colouring pages

September Colouring Template

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Template for the Angela Porter's Coloring Book Fans facebook group, September 2019
Template for the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group, September 2019

The first day of a new month means I add a colouring template to the “Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans” Facebook group. I make the template an exclusive freebie for members of the group. The group is free to join. Why not pop over get access to this and all other group templates.

I drew the template on Winsor and Newton Bristol Board using a couple of Uniball Unipin pens. I scanned it in, cleaned up some smudges overruns.

As it’s September, my mind is on the changing seasons; we’re heading into autumn here in the UK. The rowan and hawthorn trees are laden with red berries already. The sycamore helicopters and ash keys are turning golden and are visible amongst the still-green foliage.

It is my favourite time of year. I love the comfortably warm days and the chilly nights. It’s a delight to snuggle down in bed with a warm body and a cool head. I sleep so much better too. Mind you, I think my weighted blanket is helping with that.

I love the change in the colour and quality of light – the golden hue delights me. I’m also looking forward to seeing the relatively rapid colour-changes that happen as the dull, dark greens of summer give way to the fiery conflagration of autumn.

So, my September template has autumnal motifs in it, though they’d work for any season no matter where you are in the world.

I will continue to add colour to this template throughout the month, hopefully. Then, at the close of September, I’ll show the finished coloured version.

I always look forward to seeing how different people colour the drawing. I love to see the different colours, media and techniques they use.

Coloring Book Day 2019

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Angela Porter's Coloring Book Fans August Template ©Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com
Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans August Template ©Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

That’s right, there’s an annual day to celebrate coloring books and to indulge yourself in the relaxing, calming, stress-busting activity of coloring, no matter your age or gender!

As you can see if you browse this blog, I do a lot of art. Whether drawing, colouring, or other forms of creativity in art it really does relax, calm and soothe me when I need it.

And there are times when I really do need calming and relaxing. It’s no secret to anyone who has followed my blog for a while that I have complex PTSD (CPTSD) and I am slowly recovering from it with the help of EMDR therapy. On the days where I have low mood or anxiety or I’ve been startled into hyper-vigilance, art really helps to soothe my jarred emotions and calm me until the stress hormones leach from my body returning to their normal level for me. That is still an elevated level, but a level that has always been there in my life.

It’s not just me saying this. Research has shown that spending time colouring has a similar effect on the brain as mindfulness meditation.

One piece of research at the University of West England in Bristol has shown that colouring can reduce stress, boost creativity and increased mindfulness (being aware of what you are doing at that moment, not thinking about the future or past).

The benefits of colouring are listed in an article on the developing good habits blog.

There are so many coloring books available as well as colouring pages, you can find just about anything to suit your tastes. Also, I have many colouring books available (I think it’s around 20 now) – have peek at at my Angela Porter Amazon author page.

If you like to draw your own designs to colour and are looking for something new and a little different, then you may like to take a look at my book ‘A Dangle A Day’. In the book I show you what dangles are, how to draw them and use them with hand lettered sentiments and monograms. They’re fun to draw, simple, and there are many ways to use them such as in bullet journals (BuJos), planners, journals, scrapbooks, greetingscards, note cards, bookmarks and more.

Also, I gift an exclusive template to the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group at least once a month. They’re free to members and shouldn’t be available anywhere else, though intellectual theft isn’t unknown in the realms of the internet.

The image above is the August template for the facebook group. I coloured it digitally using gradient tools for some speed. It would take me weeks to do the way I’ve been creating digital art of late!

No matter what you use to colour – digital or traditional media – I’d love to see how you’ve brought my line art to life, whether from one of my books or from one of the templates available in the facebook group. There’s also some templates available on my angela porter illustrator facebook page too.

Here’s the tags you can use to connect with me on the social media platforms that I use:

Etsy Listings for Colouring Pages

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In the last day, I’ve uploaded three more colouring sheets to my Etsy shop – Artwyrd.

For each, there’s either a fully coloured, or partly coloured, version of the line art to see.  Yes, I’ve been using them to practice colouring in digitally.

I’ve also started work today on a new book for Dover, the theme for it being eerie.

Dragonfly Mandala – available on Etsy

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AngelaPorter_DragonflyMandala_29June2017

I’ve started getting my head together around colouring templates for sale on my Etsy shop, Artwyrd, and this is my first design – Dragonfly Mandala.

It’s offered as a high resolution pdf file for instant download.

As always, I love to see how people colour my designs in, and hope that people will share their finished works with me via social media!

 

Colorist Windows App – announcement and review

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Colorist

First, the announcement!  I’m doing some coloring templates for the Colorist App, and my first book of ten pages – called DoodleWorlds – is now available for it!

