Artist

A simple and elegant Autumn Dangle Design.

Angela PorterLeave a comment
Autumn Dangle Design ©Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

Hello to November, and farewell Inktober. My blog post today looks a bit bare compared to my Inktober creations. However, I have neglected my dangle designs during October, so now’s the time to get back on track with them

Today, I’ve created a simple and elegant dangle design with an autumn colour scheme that could be used in so many different ways. I’ve also put together a step by step set of instructions how you too can create this design (and hoping that it’s not so simple that I come across as patronising).

This is my first time posting a set of instructions – post a comment to let me know what you think of them and if you’d like to see more of them in the future.

I’ve put the dangle design on one side of a slip of paper that would make a perfect compliment slip or a note to slip in with a gift, or just as a short letter to a friend. It would also be perfect for a coordinating piece of envelope art!

This dangle design would be absolutely charming as an embellishment in a BuJo, planner, scrapbook or art journal. It would also make a darling bookmark.

It would be easy to turn this design into a greeting card as well.

So many possible uses for such a simple design.

I do hope that you will give drawing dangles a go – no matter whether you think you’re good at drawing or not! This design is made out of just simple shapes; it’s the colour that brings it to life and masks all kinds of imperfections.

If you’d like more ideas for dangle designs, then please take a look at my book ‘A Dangle A Day’ – it’s filled with examples of dangle designs with step by step instructions and helpful and encouraging words of advice.

One step at a time to a dangle design.

Step 1

Step 1
Draw a square in the top left corner of a piece of paper. I used a piece of paper measuring approx 8.25″ x 3.5″. I used a Tombow Fudenosuke brush pen to draw the box, and outline it. I deliberately made the squares less than perfect to give that human touch as well as a uniquely ‘me’ way of drawing boxes. The Fudenosuke pen allows me to draw lines of variable width quite easily, which adds to the charm of the box. The ink in the pen is also alcohol marker friendly.
Letting your drawings be less than perfect is what makes them uniquely yours.

Step 2

Step 2
I used Chameleon marker pens (BR3 “Cinnamon” and YO3 “Warm Sunset”) to colour the inner box. Autumn is definitely here in the UK, and the combination of these colours reminded me of the leaves. However, you could use any colour combination you like and any medium you prefer to use.
Chameleon pens make it so easy to create a colour gradient – I prefer them to other alcohol marker pens, even Copics.

Step 3

Step 3
I added a simple leaf pattern to the coloured box using a Sakura Pigma Sensei 04 pen.

Step 4

Step 4
Add the dangle! For this dangle I used the same kind of leaves as in the box for a consistent design. I added some round beads as ‘spacers’. Finally, I added my ‘symbol’ to the end of the dangle.
Also, I did draw a faint pencil line with a ruler to help me keep my dangle hanging straight, more or less!

Step 5

Step 5
I coloured the beads and leaves in using the same colours of Chameleon Markers. I then decided I needed to add some shimmer and shine; I used a Uniball Signo gold glitter gel pen to colour in the border of the box and to add some dot highlights here and there.
The Chameleons caused the Sakura Pigma Micron ink to smear a little – I always forget that happens! I should’ve used the Tombow pen again. Oh well, you live and learn, eventually!

Inktober 2019 – Day 31

Angela PorterLeave a comment
Inktober 2019 Day 31 ©Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

Happy Hallowe’en to you all and here is my last skully Inktober drawing for 2019.

The skull prompt was ‘duck’, so I just had to draw a duck-billed dinosaur (hadrosaur) skull! I’ve always had a love of dinosaurs and prehistoric critters, so it’s fab I can include one of their skulls.

I wanted to do a woodcut style skull drawing, but I wanted to use white ink as well as black. So, I used some digital craft paper to draw on. I think it’s worked out well, though some areas of highlights look a bit too geometric. I’ve also just realised that I didn’t add highlights/shadows to the teeth. Oh well.

The mushroom prompt was, quite appropriately, Rubroboletus satanus, and you can see outline drawings of the mushroom in the mandala.

The tangle pattern for today was Florz, and that forms the tiled floor pattern.

