the way I like to create now.

To give you an idea of size, the purple one is 3″ x 4″, the other two are 2½” x 4″ in size. I have mounted them on cards that are 4½” x 5″ in size, made from some white Daler-Rowney mixed media paper, and I love how they look!

I started by creating the backgrounds using Distress Inks, a mini foam blending tool and a spritz of water.

Then, I painted on some basic shapes using a brush, water and either colour from Zig Clean Real Brush pens or Distress Inks, followed by some splatters of colour.

The the real fun began. Taking some things I really wasn’t happy with and adding line and pattern to them to give them form, definition, and some dimension.

I used Sakura Pigma Micron pens (05 and 02). I also used a glass pen and gold ink in the top right design. For all designs, I used a gold Sakura Gelly Roll pen to add gold highlights, which haven’t shown up well in the scans.

There was something so satisfying and pleasing in working with vague shapes and patterns, the random nature of the background, and using them to inform how my art would develop in each case.

I really, really enjoyed creating these, and I will do more in the future.

I’m not sure how I could create similar digitally – the randomness of wet media isn’t something I’ve worked out how to do…yet. Maybe I never will. Maybe it’s the case of me creating the backgrounds separately using traditional media, then adding the lines digitally. I don’t know yet, however. It may be that this is something I reserve solely for traditional media.

What I do know, is that each design is a work of art in it’s own right and these would look fab framed. In fact, I had a huge inner smile as I mounted them on the card blanks, giving them a simple frame, and saw how finished they then looked. Teeny, tiny pieces of art, by me, Angela.

Mail Art

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Mail Art ©Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

Yet again I woke with my mind swimming with an idea I wanted to try out. I’d had a problem when I was trying to add colour to drawings I’d done on distress ink backgrounds. Whether I used water and a brush or a Tombow Blender pen, the pigment from the Sakura Micron and Uniball Unipin pens bled, and I really wasn’t happy with that.

I spent some time yesterday trying different pens out, with no luck in finding any that didn’t smear/bleed. So, I put this to one side until I had a chance to think about it.

I slept on it and woke with an idea to try.

Why not use the Tombow blender to draw the basic shapes of my design in colour and then add black lines afterwards. Seed pods seem to be my default design when I’m experimenting, but I’m fine with that.

So that’s what I did. And this card is the result.

As I was starting to add the black lines to the design I thought I’d made a horrible mistake, had a bad idea. However, as I added more and more detail, I realised it would work out, and I think it did.

I added some gold to the seeds in the seed pod with a glitter gel pen. I also splattered some gold watercolour paint over the design.

The envelope is really simple; three seed pods, black line art with golden seeds.

Not a unique artistic approach, but it is something that has never worked for me before.

It’s not a dissimilar approach I take to my digital art, where I start with the basic shapes and then add shading and detail. I do use line art as a guide for my design, and that is an approach I can apply to traditional art in that I may need to pencil in the design, then colour, then add the line art.

Who would’ve thought it – working digitally is helping me develop my traditional art methods and skills.

Template Thursday

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Coloring Template 2 April 2020 ©Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

A week has gone by since my last coloring template for the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group.

This week, my offering harks back to my ‘Entangled’ style of drawing – abstract, with swirling lines, spirals and organic motifs. And fairly detailed with zero or little white space. It’s still a style I like to return to; it’s one of my comfort drawing styles.

For this one, I worked digitally – Autodesk Sketchbook Pro with a Surface Slim Pen and Surface Studio, both by Microsoft.

I started to add colour to it, and the colours are softer, more muted than is usually the case for me. I think those represent my mood at the moment, as well as it being spring time.

If you’d like to download a copy and colour this template, then you do need to become a member of the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group. It’s free and all I ask is that you follow a few reasonable terms and conditions for use! I’d love to see how you’d colour this one in.

Zentangle ‘toppers’ for cards

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©Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

I’ve been awake way too long already today. I just couldn’t settle to get back to sleep when I woke around 4am. I gave up trying just before 6am and thought I’d do some drawing to see if it would settle me.

The soothing style of choice at the moment is zentangle, so I made use of some of the coloured ’tiles’ I made yesterday, and these are the result. I’ve yet to decide whether I will actually turn them into cards, or whether I’ll just keep them as references for the future.

I thought plain black line looked a bit ‘flat’. That may be a consequence of me working digitally so much and the way I achieve dimensionality in my art.

So, in the top design, I used brush, water and some colour from Zig Clean Colour Real Brush Pens by Kuretake. I enjoyed adding shading with colour, though it was hard work with the fine brush I’d chosen, especially when I turned my attention to the one on the bottom left. So, I used a Tombow Blender pen with the colour for the third card on the bottom right. I’m much happier with the smoothness of the gradients here, compared to the other two.

What I’m not happy with is the way the pigment from the black lines seems to move, particularly when I used the brush. I’m not sure whether this is a result of me drawing on top of the distress ink coloured paper, or whether it’s to do with the friction of brush on the lines. I did get a little bit of movement of the pigment with the Tombow blender pen, but not so much it seems.