 

Review of Colorist

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Colorist is the only app that lets you color with exactly the same feel as coloring pencils! Relax on the couch and enjoy coloring a complex design, a vacation spot, or a crazy cartoon cat – tons of pages to choose from. Even color the same picture more than once, to see what else you can do with it. No need to worry about losing your coloring pencils in the couch anymore!

I have tried the Colorist app out, and here’s an honest review of it.

I had a quick look at the app before I agreed to do any design work for Faction Apps as I’d not want to have my artwork on any platform that I didn’t think was a good thing.

I’ve given it a test run using my Surface book and the Surface pen.  I haven’t tried it out in touch mode with my finger. You can see what I did in the image above, which is one of the free downloads as my own weren’t available at the time I did this test.

Here’s a close up of the section I coloured in.

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The colour palette

There’s a large number of colours available in the palette, and the bar that appears beside the image retains the last eight colours you’ve used, which is really useful and makes colouring in areas you want in the same colours easy to do.  It also means it’s easy to use many colours to get a smooth colour gradation, something that you can’t do with other colouring apps I’ve seen.

The pencil tool

There’s a slider bar with the tool so you can select the width of the pencil stroke, which is great.  The finest settings allowed me to add patterns to the image.  This is something that sets the app apart from others I’ve seen, which only allow a flood fill.

The finer lines and the ability to zoom in to the area you’re colouring mean you can get into the tiniest areas to colour, which at the original image size may have been a challenge, especially when printed on paper and coloured using coloured pencils.

The line isn’t a solid line, it has texture to it just as if you’re colouring on paper with a ‘tooth’ (texture).  This means that optical mixing of colours is possible, as well as adding texture to that mixing.  It also means that a smooth blend of colours is achievable.

The colours lay nicely on top of each other, thanks to that bitty texture; one colour doesn’t obsure the other, unless you use a lot of pressure and it’s what you want.

Oh, the colours don’t obscure the black outlines of the colouring page, no matter how hard you press.

My surface pen is pressure sensitive, and that makes the colouring experience a lot more comparable to colouring on paper with pencils, but without the mess!  I don’t know what it’s like on a screen that isn’t pressure sensitive, or how it works if I use my finger instead of the pen.

I am really impressed with the results and how the pencil tool works.

Also, I can get a bit irritated when I’m colouring with physical pencils; they often make my arthritic joints ache.  No such problem here; indeed, I wanted to carry on colouring but had to put it aside so I could get on with other things.

Eraser tool and Undo Button

It works!  However, I preferred to use the white from the palette to erase small areas to add highlights as I could control the thickness of the line being used to remove colour.

The undo button would be really useful too.

Together, they are things you can’t do when you’re colouring on paper, well not easily.

Saving your art

You can save your work at any time by using the save button on the app. You can also colour each page in as many times as you like in as many different colour schemes as you like too.

Final thoughts

I like this app, very, very much.  I found it easy to use, quick to master, and it gives really lovely results.  It’s a well thought through app, it does what it says it does, and the experience and results are a lot like using coloured pencils on paper!

I just want to repeat that although I have done some artwork for the app, these views are my own and not influenced by me working for them; if hadn’t htought the app was a good product I wouldn’t have agreed to do work for them!

Coloured doodle-de-doo

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Between a couple of ‘meh’ days, busy days with appointments, I’ve managed to colour this particular illustration of mine.

angela-porter20170127_012

I coloured this one using copics, and the scan has washed some colours out.

Peace in colour

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All coloured, using Chameleon pens.

Are there rules to colouring in?

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AngelaPorter_Color Me Stress Free_teaser1I have read many times on various facebook groups how people worry that they aren’t colouring in colouring sheets or books correctly, or they are worried that their work won’t be up to scratch compared to what they see as the amazing work done by others in the groups.

I think I may be qualified to comment on this and to offer some advice, especially as I have now created hundreds of colouring templates for Color Me Calm, Color Me Happy, Color Me Stress-free, Entangled, The Can’t Sleep Colouring Book, Japanese Patterns, Scandinavian Folk Patterns, and 60’s Patterns, with more to come!

Firstly, I’d like to ask you why do you want to spend time colouring in?  Is it for relaxation?  Is it for fun?  Is it to combat boredom?  Is it to while away the time while you are poorly?  Is it for some other reason? Is it for enjoyment?  Is it to lift your mood? Is it because you love colour?  Are there other reasons?

Notice, I ask what your reasons are for colouring, not telling you what mine are.  Your reasons can be as private or as public as you wish.

