After doing some statistics for a friend, I turned my attention to art. I noticed I had the desktop version of Repper pro and thought I’d have a play around with one of my Entangled Gardens drawings.
Repper pro is an app that allows me to make repeating patterns from my own artwork quite easily. I made a few, including the border above, in a short time. It’s now available online, for a monthly subscription.
I like to use a border of my art against a favourite quote, I thought I’d do that today, though I did take some liberties with the quote and replace “his” with the gender non-specific “their” as not all artists are male!
I do like repeating patterns, and I particularly like this border. I also like that I can make use of my artwork in different ways.
I know that my art reflects my soul, my heart, what gives me pleasure in drawing and in seeing too. Even this border makes me smile gently, both on my lips and eyes and in my heart too. I think I may give more of myself away than I realise when I create art. I think all artists and creatives do.
As I grow and develop my artistic voice, there’s still that quality of line, colour, composition that is distinctly me. Others may work in a similar way, but there’s still something unique about each of us, things about our art that set us apart from each other. These differences can be obvious or subtle, but each is a unique calling card for each artist or creative.
This morning I decided to take a narrow strip from yesterday’s drawing and colour it digitally. This is the result.
I think WordPress converts RGB images to CMYK or something; the colours aren’t as vibrant on this image as they are on my ‘puter. However, I’m sure you get the idea.
I added a background texture to add interest to the artwork.
I really enjoyed doing this. The unusual dimensions of the artwork have worked well too. It would make a rather lovely bookmark, don’t you think?
I drew the original image with a mixture of Uniball Unipin and Sakura Pigma Sensei pens on Winsor and Newton Bristol paper. I then used Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, along with Microsoft’s Surface Pen and Surface Studio, to choose the section of the image I’d like to use and then add colour and texture.
Unusually, I made use of the Copic color palette in Autodesk Sketchbook Pro to help me choose colours to use.
I will go back soon and add some increased contrast and some glowing highlights. I think I need some tea first!
It took me nearly three hours to complete the colouring simply because I chose to use the fill tools available in Autodesk Sketchbook Pro. I’ll spend another hour or two increasing contrast and adding those glowing highlights to the design. I will add a post showing a comparison between the two versions for sure.
Drawn with a Tombow Fudenosuke (hard) pen on A4 11¾” x 8¼” Winsor and Newton Bristol Board.
I worked on this one over three days, both to get used to working with the Fudenosuke pen but also for some self-soothing self-care.
It does need some colour and I think I may try a more vintage/distressed/grungy color palette with it, once I get round to adding color.
At the moment, my focus is on colouring the sample colored templates for my latest book for Dover Publications Creative Haven Series –Entangled Christmas.
I’m feeling more content today and less exhausted too, which is a good thing after this weeks rather intense EMDR session.
This took me a bit longer than I expected this morning. I did, however, enjoy creating this card.
First, I drew the design out on a piece of paper that is 10cm x 14cm using various sizes of Uniball Unipin pens.
I copied the image using my Brother Laser printer. I didn’t scan it in at this time, but will do later on. All I needed was a copy to play around with.
The next step involved the use of Chameleon Duo Tone and Color Top markers to colour the design elements in. Even though some areas were quite small, I still managed to get bits of shading there.
Once the colouring with the Chameleon markers was done it was time to hot foil the design, and you can see where the gold foil catches the light in places as I took the photo. A friend of mine saw some of my foiling yesterday in person and she was said she was wowed by it. She thought it was good in the photos, but the photos really don’t do it justice at all.
After foiling, it was time to colour the background. I used a selection of Distress Inks, starting with mustard seed in the centre to give a subtle glow, then tumbled glass, crushed olive, peeled paint, pine needles and evergreen bough. I used a piece of cut and dry foam and a very light touch to add the colour.
I was worried that the Distress Inks may muddy up the colouring done with the Chameleon markers. Yes, they subtly changed the colours in some places, but I was careful to choose colours that wouldn’t make mud. Also, so little Distress Ink is added it barely alters the colours.
I can tell you I was well relieved by that!
Distress Inks are water reactive, so I gave the image a light spray of water knowing that only the Distress Inks would be affected. After a short while I dabbed the water off with a piece of paper towel. This lifted some of the colour leaving a subtle background texture.
As this point, after letting the paper dry completely, I could’ve added more Distress ink. Instead, I decided to use aged mahogany, again on a small piece of cut and dry foam, to edge the paper, to give it a border, and also to add a darker layer at the bottom of the design to ‘ground’ the image.
When I can find my Wink of Stella pen from Kuretake I’ll add some very subtle shimmer to the dragonflies, maybe to the seeds in the seedpods too. I also think some gold dots in small clusters would enhance the background.
I also need to think about adding a bit more shading to the bottoms of the laves to give a more dimensional look to them I think. I could definitely do the same to the dragonflies’ wings too.
Those are simple and quite minor changes that will make a difference I think. It’s only as I’m looking at the finished image now that I can see how those things would help. I often don’t think to step back and give myself time to look at the image with fresh and kindly critical eyes, seeing what I could do to improve my work.
In hindsight, the dragonflies may have worked well as black silhouettes in the design, which would then become totally covered in foil. Or just outlines that would be foiled. That’s something for me to try another time and see if I like that idea more.
I think you can tell I’m really enjoying this branch of my artistic journey. I’ve concentrated a lot on digital art of late. I’m not going to abandon my digital art journey at all; I can do things digitally that I can’t with traditional media.
However, it is showing me that working with traditional media is also a pleasurable and successful activity for me to do.
What am I going to do with this? I don’t know. Part of me wants to add it to my BuJo. Another part wants to mount it on a blank greeting card to send to a friend. Another part of me wants to put it into a reference sketchbook or folder for inspiration in the future.
Angela Porter 