As I’m digging into my stash of media from past times, I remembered I had some Nuvo Drops from Tonic. So, instead of using a metallic gel pen to add some embellishments, I added some of these drops.

I’m not entirely sure they work. I think I’ll have to look at these cards again after I’ve had a good sleep and a break from them

I am glad I tried adding more saturated colour to the designs to give that illusion of dimension, even though I had to rediscover the joys of using a blender pen. I do find pens so much easier to work with than brushes, that’s for sure. That may be a knock on effect of me using pen ‘brushes’ so much in digital art.

I’m exhausted now, but I won’t go back to bed until my grocery deliveries have arrived.

Monday mood

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©Angela Porter

Another day on lock-down, and I started the day by colouring a Strathmore Bristol Board tile with Distress Inks, then drawing. You can see the result above, sorry for the poor photo.

The random generated tangle pattern for today is ‘BB‘, and it’s the wavy set of blocks across the middle of the design. The rest of the design is made up from some of my favourite patterns and motifs, as well as a few dangle designs.

The overall design doesn’t feel as if it flows. That may be a reflection of my emotional state, which is a mixture of anxiety, fear, being overwhelmed and exhausted.

So, self-care is in order. So that’s doing things that won’t frustrate me, or that won’t having me feel that whatever I do is rubbish.

Sunday tangling

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Sunday Tangling ©Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

This morning, I was in the mood to do a bit of tangling/zentangling. I used a random tangle pattern generator to choose the main pattern for my design and it threw ‘Purk’ at me.

Yesterday, I spent some time creating some backgrounds digitally. So, I decided to use one of those and to tangle digitally too. This is the result.

It took me a lot longer to finish than if I’d drawn with pen on paper. Mainly because I spent time adding shading and highlights to the image. That let me play around with different kinds of layers and brush effects yet again. Bit by bit I’m learning how I can make them work for me.

I need a break from this for a while. But I can see how I need to add more shadow/depth to the background patterns.

So, Angela, how’re you doing today?

I’ve suddenly come over all tired. My sleep is all over the place. Despite me feeling content, there’s still a deep seated anxiety about the pandemic and how life is at the moment. That anxiety is draining me emotionally. I feel emotionally out of sorts today, even though I can still feel that contented touchstone inside me.

I’m surprised I settled to do some drawing this morning. Yesterday, I had trouble settling to anything to the point I was going to throw out my yarn stash. Whatever I’ve tried in terms of knitting or crochet has just frustrated the heck out of me rather than settled me down.

I found myself swearing at my phone yesterday as it pinged with alerts. I’ve now put my phone on silent. I will check in on messages etc in a short while, but they are going to be silenced until I am no longer getting so angry I’m swearing and shouting at the phone. I’ve never done that before and it’s a sign of how much on edge I am, even though I feel content.

Yesterday and today I’ve not known what to do with myself. I’ve not felt that way for a long while for such an extended period of time. There was a time when I’d be like this for days or months. I’ve not often felt this way in the past year or two as my healing from cPTSD has really kicked in.

Still, I will be kind to myself about this as these are unusual times; unfamiliar with increased fear, anxiety and uncertainty. The last day or two my usual coping strategies haven’t helped me to distance myself from the overwhelming pervasiveness of constant news and articles, posts and memes about the Covid-19 pandemic.

It’s not just a break from my phone I need; it’s a break from the news and views too. A retreat from the world and everything is needed. For a while at least.

Another new facebook banner

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Facebook banner ©Angela Porter

This morning, I thought I’d play around with some digital art, and this is the result.

I drew the motif on the left entirely in grey-scale. I then went to create the background before adding colour to the grey-scale design. I had a chance to play with different types of layers, brushes and effects too.

I got to the point where the design was enough as it was and I knew some words were needed. So, I chose two important messages for people during the coronavirus crisis.

Today, I started to create with just the idea of trying out greyscale and adding colour, with no idea where it would lead me. I’m quite pleased with the result, though I may have been heavy handed with the contrast and not lightened it where highlights would be needed.

The background I am pleased with. It has that grungy, distressed feel to it, yet the colours and nice and ‘clean’. I’ll definitely be doing more backgrounds like this one. In fact, I think I’ll spend some time today doing just that! I can never have enough backgrounds to draw upon – figuratively and literally! It’ll be a nice way to spend some time on what is a somewhat overcast and cooler day today.

Digital art resources : Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, Microsoft Surface Studio, Microsoft Surface Slim Pen.

My new facebook profile banner.

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Just a quick bit of fun this morning. I thought it would be nice to create a little banner for my facebook account and page, and this is the result. Something a bit mystical in nature.

Digital art created with Autodesk Sketchbook Pro along with the usual Surface Slim Pen and Surface Studio from Microsoft.

I used this as an opportunity to try out some new ideas, and it’s worked out well enough I think.

Today, I’m feeling content, at ease and that inner smile is back. It’s nice, once again, to have the windows open a little and to feel the gentle flow of cooler air into my work space warmed by hazy sunlight.

Being creative certainly does help me to find and keep my sense of contentment and to keep the anxiety and fear at bay.

Now, it’s time for me to go get my breakfast. I was so determined to create this new border that I got lost in it!