capsules pods and seeds

Capsules, Pods and Seeds

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©Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

I had a very fitful night’s sleep (or non-sleep) last night. So, around 5:30am I decided to get up and ‘art’.

I finished off the watercolour of some seed capsules.

I’m really, really happy with this watercolour illustration, with an unusual color palette for me. I smile when I look at it! I decided to use a 0.5mm HB pencil to add heavier lines to the more shadowed parts, as well as a little bit of subtle line to help give the pods some volume. It’s difficult to see on the image.

I am so happy I drew a ‘window’ on the paper to draw within. I’m never happy drawing without a frame to keep within and the edge of the paper just never feels right for me. I also like the way that it feels like you’re looking through a window and that it’s OK to cut things off (apart from one cheeky leaf that I just had to have overlying the frame!).

There may be a bit too much white space above the seed capsules, I don’t know for sure. It’s so unusual for me to leave space around the various elements in a design that it feels a bit weird. However, I do like the space in this illustration.

Once I finished the watercolour, I turned my attention to drawing more capsules, pods and seeds in my A4 sketchbook. I completed two pages of small drawings, one of which you can see in the background.

Unusually for me, I drew in pencil. I’d usually use pen straight away. I have no idea what that is about, but it was a pleasant and soothing experience for me. I now have plenty of sketches I can use to create more watercolour paintings from, small ones as I really enjoy working on a small scale. Creating my own little treasures, complete with some precious, metallic details.

Painting little treasures will have to wait though. My eyelids are becoming leaden with a need to sleep. This frustrates me as I had things I wanted to get done today, things that need focus and concentration. So, I’ll soon be back in the land of nod.

Inktober 2019 – Day 18

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Inktober 2019 – Day 18 ©Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

Something a bit different from me today. It took me a lot of fiddling and faffing around to decide on the blue colour scheme for the intricate drawing that envelopes the crocodile skull.

My natural instinct is to use black for such drawings. However, black looked a bit too stark and dominant; the skull felt lost amongst the drawing. So, I tried out shades of blue and white, making the fill colours transparent so that they faded into the background a little and giving the ‘feel’ of water plants.

Overall I’m pleased with this, though I’m not sure I’ve got the colours for the line art right. Still, I’ve not really done anything quite like this before and it is something I want to do again in the future. Maybe with tomorrows Inktober prompts.

Today’s prompts were a crocodile skull and slime mould from Inktober lists by Instagrammers @book_polygamist and @nyan_sun respective.

Entangled garden

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Entangled Garden ©Angela Porter 2019 - Artwyrd.com
Entangled Garden ©Angela Porter 2019 – Artwyrd.com

Drawn with a Tombow Fudenosuke (hard) pen on A4 11¾” x 8¼” Winsor and Newton Bristol Board.

I worked on this one over three days, both to get used to working with the Fudenosuke pen but also for some self-soothing self-care.

It does need some colour and I think I may try a more vintage/distressed/grungy color palette with it, once I get round to adding color.

At the moment, my focus is on colouring the sample colored templates for my latest book for Dover Publications Creative Haven Series –Entangled Christmas.

I’m feeling more content today and less exhausted too, which is a good thing after this weeks rather intense EMDR session.

Entangled landscape

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Entangled Landscape © Angela Porter 2019 - Artwyrd.com
Entangled Landscape © Angela Porter 2019 – Artwyrd.com

I’ve really not been myself the past few days. With a couple of busy days this week, the emotional fallout from EMDR on Tuesday finally caught up with me as I slowed down Thursday afternoon. I’m so tired, and my mood isn’t the brightest to say the least.

It’s always a sign that even when I’m tired I can usually draw and create, but not much this week. I haven’t been able to find the inspiration to draw, nor have I found the interest or energy.

Today, around a meeting, I managed to draw this.

It’s a throwback to the more familiar art of earlier days. It has given me a chance to use some new motifs, as well as some favourite ones that crop up often.

The process of drawing was soothing, and I did my very best not to be too judgemental, though I did want to throw it out and restart several times as I wasn’t at all happy with what was coming out of the nib of my fountain pens or Uniball Unipins.

I switched to the Uniballs as the fountain pen ink was smudging lightly. I’ve fixed that, mostly, by digital wizardry. I also added the Distress Ink background digitally.

I know my inspiration and energy to draw will return, I’m just not feeling at all myself at the moment.

I do have a new self-care activity, which is sitting in/on the bed, crocheting shawls and listening to audiobooks – currently working my way through the Harry Potter series.

The rhythmic nature of crocheting is soothing. The familiarity of the Harry Potter story is also soothing. Being upstairs makes me feel safe, secure and it’s also comforting.

The memory being worked on in EMDR certainly has stirred some stuff up. I’ve had some very upsetting insights into how I’ve viewed myself. Releasing the trauma associated with this particular memory will be accompanied by a better view of myself. I may not fully believe it, but if I can believe a little of it then that is good enough for now.

I have to believe that with each memory and its associated traumatic experiences that are processed via EMDR I’ll believe the healthier, more positive statements about myself more and more.

These are some quotes I’ve found recently that are helpful to me in understanding me, helping me through this.

Trauma creates changes you don’t chose. Healing is about creating change that you do choose.

What happened to you was not your fault. The struggles you have today, like your cPTSD symptoms, are a normal response to abnormal events. So, please be kind to yourself.

The poison leaves bit by bit, not all at once. Be patient. You are healing.

Inktober 2018 Day 1 – Poisonous

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Angela Porter Inktober 2018 Day 1-Poisonous

My first offering for Inktober 2018.

I went with one of my favourite things to draw – fungi, in this case poisonous ones. I also added a few seeds, foliage and petals.

Drawn with Sakura Pigma Micron 05 and Uniball Unipin 0.2 pens on Daler-Rowney mixed media paper. I used cool grey Copic markers to add shading.

Oh, I cut the paper to 4″ x 4″ in the hope it would make relatively short projects for me; this took nearly 2 hours to draw/shade!

I’m not happy with some of the textural/shading black lines, especially on the underside of the turny-uppy ‘shrooms. This drawing really does, I think, need more colour!

I thought I’d try to stick to the original precepts of Inktober and work in black ink only, but then added shading with copics, and then feel colour is needed!

It’s a good start, and is helping me get back into the flow of drawing again.

I’ll be working on Day 2 – Tranquil, later on today, and I think I may create a mandala for that. Tempted with working digitally, but may do one on paper with pen … we’ll see on that one I think.

#Inktober

Abstract Botanical 9 September 2018

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Angela Porter 9 September 2018

This one has taken many hours to do, and I’m not quite happy with the background colour/texture, but I need a break from it.

I drew the black and white line art on paper with Sakura Pigma Micron pens, scanned it in, created a transparent background and then coloured it digitally.

I used Autodesk Sketchbook Pro with a Microsoft Surface Pen on my Microsoft Surface Studio.

Fun to do. A nice way to spend time, jut playing. And it’s unusual for me to colour in one of my black and white pieces of line art.