The colouring templates I have created (and continue to create) have been done with relaxation, joy, enjoyment, lifting moods, taking a break from the crazy pace of modern, technology filled life.  They offer an opportunity to take an almost meditative break from every day life, space for some ‘me time’, some self-caring time.  That was, and is, the aim behind the Color Me books.

In none of the books are there a list of explicit do’s and don’ts for the use of the book (apart from the copyright stuff).  And why should there be?  They are there for you to make your own, for you to have pleasure with, for you to find ways of expressing yourself, to go back to a time of childhood innocence where there were few rules and responsibilities.  They are there for an opportunity for you to become as carefree as you wish. Rules, do’s and don’ts, am I doing it right?, and all these other judgmental thoughts or questions have no place in these books, or similar books.

You can do no wrong!  Trust me.  You really can do no wrong! Really, you are invited to do as you wish to with the colouring templates.

Want to use coloured pencils, wax crayons, chalk pastels, oil pastels, acrylic paints, marker pens, watercolours, collage, glitter, sparkly gel pens, scented pens, stickers?  Want to use many different mediums? Go for it!  Enjoy it! Do whatever you feel inspired to do, whatever you’d like to try out.

Want to split larger sections into smaller ones?  Want to join small sections into big ones?  Great!  Do what you feel you’d like to do!  Trust your instincts, trust how the image is speaking to you.

Want to fill sections in with patterns?  Want to add words or phrases?  Want to add little drawings of your own?  By all means do so!

Worried you’re breaking some rules of art, or colour theory?  Don’t worry!  There are no rules here – if it pleases you that is all that matters!  If you’re using the colouring to get some insight into your emotions or inner thoughts, then don’t worry about all that colour theory stuff, express yourself!

Worried that you’re using the media wrongly?  Don’t worry!  If it works for you, it works for you!  If you’re happy with the result and enjoyed the process, does it really matter what one person or another says?  No, it doesn’t!  If it’s not quite working for you, don’t give up, experiment, and enjoy the process of exploration, of discovery.  You do not have to be an instant expert!  It’s ok to be a learner; in fact we all learn for the whole of our lives and what is so bad about that?  Nothing!  Do you think Leonardo da Vinci just painted the Mona Lisa one day, without years of practice and experimentation, of finding out how to express himself artistically?  Of course he didn’t!

I give you permission to play, to use different media, to shade or not shade, to blend or not blend, to simplify, to make more intricate, to break the rules.

Talking of rules, where did you learn all these shoulds/should nots of colouring?  Why do you still think they are so important? Why do you think that plants can only be green, the sky blue, rocks grey, the Sun yellow, the Moon white.

Let me give you permission to make all these things, and more, any colour you want!  I give you permission to break the rules! You want pink trees with bright purple trunks – absolutely!  You want a lilac Moon – not a problem!  You want to put fuchsia pink and lime green next to each other – what a wonderful idea!

I give you permission to express yourself with colours as a child would, with no rules, but with sheer pleasure and enjoyment!

I believe that inside each and every person there is a creative soul seeking an outlet, and colouring is one way of access things, and who knows where it will lead, what new talents you will discover hiding inside yourself, who knows how it will help you heal, to find new solutions to old problems, new insights to what is going on, as you take a break from worrying and all kinds of thoughts whirling around your head.

Now, what’s the worst that can happen?  You end up disliking something, wasting a little bit of felt tip pen, using up one piece of paper with a printed image on it.  Is that a bad thing?  Ask yourself why you dislike it, what is it trying to tell you, what lessons you can learn from it.  Write notes on the image or the reverse of it, use it to explore yourself, use it in a positive way.

Remember, no one ever has to see what you have done, not unless you wish to show them.

Worried that people will be critical of what you have done?  Don’t show them!  This isn’t for other people.  It’s not a competition.  It’s not to see who can colour the smoothest or stay inside the lines (it’s quite all right to go outside the lines or not go right up to the lines too, you do what you think is right).  It’s something that is entirely for you.  If you’re pleased and proud of what you’ve done and want to share it, then please do, but don’t feel you have to.

Remember, the whole point of this is for you to enjoy yourself, to get messy, to play with different media and images and colours the way you feel you want to at any particular time.

Remember, in art there are no mistakes, only happy accidents!  Sometimes the things we think are mistakes are actually something beautiful and wondrous in their own right, something we learn from and incorporate into our future creativity.

The only ‘rules’ there are in this are the ones you impose upon yourself.  There are no colouring-in police.  There are no international laws about how to colour in.

A last note, I would love to see what you do create and the story behind it and yourself, especially if the process is helping you heal or overcome various difficulties in your life.  That is one of the dreams I have for how my art can be used.