This morning, I thought I’d share how I’m exploring creating some Entangled art, particularly monograms, via YouTube.
This little drawing is 11cm by 11cm, which is approximately 3.5″ square – took about an hour or so to get to this point. I wasn’t sure of the green, but I think it’ll work out just fine. There’s quite a way to go yet, but that will have to wait for another time.
The materials I used are: * 03 black Sakura Pigma Micron * Various Arteza Everblend marker pens * Various fineliners in grey and green * A white Sakura Gellyroll pen * A metallic gold Uniball Signo pen
I had a lot of fun with this sketchbook page. It’s well out of my ‘comfort-zone’ as there are absolutely no black lines, not even the lines that define the basic shapes.
This is inspired by illustrator Kate Sutton, whose Domestika course I started watching yesterday. And there’s another project I have on the go that is inspiring me to explore this kind of drawing.
I’ve tried this before, but felt so uncomfortable with it that I gave up very quickly. Today, I was determined not to use any black lines at all. Instead, I picked a colour palette of just four colours of Arteza EverBlend markers. For each colour, I chose a similar one from my set of Zig Writer pens.
I started by creating the collage of simple shapes using the markers, overlapping them so that the colours mixed. I was careful not to mix the pink and green; I didn’t want to make mud!
Once I was happy with the basic design, I used the Zig writers to add patterns made from simple marks. To begin with, this felt really awkward, uncomfortable, and just plain wrong. However, the more I did, the easier it became, and the more I liked what was happening. I’m so glad that I persevered!
I dug out a white gel pen to add some brighter, lighter marks and to play with the ‘stitching’ to the top right. The idea that I was using pen ‘stitching’ to connect shapes and patterns amused me.
Using the white gel pen reminded me I had other gel pens to use, and use them I did.
I love the translucency of the marker pens and the way that the patterned shapes seem to float. The use of monochrome colours in these shapes, along with white, just gives an airy, delicate feel to them. I can now see the value of this way of using no black line. I have a lot more exploring and experimenting to do. My mind is ticking over how I can make use of this in a project I’m developing at the moment.
As eager as I am to continue my explorations, I have an errand to do first. But when I return home, well, I’m going to try out some of my ideas both on paper and digitally and see where this takes me.
My latest page in my lettering sketchbook. I’m still working on finding how lettering can work for me. It seems that these kinds of letters are something I keep circling back to.
All drawn with various fineliners and some coloured with Arteza Everblend markers. Some highlight dots of white gel pen too.
The past couple of days have seen me creating videos that go in a slightly different direction to my usual.
Yesterday’s YouTube video was a look at using and blending coloured pencils – not a skill I’m great at, especially when it comes to choosing colours.
I carried on experimenting with my drawing and trying out various media either alone or in various combinations – coloured pencils, Inktense, and/or graphite. I quite like the way graphite dirties up the colours and creates an almost metallic feeling. Not a shiny metallic, but a dull kind of one.
Today’s video was a response to a comment left for me on YouTube about fineliners smearing with alcohol markers. So, I thought I’d do a look at some of the various fineliners I have, the tricks I use to avoid this, and a bit more about achieving contrast, volume and blending markers.
Angela Porter 