I love curvy, flowy, abstract patterns and the illusion of depth, volume, twisting, and bending space. And seed pods. And seeds. So lots of my favourite things in this design. I even snuck in a few spirals!
To add shade, I used three cool grey Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens. Though they haven’t blended smoothly, I’m quite happy with that. The design looks almost metallic as a result. In fact, I am happy with this design in its entirety. I could increase the contrast a bit more between the darkest shadowed areas and the white highlights. But I can always revisit that in my own time.
After a day of focusing on inking in colouring pages, I needed something a little familiar and soothing to calm some overwhelmed emotions. So, I chose to make a little tag for my accordion journal. To decorate the tag, I created a monogram, a Zentangle style embedded letter A.
As I was drawing it, It struck me how much the folded patterns remind me of metamorphic rocks. That made me smile for sure!
I enjoyed the graphic black and white of the finished design, so I chose not to add any shade.
I needed a break from digital drawing this afternoon. So, I did some traditional drawing!
I want to hand letter a quote in the top left corner, but first, panels of patterns are going to be completed. They weren’t all done in the video and I’ve yet to add any more. But I will!
Please click on the “Watch on YouTube” button – Cheers!
My page of whimsical houses is now done. Well, the drawing is at least! I think I’d be happy to live in any one of them, except perhaps the one that has a loooooooong ladder to climb up to. Need to have that changed to an elevator!
It’s always a happy and joyful time to draw houses of whimsy. In fact anything whimsical. It always makes me smile.
I’ve started adding colour to this drawing with Inktense pencils and a damp brush. I have a plan as to how I’m going to add colour – I talk about that in my video. All I have to do is remember what that plan is! Having said that, this is a sketchbook drawing so whether it gets finished or not is another matter. Colouring is not my favourite thing to do, nor an activity I feel I do well. Still, leave a comment if you’d like to see it finished!
In the video, I show, step by step how to draw the last couple of houses. Draw along with me! Follow my steps or change, adapt, or invent as you fancy. I’d love to see what you come up with, so tag me on social media.
Please click on the “Watch on YouTube” button. Cheers!
Carrying on with my look at arches is an exploration of the tangle pattern “Kruffle” by Kelli King CZT.
It actually took me a little while to understand the deconstruction of this pattern, it’s deceptively tricksy! But, when I’d got it, quite a few variations appeared in my sketchbook.
Of course, I go through these, step by step, in today’s video.
I really do enjoy exploring tangle patterns, as well as all my favourite motifs. They are such a good way to get creative juices flowing, but also of practicing your drawing skills, as well as other techniques, such as adding shadows or colour, or further patterns.
I say ‘plants’ as they all have seeds inside them. They could, however, be critters of the sea urchin family, albeit a bit on the alien side!
I drew all five designs in today’s Draw With Me video on YouTube. I added colour to the first two on the video. But as YouTube was taking its own sweet time to upload and process the video, I decided to complete the group of designs.
There are a few favourite patterns that I tend use to add texture to my drawings these days – tangle patterns tipple, between, and diva dance. I do make use of other patterns involving lines and dots.
I think I went overboard with the tipple on the middle sea plant! Still, you learn by doing…hopefully eventually in my case!
Oh, I used alcohol markers to add colour and shadow. I chose yellow-green, yellow and yellow-orange colours today. Keeping to a limited colour palette really helps me work with colour in a way that is pleasing to me.
It was really enjoyable to do, as drawing always is.
I followed this up with work on my next colouring book. The style of drawing is different to what I’ve been doing of late, so the first template I’ve inked in and added colour to so I can see what it will look like coloured. Well, I’ve partly coloured it. Colour really does make all the difference. I do love black and white drawings/lettering. But for these stylised, whimsical, imagined kind of drawings, like my colouring templates, the colour is what really does bring them to life.
I started my arty day by drawing variations of the pattern “Well” deconstructed by Zentangle Inc.. I filmed it for today’s vlog, and you can see it by following this link.
This is one of my favourite patterns (I have many !). It is one I’m familiar with from Early Celtic art, and possibly Anglo-Saxon. Also, it’s not a pattern that I’ve tackled as a pattern exploration. But I have now, in part. I have the feeling there is a lot more I could do!
But not today. I now need to focus on getting today’s coloring template done. Then, inking templates for Adorable Dogs.
Angela Porter 