cards

Dangle Designs 22 Nov 19

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Dangle Designs 22 Nov 19 ©Angela Porter | Artwyrd

If you’d like to find out more about drawing dangle designs, then my book “A Dangle A Day” is a good place to start. I’ve created over 120 designs, with step by step instructions, for you to use and inspire you.

It’s Friday, so that means it’s dangle designs today!

I drew these on postcard sized (148mm x 105mm) acid free heavy cartridge paper using a mixture of Tombow fudenosuke and Faber-Castell Pitt Artist pens. I then used Chameleon Color Tones and Color Tops to add some colour to the designs.

Again, I’ve drawn some really simple, cute and whimsical dangle designs that leave plenty of space on the paper for hand lettering or a hand-written note or letter.

Dangle designs are, of course, very versatile. I put these on the edge of a postcard sized piece of paper. However, they could be used as the focal point of a greeting card or note card. Lengthen the dangle, and they’d make cute bookmarks. They’d make interesting designs to fill spaces in a BuJo or scrapbook page. They’d also make interesting focal points on art journal pages.

I’d love to see how you use dangle designs – just tag me in social media!

Artwyrd at Etsy

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Last night I bit the marker pen and uploaded two sets of small greetings cards to my Etsy shop, Artwyrd.

Each set has ten cards featuring a coloured flower/mandala design stored in a small, custom made box along with matching envelopes.

The flower/mandala designs I drew myself in Autodesk Sketchbook Pro on my Microsoft Surface book.  I printed out multiple copies of the designs and then used my Chameleon Markers and Copic Markers to colour them.  Distress Ink was used to add colour around the designs.

The next step was to create colour mats for the designs; I used my marker pens to colour some Centaura Pearl card.

Before mounting them on the 3″ x 3″ (7.5cm x 7.5cm) card blanks, I embellished the designs with dots of metallic and pearlescent acrylic paint, as well as adding coloured gems.

Of course the cards sparkle!

The boxes are made from cardstock with the lids decorated with designer series paper; the colour ways chosen are complementary to the colours of the cards. I also used Distress Inks to distress the edges and corners of the boxes.   I’ve yet to embellish the boxes.

These are my fifth and sixth attempts at making the boxes.  I had to purchasing a new paper cutter that’s more accurate than the one I had been using.  I had used a template for a box that would take ten 3″ x 3″ cards, but wasn’t big enough for the envelopes.  So, I also had to work out and adjust the measurements needed for the base and lid so that the envelopes would fit in the box!  Frustrating, especially as maths isn’t my strong point …but I got there in the end.

I do have a couple of jobs to do to the cards/boxes; the boxes need some embellishment, and I need to add makers labels to them too.

The boxes will be nice for other things once the cards are used up – the lids are a snug fit.

All of the designs I have stored and may, in the fullness of time, put them together as a pack of digi-stamps so people can use them to create their own cards!

Butterflies

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Butterfly 3 patterned_AngelaPorter_16June2017Butterfly 8 patterned_AngelaPorter_16June2017

I used Autodesk Sketchbook Pro on my Microsoft Surface Book along with my Surface Pen to add patterns and shading to two of the butterfly outline designs I drew yesterday.  I’m happy with the results.

Today I’ve also created two more dot mandalas, each around 5″ in diameter.  I added some gems to those, as well as to the small dot mandalas I created over the last couple of days.  The sparkle really adds something special to them, and helps to emphasise the circularity of mandala designs.

DotMandala1_16June2017_AngelaPorterDotMandala2_16June2017_AngelaPorterDotMandalaCards_16June2017_AngelaPorter

Dot Mandala Cards, Butterflies and Fungi

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Digital drawings

ButterfliesForMixedMedia_15June2017_AngelaPorter

FungiForMixedMedia_15June2017_AngelaPorter

Over the past couple of days I’ve continued working on my Microsoft Surface Book using Autodesk Sketchbook Pro to create digital images for used in card making and mixed media projects.  IFungi and butterflies have been my chosen subjects, and you can see some of them in the images above.  They’ve also been digitally coloured, though I’ve still got dots and lines to add to them to give more depth and dimension to them.

They’re all now cut out and sitting waiting to be used in various projects.  There’s still more drawings carefully filed away on the Surface Book for future uses…

Dot Mandala Cards

DotMandalaCards2_15June2017_AngelaPorter

DotMandalaCards_15June2017_AngelaPorter

I’ve also have a bit of fun creating some teeny-tiny dot mandalas.  Each card base is just 3″ x 3″ (approx. 7.5cm x 7.5cm).  The black card I used as the substrate is 2½” square (approx. 6.25cm).

The acrylic paints I used are either metallic or pearlescent, so they do catch the light rather nicely.

Mixed media cards – shells and fish

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AngelaPorter_Cards1_10June2017AngelaPorter_Cards2_10June2017AngelaPorter_Cards3_10June2017AngelaPorter_Cards4_10June2017

Over the past few days I’ve been drawing shells, flowers, fish and fungi and sorting them out to be digi-stamps, work all done on my Microsoft Surface Book.  Some have been printed, coloured using my Chameleon Color Tones and Color Tops pens, cut out and mounted on mixed media backgrounds.  The photos above show the fruits of my labours.

Apart from the Chameleon markers, the media I have used are:

  • Distress and Distress Oxide inks
  • Iridescent and metallic paints from Liquitex and Pebeo.
  • Perfect pearls sprays
  • Stencils
  • Stamps
  • Black Archival Ink
  • Inktense pencils
  • 3D Crystal Lacquer
  • Alchemy Wax

I think that’s the complete list of media.  I used mixed media paper for the backgrounds, and the paper was cut out using rectangular dies.  Behind the backgrounds, I used silver mirriboard as a mat.

