A mandala in my entangled assemblage style. I really enjoyed drawing this, not least because I proved to myself I can transfer this way of drawing to digital art.
Unusually, there’s not a single botanical element in this artwork. Not one leaf, not one flower, nor any seed pods. It’s purely abstract.
I think I may have used up too much of my time this morning (a deadline is about to go whoosh past me), but it has given me ideas for some of the remaining templates I need to complete.
I’ve finished it! Well, I think I have. One crazy assemblage of all kinds of bits and bobs. I will look at it again in a few days and see if I want to add anything to balance the design. Fresh eyes are always a help in this. I’ll also decide if I want to add shadow and light to bring out more of a sense of dimension.
I really, really enjoyed doing this drawing. It’s my favourite style of drawing, yet different to things done in the past.
To complete the drawing I used a 0.25 Rotring Rapidograph pen, which is the same thickness as the Pilot G-Tech-C4 pen I drew the first part of this design with. The difference is that the Rotring pen’s ink flowed more freely onto the paper.
I didn’t realise it until last night, but the sketchbook I’m using is one by Sea White. The acid-free cartridge paper is sized so that it is more robust with wet media. That causes problems for pens, however, as the size tends to clog the nib/point/ball up. The Rotring pen seemed to have fewer problems.
Also, I found the larger barrel of the Rotring pen easier and more pleasurable to hold and draw with. I need to dig out some pen grips to use with the Pilot pens.
A different work in progress today. I started this one late last night and continued for a while after breakfast this morning. I used a Pilot G-Tec C4 pen, which has a very fine tip, on white acid-free cartridge paper (the camera flash has turned it a creamy colour, I have no idea why!).
It is always a pleasurable experience to draw with such a fine pen and to created such detailed and intricate designs. No real thought or planning, just trusting my intuitive creative instincts.
Purely abstract drawing, using my favourite shapes, motifs and texture patterns, along with a few new motifs that have developed as I’ve drawn this. It looks like a weird assemblage of bits and pieces, mechanical and sculptural, botanical and textural.
Assemblage is a fairly good way to describe my signature style of drawing. There are layers of all kinds of bits and pieces – flowers, mechanical tubes and pieces, textural areas, pipes, sculptural bits and bobs, seeds or berries and curls.
What is hidden beneath the various layers? Where did all the bits and pieces come from? What was disassembled or broken to liberate the pieces? Who or what did the disassembling, and why? What new things could they be assembled into? What dream fragments, story parts of my unconscious mind do they represent?
I can spot various influences in the bits and bobs present in the drawing – Mayan sculpture, dials and mechanical levers, pipes and conduits, discs and berry lights, flowers and seeds, textures and patterns, arches and columns, rocks and strata.
What do you see in this drawing? Leave me a comment, I would be intrigued to know!
Angela Porter 