When I’d completed the mandala on the same kraft paper as the skulls, I realised that I needed a lighter background, so I just added a different kraft paper to the background.

Reflecting on Inktober

I’ve enjoyed Inktober this year for sure. Picking prompt lists that appealed to me helped a lot. I did start off trying out different ways of approaching drawing skulls and the like. However, I settled on combining the skull illustrations with a mandala. I’ve also discovered a great fondness for woodcut-style drawings.

I now need to work out what to do with my Inktober artworks. Some of them will become available as tee-shirts and other products in the days and weeks ahead; I do want to tweak some of them first.

I’m feeling a bit sad at it being over. Having a ‘brief’ to work to certainly helps to focus my sparkly, grasshoppery mind and takes me out of my ‘comfort zone’ (I absolutely hate that phrase!). I’ve certainly found a passion for skulls; so many more to draw, so many different angles too.

It’s the focus that has been the most helpful. This is something I need to sort out, I think. I do have themes for the colouring books I do, but I think I could do with a theme (or series of themes that repeat over a week) that will help focus my creativity outside of the book.

Inktober has taken over my creativity this month. However, I think I needed that to freshen me up.

So, I shall look forward to Inktober 2020, while doing my best to put into practice some of the things I’ve learned from this year’s challenge.

So, Angela, how are you feeling today?

I’m OK today, a bit tired and the grey, gloomy, damp weather isn’t helping much. I have used my light therapy lamp this morning; that did lift my mood somewhat, to be fair.

Yesterday was the toughest day, emotionally, I’ve had for a while. I was really feeling rather low. It had been coming, however, for over a week. I’m not entirely over it; I’m still feeling emotionally vulnerable and fragile today, but nowhere near as bad as I felt yesterday.

I do know what has caused the stormy weather; being aware of such things shows I’ve come a long way from the start of therapy for CPTSD. I also know that these storms don’t last forever, and that self-care and self-soothing is needed.

That will be the order of the day today. I do have an errand or two to run as soon as I post Inktober, and I do have something happening this evening. However, the rest of the day will be self-care, starting with making a hot, nutritious meal from scratch. I’m tending towards a veggie bolognaise, the leftovers of which can be turned into a veggie chilli for tomorrow.

So, I’d better get this social media stuff done and get on with my day!

Evening Mandala

Angela PorterLeave a comment
Evening Mandala ©Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

Yesterday afternoon, I arrived home from EMDR therapy feeling very emotionally drained, fragile and vulnerable. Creating art is one of my self-soothing activities, particularly mandalas.

I’d downloaded a pile of new backgrounds in the past couple of days and wanted to make use of a chalkboard background. It was so dark I knew I needed to make the mandala full of light and colour.

This was a somewhat symbolic choice as my long journey to recovery from CPTSD has been about bringing light into the dark places of my trauma damaged psyche. EMDR has helped me turn the dark into light in terms of my mental and emotional health.

I really enjoyed creating this mandala. Usually, I work with black on white; here I started with colour – the abstract ‘flower’ ring close to the centre. I wanted the colours to glow against the darkness, so I chose lighter shades of aqua and violet. I even added some glowing golden seeds or pollen grains, which is also metaphoric for the personal growth I’m going through in my healing journey.

I then used a white, chalky pen ‘brush’ to draw patterns inside this ring and around it. I decided the white was too plain, so, to break up the white, I blended soft colours into it.

Finally, I added the ring of mushrooms. These had to be my favourite colour – purple. I added some dots to the mushroom caps in lime-green, which is kind of a complementary colour to purple. My last step was to add the stylised foliage behind the mystic mushrooms.

This mandala really helped to soothe me, and it was a pleasure to create. It gave me a break from Inktober and other work that’s ongoing too.

Talking of Inktober, I will be getting Day 29 done later today; I have some things that need doing first.

Oh, the mandala was created digitally using Autodesk Sketchbook Pro and a Microsoft Surface Pen on the screen of a Microsoft Surface Studio (the digital analogues of pen and paper).

Inktober 2019 – Day 28

Angela PorterLeave a comment
Inktober 2019 Day 28 ©Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

Iguana skull, ‘Well, well, who’ tangle pattern and an abstract pattern from puffball mushrooms.