I’m quite pleased with them.  No so sure about the kraft card bases (which are 5¾” x 4″ in size), but they were what I had.

Now, all I have to do is work out a price for them and pop them into my Etsy shop, though I think I will have to take better photos for that!

Give Away!

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Heart Card by Angela Porter

This card is 6″ x 6″.  The design is on watercolour paper and it glitters and glimmers with gold embossing, sparkling spots and patterns. The central heart and the outer layer are raised and shiny, thanks to the use of Ranger’s Glossy Accents. The green, pink, red and purple colours were added using Tim Holtz’s Distress inks, also from Ranger, with a waterbrush, and all relate to love, peace and harmony.  The design is mounted on a craft paper card and comes with a plain envelope.

If you pop over to my facebook page then you can enter a free draw to win this card!  I will draw the winner at random at 8pm UK time (GMT) on Tuesday 10th February.

Good luck!

Stumbling around…

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Stumble Upon

Well, I have finally discovered the delights of stumbleupon.com!  It’s an insidious site, so easy to lose time while engrossed in websites that appear that you’d never have thought of looking at – art, nature, crafts, science, space, writing, quotes… The list goes on!  I have so many websites to revisit and spend time with.

It has also provided me with lots of ideas, inspiration too.  Such as this one – little guiding stars.  What a wonderful idea!  I’ve been practising making stars, but my origami skills have never been very good.  I love the idea of putting an inspirational word or quote in side them for someone to unwrap… So, my mind is working on just who I could create such a gift for, as if I didn’t already know!

There were so many more ideas, inspirations…

I know, I may be late in this discovery, but …

Arty crafty cards

Of course I’ve been making more cards.  They’ve been a pleasant way to spend time of late.  Here’s some of the latest crop.  You can see all of them at Etsy.

Inspire Card 1 © Angela Porter

Friend Card © Angela Porter

Congratulations Card 1 © Angela Porter

Thank You Card 2 © Angela Porter

Friend Card 1 © Angela Porter

Love Card 2 © Angela Porter

Dream Card 4 © Angela Porter

Greetings Cards

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Greetings Cards 1 © Angela Porter 2012

Greetings Cards 2 © Angela Porter 2012

I’ve been doing teeny-tiny bits of art to turn into greetings cards.  Each card is 4″ x 3″ and the artwork is created using a variety of different media, including metallic pencils, coloured pencils, metallic and iridescent paints, metallic and glitter gel pens, Sakura glaze pens and fine-point technical drawing pens with black ink.

I’ve really enjoyed creating these; they’re relatively quick for me to create, though each one takes anywhere from 30 minutes to 90 minutes to create, believe it or not!  It’s also nice to create little bits of art that are more affordable.  Perfect for framing after receipt of them as a keepsake.

My swirly, curvy, spiralling style of abstract art is very much featured in these little creations, as is my love of colour.  The inner raven has been kept happy by the use of metallic, iridescent, shimmering colours and highlights.

All the cards are for sale on Etsy.

I’m going to be creating more this afternoon I think.

Cards for Pisces and Aries and a big dose of procrastination!

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Pisces

Pisces Card A © Angela Porter 2012

Pisces Card B © Angela Porter 2012

Aries

Aries Card A © Angela Porter 2012

All these cards have mandalas on them that are approx 9cm in diameter.

The Pisces cards were worked with Derwent Colorsoft pencils, Sakura Glaze pen and Derwent Metallic pencils on black card with metallic watercolour paints providing the highlights.

The Aries card was worked with Rotring Rapidograph technical drawing pens and black ink, Derwent Inktense pencils, Zig Art and Graphic pens and Derwent Metallic pencils on cartridge paper.  This card needs some extra work on it to fully reflect the nature of sun-sign Aries.

Procrastination

Writing this post is a bit of procrastination.  I have to sort out some artwork and frame it, work out a price for it, and do the same for some pieces of textile jewellery to place in a coffee shop.  More about this later on.

I’m actually having a mug of tea after clearing off the table in the back room which I’ll need to cut the mountboard for the artwork on.  I’ve also cleared a chair which has been piled high with stuff since I was writing the two archaeology books a few years ago now – “Digging Down” and “A Road to the Past”.  I can be really, really lazy about clutter.  I have so much more to clear out, but I’ve started now … so …

I’ve also changed the voile curtains in the back room – that’s needed doing for a long while, and the ones that were hanging are now in the washing machine.

I’ve been signed off work for nearly three weeks.  I completely lost my voice due to laryngitis just over two weeks ago.  As my voice still isn’t fully back, the doctor has signed me off work for another week.  As a teacher, my voice is important, and when I can barely be heard sat in the quiet with friends then there is no way I can be heard over a class of 30 or so teenagers!

Right, so about the artwork.  I’ve visited a local coffee shop a couple of times while I’ve been off work – O’Callaghan’s Coffee Shop.  They have art by local people on the wall, all for sale, as well as other bits and bobs.  I bravely mentioned, while knitting and chatting to the owner that I did art, she wanted to look and well … one thing led to another and I said I’d get some of my art framed and some of my jewellery sorted out to go there.

Yes, knitting.  I have decided that it’s about time I made myself a fiery throw!  I’m knitting squares in lovely warm fiery colours to make a cuddly blankie just for me.  I’ve started this many times over the years, but have never got anywhere, but this time I’m determined to do so.  I plan on it being the ugliest but most lovely cuddly blankie in my home.  I think then I may have to work on one to have in my future hypnotherapy office … for clients …

So I may be procrastinating a tad, but the shock of actually clearing clutter, albeit a small amount of clutter, requires me to have a mug of tea before I retire to do some arty things!

Oh happy days!