I’m fine, but feeling a tad out of sorts today. So, I needed some art that would be self-soothing for a bit of selfcare. Nothing is better than starting to fill a page with tangle patterns, and all of these are new to me!
From top to bottom, the zentangle patterns I used are:
Wigwag – Jody Genovese CZT
Moonrice – Ilonka Weerts
QuaSahnt – Heidi Kay
I coloured the page with Distress Inks (Wild Honey, Spiced Marmalade) then added some Ripe Persimmon through a stencil.
This morning, I woke thinking that I really do need to pop all my favourite texture and filler patterns somewhere so I can refer to them easily. So, a sampler page it is! And yes, I videoed it and you can see the video on YouTube by clicking on this link!
I’m actually looking at the artwork I’ve done in the past few days or so that has been inspired by the work of Rebecca Blair. I’m really enjoying these kinds of simple, straightforward and rather graphic patterns. As they’re new to me and I keep coming up with my own variations, my fear of forgetting things kicks in.
Athazagoraphobia is the psychological term for the irrational fear of being forgotten or ignored, or just of forgetting things. Forgetting things like patterns or textures I like. That’s why I have a number of A5 journals with collections of drawings and patterns and so on in them – my visual references. This partly comes from a desire to collect such things and have a reference at hand to get inspiration from. But it also comes as I do worry about forgetting things as well, especially when I’m exploring or learning something new.
And it’s a totally irrational fear! My memory is usually really good, but I worry about forgetting things as well. Maybe it’s a result of seeing the devastating effect of Alzheimer’s on my father. I can’t remember if I was this way before that. Actually, I was. For a long period of time I kept a journal to keep my thoughts and memories in. Oddly, I don’t really do that now. I have a large collection of journals here and my only desire is to destroy them as I don’t look through them and I really don’t want anyone else to be able to look through them either. They are way too personal for that!
Anyways, I’m making a page full of my favourite patterns from my recent artistic endeavours, just in case! If nothing else, it will be something to spark creativity at a time when I’m a tad stumped for it. It’s also a fun thing to do and a lovely way to review my recent drawings.
Click on this link to watch my YouTube video that accompanies this post.
I’m most probably not the first to discover this, but it is entirely new to me!
Early this morning, I added some alcohol markers to a pen drawing I’d finished. I’d drawn over a Distress Ink background with some old book pages collaged and gessoed onto it.
I know gesso coats a surface with a waterproof and slightly textured finish. I do know this. But that didn’t occur to me as I added alcohol markers to the drawing.
I was absolutely delighted with the interesting variations in the intensity of colour that resulted. Also, the application of alcohol marker also brought out the texture where the gesso was patchy, even a little bit. The paper soaked up so much more colour than the gesso – duh go me for not realising that first, but that’s not the important thing – it’s the effects that result!
It’s not all that easy to see on the image to the left. But, behind the triangular pattern, I used just one soft blue marker, but you can see the variation in intensity! Usually, it would be a very flat kind of colour. The darker areas are where there is no gesso.
This is something I really want to use as I go forward. I love the crazy, random variations in colour and texture that happen. It seems to me a way to bring a little unpredictability to the rather predictable results you get with marker pens.
Another couple of panels were completed on this sampler this morning. I like something like this to gently start the day and a bit of a drawing warm-up. If you’d like to draw with me, then click on this link to see today’s video on YouTube.
Today I’ve added the tangle pattern Kos, deconstructed by Anica Gabrovec CZT, known as Zen Linea. This panel is to the top and centre-right. The other panel is towards the bottom left and is one inspired by Rebecca Blair.
It’s funny how the internet seems to conspire to remind me of my early artwork nearly 20 years ago. One of my drawings turned up on Pinterest today. And it was this kind of sampler, but with patterns from Romanesque architecture, nature and textures drawn in pen and white ink on a kraft paper background. Seems I was doing this kind of thing before I’d heard of Zentangle or Rebecca Blair or many other artists and CZTs!
I keep trying to settle on a clear artistic voice, if not chorus, and it may always have been there, but I just don’t seem to accept it for some reason.
Perhaps these kinds of synchronicities are nudging me to accept this is something that I like to do and need to work more with. Time will tell, that’s for sure.
I think I’ve accepted, mostly, that I need to put watercolours and similar media to one side and focus on alcohol markers. I like the control I have over them. And using digital art to add colour, shadow and highlight too.
As much as I like the fluid, random effects you can get with water-soluble media, my ability to work with these media seems to be limited. Still, no doubt I’ll keep returning to them in the hope I’ll have a different outcome at some point in time. I’m not going to hold my breath on that, though!
I also think that I’m zeroing in on the best way for me to work with colour – monochrome or analogous colour schemes, maybe with a pop of complementary colour here and there.
This was a lovely way to start my day. At the bottom is a tangle pattern that is new to me – Zhuer by Yuru Chen.
I also wanted to add a motif across a couple of boxes in the sample. This one ended up like a stylised ear of wheat. As I look at it now, I wish I’d had it going behind the boxes and maybe the top bending towards the left and reaching outside of the upper box. That’s something to think about for the next motif I add.
Still, it was a nice half hour or so before my attention turned to inking in colouring templates.
As well as filming adding the pattern and motif to this sampler page, I also show my slow stitched panels at the end of the video. You can view the video on YouTube by clicking on this link.