Digital drawing using Autodesk Sketchbook Pro and a Microsoft Surface Pen with a Microsoft Surface Studio.

I’m really not at all happy with this one today. The skulls aren’t what I’d want for them. It may be that they are just plain line art, no texture, no depth, no variation of line.

I may revisit this one at some point in the future, but not for a while. My attention must turn to other things.

Inktober 2019 – Day 27

Angela Porter2 Comments
Inktober 2019 Day 27 ©Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

Armadillo skull flower? I thought I’d try a different number of skulls arranged around a mandala. They sure do look like petals of a flower. Armadillo skull is the prompt for today’s Inktober drawing from a list by Instagrammer @book_polygamist. I’ve also used the tangle pattern crescent moon from the list by @havepen_willdraw.

I used Autodesk Sketchbook Pro along with a Microsoft Surface Pen and Surface Studio as my tools.

I’m also enjoying using these grungy texture backgrounds, of which I am altering the colours as needed.

I can’t believe that Inktober is nearly over; just four more days remain. I’ll reflect on this year’s experience with my last Inktober drawing.

Inktober 2019 – Day 25

Angela Porter2 Comments
Inktober 2019 Day 25 ©Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

Today’s Inktober drawing includes a platypus skull, stylised Crepidotus mushrooms in the outer ring, and the Tripoli tangle pattern in the wide ring.

I’m using Inktober 2019 prompt lists from the Instagrammers @book_polygamist, @nyan_sun and @havepen_willdraw.

I used my favourite combination of Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, Microsoft Surface Studio and Microsoft Surface Pen to draw the design.

As you can tell, I really do love drawing mandalas and adding the skull to them gives an interesting twist I think.

I’ve also really enjoyed drawing skulls in a ‘woodcut’ style.

Inktober 2019 – Day 24

Angela PorterLeave a comment
Inktober 2019 Day 24 ©Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

Aardvark skull, Odumansiella mucida mushrooms and Baton tangle pattern.

Digital art using Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, Microsoft Surface Pen and Surface Studio.

Another woodcut style skull drawing with a mandala that is more organic in feel that recent.

Looking at the design, I’m wondering if the skull needs to be a little bigger…

Inktober 2019 – Day 23

Angela PorterLeave a comment
Inktober 2019 Day 23 ©Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

Today’s prompts are cockatoo skull, Marasmius (parachute mushrooms) and Pixiose tangle pattern. I’m using Inktober 2019 prompt lists by Instagrammers @book_polygamist, @nyan_sun and @havepen_willdraw.

I’ve returned to the woodcut style of illustration for the cockatoo skull; the contrast betwixt the bone and beak made it a natural choice for me. Also, I do like drawing in this kind of style.

As my emotional weather is on the drizzly and gloomy side, I opted for the soothing qualities of mandala drawing for today’s illustration. I don’t know why I chose to have four skulls as part of the mandala; it just seemed a good idea at the time. However, it does work out quite nicely. The spacing means I can still draw the skulls fairly large, yet have plenty of space fo the mandala to show through.

Today’s tangle pattern is a filler design, so I thought adding it in panels would work well and this formed the first ring. I also wanted to add in some tropical flowers, so the second ring has stylised flowers forming it. It was then I remembered about the fungi and so added them as the outer ring.

For now, I’ve left the design in black and white with a coloured background. I may return to this mandala at another time and add colour and more line work. For now, it’s good enough.

To create the artwork, I used Autodesk Sketchbook Pro along with a Microsoft Surface Pen and Microsoft Surface Studio.

So, Angela, how are you today?

I said that my emotional weather is still gloomy and drizzly. I really don’t feel I have the oompf to do anything much today. All I want to do is sleep, and when I want to sleep all the time, it’s one of my warning signs that something’s not right emotionally. I’ve also had some of the old inner critics and thought patterns rearing their heads once again, causing a lot of tears. It seems I’m not as resilient as I think I am when doing what I can to help others.

I can still sense that contentment within, but the emotional weather seems to be clouding it somewhat today. I have used my light therapy lamp, which helped a little, especially as the weather outside is mirroring my emotions today.

I know what’s caused this change in my inner weather: therapy and a couple of recent events.

