entangled art

Coloring Template 24 Mar 20

Angela Porter1 Comment
©Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

About the art.

Yesterday, I spent some time drawing with a Tombow Fudenosuke pen on ClaireFontaine mixed media paper. The result was this coloring template for the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group.

Last week, I said I’d do a template a week during the Covid-19 crisis to help people take some time out of worrying and fretting to relax with coloring.

If you’d like to grab the template, just pop along to the group, join, and it’s completely free! All I ask is you follow the terms and conditions of use.

The Fudenosuke pen has a flexible brush nib so I can produce lines of varying thickness. This isn’t something I do often for coloring templates. However, I do like the effect that I get. It’s so easy to give an illusion of depth and dimension.

Of course the template has a white background, but the version I’m sharing has a blueish-grey background which helps the colours to glow against it.

The design is typically my ‘entangled’ style. Abstract but with stylised motifs from nature and architecture and more.

So, how are you doing Angela?

I’m OK. The sun is shining. I have windows open to let some fresh air into the home, but they’re upstairs windows so no one can get within six feet of them! I also live in a very quiet, small, dead-end street (cul-de-sac if you want to be posh) so there’s very little foot fall here.

Reports are that people aren’t heeding the instructions to stay home here in the UK. That makes me fearful that the NHS will soon be overwhelmed by their selfishness and thoughtlessness.

The situation is surreal and feels unreal to people who’ve not had Covid-19 touch them personally – someone developing the disease, being hospitalised, or, sadly, dying. I hope that’s the reason that they’re playing russian roulette with everyone else’s health and well-being. I hope they don’t think that it’s a hoax, or that they’re invulnerable because of whatever reason they think they are.

Sadly, these people are helping to spread the virus. There’s sound reasons to follow the advice, instructions, orders to stay home.

Anyway… I’ve not yet had a text, email or snail-mail to tell me I’m counted as ‘vulnerable’ and will need to ‘shield’ for at least twelve weeks. I don’t know if I shall get one, but it will be in the next day or two if I do. Even if I don’t get one, I’m staying at home, as frustrating as it is on gloriously sunny spring days like this one here in the Welsh Valleys.

Please, all of you stay home and stay safe.

Coloring template

Angela PorterLeave a comment

Here in the UK, along with many other countries around the globe, the hatches are being battened down in response to the COVID-19 crisis.

I thought people might like some colouring templates to download, print, and colour for relaxation, stress-relief and mindfulness.

So, via the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group, I’m going to make one new template available a week, in addition to the many that are already available.

You do need to be a member of the facebook group (it’s free to join) to get the template, and there are some terms and conditions about how the template can be used, but otherwise they are free for purely personal use.

If my creating some coloring templates to help people during this worrying time, then it’s worth it.

This particular drawing harks back to early days of entangled drawings. It’s purely abstract, but with some design elements taken from architecture and nature.

If you do download and colour, I’d love to see the results of your work. Post them in the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group, or tag me on social media.

Happy coloring!

Dydd Gwyl Dewi Hapus! Happy St David’s Day!

Angela PorterLeave a comment
March 2020 Coloring template for Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group
© Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

A new month means a new coloring template exclusive to members of the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group.

March the 1st is St David’s Day, the patron saint of Wales, which is where I live. The daffodil is one of his emblems and so it was fitting I included some in this month’s template. As we are heading towards the spring equinox and the official start of spring here in the Northern Hemisphere, I’ve also included plenty of flowers that would be lovely coloured in spring colours. They’d be lovely in colours of all the seasons, however. Flowers are beautiful no matter what season we’re in.

The template is drawn in my signature ‘Entangled’ style of line art, with very stylised flowers, foliage, and even butterflies and shells, along with patterns derived from architecture, sculpture, pottery, and more. Lots of my favourite things all in one abstract image.

If you’d like to print and colour this template, then please pop along to the facebook group where the members, and I, would love to see how you bring it to life with your own kind of colour magic.

Golden Mandala

Angela PorterLeave a comment
Golden Mandala © Angela Porter | Artwyrd@aol.com

This morning, the rain has finally stopped once again, albeit for a short while no doubt. Blue skies and sunlight shine betwixt the broken clouds. Yesterday and last night the rain was relentless, including high winds at times, thanks to Storm Jorge.

I thought I’d do a golden mandala this morning, while I come around. A simple line-art drawing.

Friday floral

Angela PorterLeave a comment
Friday Floral 28 Feb 2020 ©Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

Yesterday, I was out with the DSLR and my friend Liz. We had a need to visit the sea. As we live in the Valleys of South Wales in the UK, we’re not far from either the sea or mountains, towns or country. So, we paid a visit to The Glamorgan Heritage Coast, specifically Southerndown and Newton in Porthcawl. If you’d like to read more about our day out and see some of my photos, visit Curious Stops and Tea Shops.