I’m really not feeling too grand again today. Tummy cramps kept waking me up through the night. I know what the cause of them is – hormones is all I’ll say. But I am so tired today, but I don’t want to sleep as that will impact on my sleep tonight. So, quiet art time it is!
I like the idea of pattern and motif sampler pages in my sketchbook. However, I like to work on paper on the worksurface rather than in a book. So, I dug out one of my Distress Ink coloured papers to work on.
I used a selection of Zentangle tangle patterns for the first row. They are, from left to right
Savana by Yvette Cambell CZT
Holly by Linda Farmer CZT
‘Nzepple by Zentangle Inc
Dorsal by Anita Aspfors Westin
Crazy ‘Nzeppl by Zentangle Inc
Pufanflower by YuRu Chen
I used alcohol markers to add shadow to the patterns and a white Gelly roll for the highlights.
This will be a series of posts with accompanying videos until the page is done.
Here’s the link to the video for Part 1 in the series.
This seems to be the natural progression of my work earlier this week where I put motifs in boxes and added background colour only.
When looking at Rebecca Blair’s artwork, which I absolutely love, I got inspired to create the first ‘sampler’ on the left. I say sampler because splitting space up in this way reminds me of needlework samplers created to practice different stitches.
This is a lovely way for me to indulge my love of hand-lettering, patterns, stylised motifs, colour, shadow, texture and boxes split into boxes!
Colour continues to vex me. I think my favourite is the centre example in a monochrome colour scheme. No chance of any weird colour combinations with that one!
I keep saying this about me and colour, don’t I? But I really need a huge sign that lights up and flashes to remind me to stick to monochrome colours, possibly analogous, and with tiny flashes of a complementary colour. Actually, I need the sign to detect when I reach for colour and shout this advice at me!
Of course, I wanted to share my experiments with the world; well, a few hundred people may be, who may find this an interesting idea to try. If you’d like to see the video then click on this link!
It’s been a quiet day for me. My digestive system is playing up, and self-care is the order of the day. That means not doing anything that has to be the best I can do. I know today that it’ll be harder for me to get things done because I’m under the weather. Fingers crossed, I’ll be fine and dandy again tomorrow.
I had to revisit this idea by using the correct kind of paper for alcohol markers. And bullet tipped markers.
I really enjoyed doing this. Adding the details made a difference for sure, as did adding some shadows to the motifs.
If you’d like to see me draw these and, perhaps, draw along with me, then take a peek at this video on YouTube.
I spent an hour or so doing some warm-up drawing before turning my attention to inking in some colouring pages for “Fanciful Birds”, my next colouring book in the Creative Haven series.
Whimsy is always a welcome thing, flowers and foliage in particular. I also wanted to work with colourful backgrounds for each motif.
I really wasn’t fully awake and didn’t think through the type of paper I was using. I knew I wanted to use alcohol markers to add colour gradients to the background. Did it occur to me to use marker paper? Nope! Of course not! So they bled a tad – the Ohuhu brush markers I used for some of the backgrounds are rather juicy, too juicy for the paper. I liked the backgrounds, however, and knew I could fix the bleeds with a white gel pen.
So, I thought I’d switch to Inktense pencils and a damp brush. Not quite sure that they sit well next to the alcohol marker backgrounds. There’s lots of textureand an unevenness in the colour and gradient. Again, partly down to my choice of paper (all media paper from SeaWhite of Brighton).
So, for the last couple of images, I used some Arteza EverBlend markers for the blue and warm brown backgrounds. The bullet tips let less ink flow onto the paper, minimising the bleed. There was still some bleeding, which I made worse by trying to ‘erase’ it with a colourless blender pen.
I made use of the magic of a white gel pen to cover up these bleeds.
I definitely need to write some reflections for myself to add to this page when it gets put in my sketchbook. For now, I’ll just say that I like the last two I completed the most. Those are the blue and brown backgrounds on the bottom row. I do like the other alcohol marker backgrounds too, but there’s something about the more neutral backgrounds. I just can’t put my finger on what it is.
Right then, time to finish my mug of tea and get some more inking of colouring templates in!
After a very broken night’s sleep, I woke with a headache, again. So, first breakfast was some painkillers. Second breakfast was kiwi fruit, banana and scones! Yup, I’m the best part of six feet tall and like a hobbit!
Anyways, while I was waiting for the painkillers to kick in even just a tad, I did a little bit of slow stitching. I found a small piece of black felt that had some blue, turquoise and green fibres needle felted on its surface. So, it got attached to a larger piece of a rather bright green felt with some slow stitching.
I then thought I’d rather like to see if I could create a tangled background to place the textile panel on, when it’s finished.
I happened to have this piece of paper I’d coloured with Neocolour II water-soluble wax pastels lying around and it seems to harmonise quite nicely with the felt panel.
I wanted to take inspiration from the shapes and/or patterns in the textile panel to create the background. And that’s exactly what I did in today’s video.
The background isn’t finished as I want to complete the slow stitched panel first. But I’m fairly pleased with it so far. I do intend to add metallic/iridescent gold, blue, green to the background to tie it in with the panel.
I have no idea whether this will work out. I often ask myself, “Angela, what on earth were you thinking?” when I get part-way through a project. And I’m at that point now. Still, I shall persevere and see how it works out at the end. If I learn nothing else, combining slow stitching and pen drawing may not be the best idea, or perhaps it will be an interesting idea that needs a bit more thought.
For now, I’m going to put this to one side and continue working on some hand lettering and slow stitching.
Angela Porter 