Gold sakura gelly roll pen

Abstract Entangled Art | 31 July 21

Angela Porter3 Comments

This is, I think, finished.

It certainly was a task and I needed to persevere at the beginning. I was really hesitant about adding colour and seriously disliking the colour as I started to add it. The more I did, the more comfortable I became with adding colour.

I think what helped with the colours was the use of a limited colour palette. Indigo, prussian blue, gold ochre, burnt sienna and bronze green made the basic palette up. Mixing the colours gave me plenty of variation in colours and tones while at the same time keeping a coherence.

I started adding shading with a biro. As this drawing was a testing ground for various ideas, I used a cool grey Pitt Artist pen to add the rest of the shadows. I found the result pleasing, particularly after adding colour. A darker grey may have worked more to my tastes of high contrast, but this is a starting point.

Indeed, I rather like the combination of biro and pitt pens. I did end up adding some cross hatching to some areas to intensify the dark areas betwixt the elements of the design. That darkness helped to lift the colours somewhat.

To add highlights, a white Sakura Soufflé pen was used. I also had a hankering to add some metallic highlights too, so a gold metallic Gelly Roll came in useful.

Using flat colour washes and letting the grey shadows add volume seems to have worked well enough. I may, later, try out some coloured pencils to add more shadowing. But not until after breakfast!

Small, entangled drawings.

Angela PorterLeave a comment

I really needed some structure to my artwork yesterday and early this morning. This kind of work has really hit the mark. The smaller size also meant I wasn’t feeling overwhelmed by the task. The symmetrical nature of the patterns/designs really soothed me. All these things let me find that sense of peace and contentment that I needed from art.

Making square ’tiles’.

I cut some 100% cotton watercolour paper into squares of different sizes, trying to get the most out of each sheet. These squares are either 4½” x 4½” or 3½ x 3½” in size (approx 11.5 cm x 11.5 cm or 9 cm x 9 cm).

Next, I used Tea Dye, Old Paper, Vintage Photo, Rusty Hinge, Gathered Twigs, and Old Burlap Distress Inks to colour the tiles. I used one colour only on each tile. On the watercolour paper the colour wasn’t even, and I really like the aged, distressed look that gives, along with the darker edge.

I set out a net of pencil lines to help keep my designs fairly symmetrical. I did draw the lines free hand rather than using a ruler. The result is perfectly imperfect symmetry. I then set to creating patterns/designs with 05 and 01 black Pigma Micron pens.

Other materials used.

In the bottom left tile, I used Carbothello pencils and a Prismacolor Ebony pencil to add colour and shadow to the design, smoothing them with a paper tortillon.

In some of the other tiles, I used Chameleon and Triplus fineliners to add detailed patterns to the design. A happy accident resulted in me using a waterbrush to see what I could do with it. The ink flowed to colour the space, but the pattern was still visible, but more subtle. I liked the effect! So, I made use of it in the designs.

That led to me experimenting with Inktense pencils and a waterbrush. These pencils are great for adding intense, waterproof colour to areas.

A white gelly roll pen was used to add highlights to all the designs. Also, a gold gelly roll pen was used to add metallic highlights to a couple of the designs.

Reflections

I like all of these tiles for different reasons. But I can see how I could add more shadow and highlight to the designs to bring out an illusion of depth and dimension. I may turn my attention to that in a short while.

There’s an antique feel to all the tiles, which is an unusual thing for me. But I do like it! Working on a coloured background really prompts me to play with shadow and highlight.

I do want to scan in the blank, coloured tiles to use as backgrounds in digital art. It’s the distressed nature of the colour along with the darker border that really appeals to me.

Now, I need to work out what to do with these little works of art. Also, my mind is trying to work out how I can convert these designs to coloring pages/templates. But, these will have to be looked at later on today. I’m really needing to sleep. I was up at stupid o’clock again, and I’m now beginning to flag, a lot.