Today, after a busy week with people and errands, I need a day at home. I also needed some time to just create.

I turned to my folder of photos from my trip to the National Botanic Gardens of Wales last August and found a picture of flowers that inspired me to create this floral design.

I started with the line art with the intention of using it as a guide for painting each petal. However, once I’d completed the line art and added the base colour and some of the brighter tones, I realised I wanted to keep the white lines because it was reminding me of batik or silk painting, particularly as I’d chosen a black background to work against.

I love the vibrance of the colours against the dark background, again very reminiscent of silk painting/batik.

I reined in my usual inclination to intricate, detailed mandalas and kept this particular one quite simple. I decided to echo the golden tones of the stamens in the centre of the flower, and I think that has worked out really, really well.

If I were to try to change something in this artwork, I may try a gold outline – metallic gold. But I like it very much, just as it is.

My tools were Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, Microsoft Surface Studio and Microsoft Surface Slim Pen.

Kindness

Angela PorterLeave a comment
Kindness © Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

I’m really not sure the colours work.

The border was a design I drew back in January using Uniball Unipin and/or Sakura Pigma micron pens on dot grid paper. I’ve added colour and texture digitally, as well as the typography.

Lalochezia

Angela PorterLeave a comment
Lalochezia © Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

I have a life-long fascination with words and facts that appeal to my curious, squirrel-y mind. I like unusual words. I also like etymology – the origins of words.

Since my first episode of severe mental ill-health due to burnout and cPTSD, I’ve found it difficult to read and retain information as I once used to as well as to recall information that was once on the tips of my neurons.

I’m finding it much easier to read and retain some of what I’ve read, thank goodness! And with that comes a desire to seek out interesting words and facts once again.

Lalochezia comes from the Greek ‘lalia’, meaning speech, and the Latin ‘chezo’, meaning to relieve oneself.

I admit, quite freely, to lalochezia. Not just for physical pain, but emotional pain too. There’s nothing quite like a swear word full of hard consonants to express the pain, frustration or upset verbally.

A friend of mine is constantly amused by my use of swear words even though I sound ‘quite posh’, according to her anyway. I thought of her when I found this particular word and just knew I had to use it for one of my ‘quote’ artworks.

The floral motif is influenced by Art Nouveau. It is highly stylised but there’s also the influence of Celtic knotwork in the way the foliage intertwines and overlaps.

The typography was completed using Affinity Publisher. The artwork was completed in Autodesk Sketchbook Pro. In both cases I used a Microsoft Surface Studio and Microsoft Surface Pen.

Monochrome Monday Mandala

Angela Porter2 Comments
Monochrome Monday Mandala © Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

This mandala took an unexpected turn as I was adding colour. I was experimenting with brush settings in Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, particularly the ‘colour’ setting. This will change the colour of any area, but preserves the shadow/light values. I thought I’d see what happened when I used grey as the colour, and I liked the monochrome that resulted. So, I completed the mandala in a similar way.

So, quite a different kind of mandala from me, and very different from my usual bold use of colour.

Flower Mandala

Angela PorterLeave a comment
Flower Mandala © Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

This morning’s warm up art is this mandala featuring some flowers as well as some zentangle and geometric patterns.

I’m not entirely sure this works, but sometimes an idea just has to be tried out. The flowers are a bit ‘flat’. The zendala/mandala background may be a bit too busy or just not the right colour. I’m really not at all sure.

However, whether it’s worked out or not, it’s been a relaxing process. It’s always pleasant to create for the sake of creating, and also working digitally too.

I used Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, Microsoft Surface Pen and Microsoft Surface Studio to create this design.

Mandala 29 Jan 20

Angela Porter2 Comments
Mandala 29 Jan 2020 © Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

A simple, monochrome mandala today, using some of my favourite patterns (plus a couple that are entirely mine).

Drawing mandalas is so soothing, mindful, meditative. The repetitive nature of drawing patterns is part of that relaxing experience.

It was also nice to use some of the patterns from my ‘visual dictionary‘ or ‘visual zibladone’ in some art.

I have some new patterns and motifs to add to my visual dictionary; they spontaneously appeared as I was drawing. I like when this happens, when I don’t over-think things and just go with my instincts.

I wanted to add a colour gradient to the mandala. However, when I tried to do so, it just didn’t feel right. So monochrome it is.

Drawn digitally using Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, Microsoft Surface Pen and Microsoft Surface Studio.