I managed to put a smiley face on to go to a meeting last night, but I was so tired after it, even though I’d slept for a couple of hours in the afternoon.

I do know this is not permanent. I’m processing some recent and less recent traumatic experiences.

So, I will do what I can to get some work done today, work that doesn’t require much in the way of focus. I do believe I have some sketches for my Spectacular Sea Life Designs colouring book scanned in ready to be inked. I think I can manage that today.

Inktober 2019 Day 21

Angela PorterLeave a comment
Inktober 2019 Day 21 ©Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

Day 21 and it’s a pug skull, Pleurotus eryngii (King Oyster mushroom) and the Batnumber tangle pattern from the Inktober 2019 prompt lists from Instagrammers @book_polygamist, @nyan_sun and @havepen_willdraw.

I really enjoyed drawing the wood cut style of skull yesterday so thought I’d go with it for today’s short nosed dog skull – I chose a pug skull.

I echoed the wood cut style in the mushrooms forming a ring in the partial mandala around the skull.

I like the graphic black and white nature of the design elements against the coloured, textured background. I did, however, break up this graphic style with the foliage forming the outer ring of the design. I just felt I needed to push something to the background.

In 21 days I seem to have covered a lot of different styles in my work, though I think my favourite ones are where I place a mandala behind the skull, as in today’s illustration.

Although I love colour, I do think the more graphic designs are more ‘me’. Maybe it’s because my experiments in drawing in colour (as in day 18 and day 19) are outside my familar, comfortable work.

I don’t know where this will lead me, though I do want to do more mandalas like today’s, maybe get them available as prints or on t-shirts. What do you think?

Inktober 2019 Day 19

Angela PorterLeave a comment
Inktober 2019 Day 19 ©Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

I’ve just managed to get today’s Inktober drawing mostly done. I’m now too tired to do any more work on it this night.

My prompts for today were an otter skull, Tremella mesenterica fungus and Diva Dance tangle pattern.

As otters are water creatures (and one my my favourite animals – did you know they have pouch of folded skin where they keep stone that is special to them?) I chose watery blues and blue-greens. I also kept the fussy drawing behind the skull monochrome. I’m too tired to work out what else I could do. I quite like that the background design is a tad etheral and ghostly.

I’m so tired now; it’s nearly 11pm here in the UK. I’ve spent the last two or three hours working on the illustration above.

So, Angela, how are you feeling?

My day began with getting myself sorted to give a Time to Change Wales anti-stigma talk to the CHAMPS Group based in Pontllanfraith. Champs stands for ‘Chartist Help 4 All Mental Health Peer Support Group.

I was invited to talk there by a friend of mine that is involved in CHAMPS and I met a fantastic group of people, all of whom experience mental ill-health. So, after telling them about Time to Change Wales and the story of my own mental ill-health, there were lots of conversations, some taking the chance to talk to me to say how my story mirrors theirs in many ways, or how something I said made a penny drop for them. I’m also an example of someone well on the way to recovery from CPTSD, and that shows people it really is possible to heal from a mental illness.

I think it was a positive experience for everyone, myself included. However, it did leave me drained and after having some lunch I retired to bed to sleep – all part of my self-care routine.

I woke in the early evening and had a long chat with a friend who is struggling with mental ill health, had supper and then turned my attention to Inktober.

I woke after my nap feeling quite awake and alert. I felt that way until just half an hour or so ago; my mind has become foggy, I’m tired and I will soon be back in bed to sleep.

I know the toll doing talks like this can take on my energy. There’s anxiety about a number of things – finding my way to the venue, meeting strangers, sharing my story to name the main ones. However, the Time to Change Wales campaign is a cause I feel strongly about and if by giving my talks I can help others to understand what it’s like to live with mental ill health and the impact of how they behave towards us as a result of stigma/discrimination, or help others to feel they’re not alone, or to consider other aspects of their mental health that they’ve perhaps not considered before, then my day or so of emotional tiredness is worth it.

Yes, for a day or so I may feel drained but I now know that this drained feeling doesn’t persist for long. Even though I’m tired, I can still sense that inner contentedness glowing warmly with in me as a smile in my heart.