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.
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…
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.
I’ve spent much of the day working on this, and it’s been a pleasure to create as it has combined many of my favourite techniques.
First, I coloured the background with Distress Inks, starting at the centre with a pale pink, follwed by a pale blue, a sea green and finally a blue with a hint of green around the edge.
A light spray of water and a dry and the sheet was ready to have the black line design drawn on it, once I’d put a pencil grid down.
Next, the colours in the various sections were intensified using Zig Clean Colour Real Brush Markers from Kuretake, along with a brush and water to fade the colours out.
Finally, all the dots were addded using pearlescent/iridescent watercolour paints.
I’ve smudged some dots, others insisted in running into each other, but I’m fairly pleased with the outcome. As I’ve already said, I really enjoyed doing this one.
Over the last couple or three days I’ve been playing with mandalas and dots, just purely for fun!
To create the mandala above, I used shimmery, iridescent watercolour paints on black card. The photo really doesn’t capture the shimmery loveliness of the mandala. The mandala measures approx. 8″ x 8″.
This next mandala, again 8″ x 8″, was made using acrylic paints with green card as the substrate. Once I thought the paints were dry, I tried adding some distress inks so that there were shades of green in the background. However, not all of the dots were completely dry and some smeared. Also, the ink coloured the white dots. So, the lesson is to add the shading before doing the dotting!
These four small mandalas (approx. 4″x4″) I added shading using a damp paintbrush and Distress ink. I thought I’d try drawing the design in ink in three of them then adding dots in white and copper to add more/different patterns as well a some shininess.
Oh, the mandala with the teal and red-brown dots had distress ink sponged in the centre. The white acrylic paint wasn’t stained by the ink. These dots had a lot longer to dry than the previous mandala.
For this mandala (approx 8″ x 8″) I first applied some distress inks to white watercolour paper Then I drew the mandala in black ink. Finally, I added dots with gold acrylic paint. You can still see the pencil construction lines as I want to give the gold paint plenty of time to dry before trying to erase the lines.
This final mandala, approx 6″ x 6″, was drawn using black ink on pink card. Once the drawing was complete, distress inks were applied to give different shades of pink/purple. Then dot patterns were applied using white acrylic paint and iridescent watercolour paints.
A new book of ten images designed by me is now available in the Colorist app! It’s called DoodleWorlds – The Next Frontier!
I had a lot of fun drawing these images, and who doesn’t need a koala planet or an angel pusscat in their life? Not forgetting all the crazy aliens and critters and other things!
Colorist is an app that allows you to colour templates in like you’re using a pencil or a gel pen. Great fun, easy to use, and you can colour each template again and again. Oh, and you can add doodles and patterns to the images too!
My youtube recommendations today included some videos about how to create ‘dot mandalas’ – the kinds that are seen on stones and also as paintings. They’re made up of patterns of dots, and I watched a couple by Kristin Uhrig and Travelling Kindness Rocks and they inspired me to have a go. This is the result:
It’s not perfect – I found out this is much harder than these two ladies make it appear. It was, however, a lot of fun to create!
I used my embossing tools dipped in PaperArtsy Fresco Paint and some gold Liquitex paint, both of which were watered down a little, to make the dots. I did draw some pencil circles on the black card to help keep the design circular; I drew three circles in total! Then, I just let the design flow without over thinking it.
As I’ve said, it was great fun to do, totally engrossing, and I’m quite pleased with my first attempt. I’m sure I’ll be doing more of these, on all kinds of scales!
Angela Porter 