Yesterday was a day where I was feeling ‘off’, ‘out of sorts’ and I needed to do a fair amount of self-care and self-soothing. That included painting this mandala. Leafy, frondy berry simplicity. Softer colours than I usually use.
I used Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, Microsoft Surface Studio and Microsoft Surface Slim pen to create this.
I’m later than usual making my post to this blog today. For good reasons. The last couple of days have been a tad crazy. Here, where I live in South Wales, UK, we’ve had some really bad flooding thanks to Storm Dennis. The River Taff overflowed its banks in many places. The town centre where I live was under water.
Fortunately, no flooding or damage to my home, but it’s heartbreaking to see the devastation for others homes and businesses. The emergency services and Rhondda Cynon Taff Council, councillors and many, many others have worked hard, long and done amazing things. Communities have come together to help one another.
The rain has, finally, stopped, but the wind is very strong again. And we have another weather warning for rain on Wednesday evening into Thursday, so there’s a potential for flooding once again.
But today, the sun sets, turning the mostly cloudless sky lavender and pink.
I’ve been helping as I can, in my own ways, and that’s why I missed a post yesterday and am late with one today.
So, to calm, relax, I’ve done some art. I had no idea what was going to result, I’m not entirely sure I like the result, particularly the foliage in the background. However, I’m not entirely surprised that seed pods have emerged!
It has let me play around with different brushes and effects in Autodesk Sketchbook Pro.
I’ve had a lovely, soothing, creative Saturday morning drawing, and this is the result so far.
I’m working digitally as I really wanted to give my new Microsoft Surface Slim Pen a workout. I have to say that I love it as it is so much lighter than the original Surface pen. It also has a different shape, which surprisingly sits well between my fingers. The lightness of the pen really does make it a pleasure to hold and use.
I am also in love with the way the nib glides across the screen. That’s one of hte issues I have with the interchangeable nibs that come with the original Surface pen – all but the ‘2H’ one is just too sticky for me to find pleasurable to use. I also don’t like the way the wear down relatively quickly either.
The Slim Pen is as responsive as the original Surface Pen and just as accurate.
All in all, it gives me a drawing experience that is very much akin to drawing on paper with a Sakura Micron, Uniball Unipin or Faber Castell Pitt artist pen. Having said that, the Surface pen does so too, except that it is much heaver than these pens and I prefer a lighter weight pen. Indeed, my arthritic-y joints seem to be happier with the Slim pen.
So, I’m a happy bunny with the purchase.
Unusually, I did a quick sketch to lay out where I wanted the pods and stems. And by quick sketch I mean the basic shapes using a digital brush.
Once I inked in the basic outlines of the poppy seed pods, I deleted the sketch layer and started to add detail with a flexible nib digital brush/pen. I still have a lot to add to this, but I’m quite happy with how it’s progressing.
Yesterday turned out to be a weirdly busy kind of day that meant I had no time for social media, nor much in the way of art. I did make a start on this mandala, however, and have continued to do a couple more hours work on it this morning.
I’m using just green and a pinky-purple for this mandala, but with a couple of pearly-grey rings. the main colours remind me purple spring crocuses. I like crocuses of all colours, but the purple ones just make me smile that little bit more.
I think I’ve done about 4 or 5 hours work on colouring it so far.
On another note, I’ve added a couple of designs to my Redbubble shop that you can purchase on a range of quality products including t-shirts, sweatshirts, phone cases, art prints, and more. #findmything
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.
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.
Artistically, I’m feeling cute and whimsical this morning. So a little bit of hand lettering along with some simple, cute and whimsical wreaths have satisfied this feeling.
Pretty hearts with some spiral details that remind me of iced biscuits (cookies to you lovely people in America). Soft pink for love. Evergreen foliage for peace and compassionate love to grow and flourish around this planet. Purple berries to create a harmonious balance of awareness and peace.
Perhaps there’s more symbolism and messages in my art, something that belies my belief I’m just creating pretty things.
I did create this art digitally using Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, Microsoft Surface Studio and a Microsoft Surface Pen.
It took me some time, but I got the video edited and uploaded to YouTube. I’ve left it in real-time with the hopes that people will find it relaxing to watch.
I do have some things to learn about editing still. Not so much the mechanics but the aesthetics and flow of the video. I’m trusting that as time goes on and I make more videos that I’ll get to understand this a bit more.
I also need to try to control how I move the image around as I draw, and also placement of it on the screen. I created this mandala digitally, using Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, Microsoft Surface Pen and Microsoft Surface Studio.
One advantage of recording the screen, is that my hands and pen don’t get in the way of seeing what I’m doing.
I have to say that Movavi is quite simple to use, yet has plenty of features that are quite powerful. Cutting the video, adding music, intro and outro screens, as well as fades are really easy. I can also add transitions, which will help when I can focus long enough to edit out the crazy whirling bits of the video!
As with everything in life, learning to create videos is a work in progress.
I am hoping to get one video done a week. Well, that’s my aim. Life really can get in the way at times.
I’ve been busy this morning, working out how to video record the screen of my computer as I draw digitally.
I found a YouTube video about using OBS Studio to do this. I followed the instructions, problem solved, and after three attempts I had a poor quality video that I wasn’t happy with.
So, I went to Movavi, a video editor I’ve used previously. It has an app that will record the screen, easily. It’s a one button click to launch. A simple, small, and minimalist control panel sits in the bottom right corner of the screen. I can record, pause, start again easily.
I recorded myself drawing the mandala above. The video is currently processing and being saved. I’ll then need to edit it. The still of the video I can see while this is happening is of a fab quality it seems. So fingers crossed the video will be too!
I didn’t think to look at Movavi before Googling for advice on recording the screen. I did have to buy the software, but it wasn’t extortionately expensive and I’m sure that it will meet my needs.
So, once the video is saved, I can spend sometime today editing it and I hope to upload it tomorrow, as long as the recording is of a good quality.
Yesterday, I had a day out with my friend Liz. We visited Hay On Wye for a walk around and lunch. It was one of those glorious winter days where the sun shines warmly and the air is crisp and cool. It was mild enough for me to walk around without a bulky coat.
Today, I’ve been drawing little flower motifs and borders to go along with a lovely quote about flowers and hope.
The line art was drawn using Tombow Fudenosuke pens on ClaireFontaine dot grid paper. Colour, typography and background texture have been added digitally using Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, Microsoft Surface Pen and Microsoft Surface Studio.
Flowers are some of my favourite things to draw, whether they be highly stylised or more realistic.
My snowdrops and crocus have the feel of being wood cut or lino cut and printed, that kind of vintage feel. The flexible nibs on the Fudenosuke pens help me achieve this look. Also, the fairly simple colouring and addition of texture help too.
I’ve left the colouring as is, maybe for now. However, I now have these motifs ready to use in other projects, as they occur to me. Colour certainly helps to lift them off the background and bring them to life.
Art is the Adventure 