illustrator

Another sneak peek – Spectacular Sea-life

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©Angela Porter 2019

Yesterday was one of those strange days where nothing goes as you hoped it would. Phone call after phone call coming in that needed to be dealt with. Other things that needed doing, and I ended up with absolutely no time for any arty pursuits. One of the phone calls ended up with me in a panicked state, anxious and in tears.

Today, I’m making sure I have some self-soothing time. I have a busy, busy evening ahead of me – a very people-y and noisy one and probably quite frenetic too. So, self-care, self-soothing, and probably a nap is required as I’ve just about reached the limit of my anxiety/stress about it for now.

Part of my arty self-soothing has been completing the dolphin illustration for Specatcular Sea Life for the Creative Haven series of adult coloring books from Dover Publications Inc. And here’s a sneak peek of part of that illustration.

I’m really surprised at the reactions to my little video of me drawing the other day. Plenty of people are asking me to do more. So, I will do so, as well as invest in some equipment I think…

Sneak Peek – Spectacular Sea-Life

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Sneak Peek! ©Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

I’m currently working on one of the three illustrations I need to colour for “Spectacular Sea-Life” for Creative Haven by Dover Publications Inc. This will be my next colouring book in the Creative Haven collection.

I don’t get chance to colour many of my own drawings, which is why I LOVE to see how people approach them and use their own special brand of colouring magic to bring them to life.

That’s why I love to pop over to and wander through the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group. All are welcome there and the lovely people love to share their coloured templates.

I’ve already signed the contract for my next colouring book in the Creative Haven library.

A little video of a little drawing!

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Eeek! I’ve finally gone and done it – recorded a video of me drawing. It’s a little video of a little drawing. And that means I now have a YouTube channel – Angela Porter, oddly enough.

I used my mobile phone with a swan neck holder, stand, thingy. That was stable, but my desk was a little wobbly.

The drawing itself took me around 11m30s to do, but I’ve sped the video up somewhat and added some music too.

I’ve had to do some work with social media for an organisation over the past few weeks, and being thrown in the deep end of editing videos, subtitling, turning stills into videos and so on, meant I really couldn’t put off trying this myself.

I have a lot to learn it seems. However, my toes have been dipped in the waters of videoing me ‘arting’, and they haven’t been burned too badly, yet.

I hope you find it interesting to watch me draw (with or without the music). I have no idea where this will take me – only time will tell.

Entangled tile

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Entangled Tile

For the past six or so hours I’ve been busy with various social media video creation for something I’m involved in. I needed a break from it, and that meant some arty stuff.

I had this coloured ’tile’ in my stash. It’s a 4″ x 4″ piece of ClaireFontaine mixed media paper coloured with various green Distress Inks.

I used Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens to draw the design to create a border. To add some contrast to the background, I used water, Distress Ink and a brush to add darker shades to the design. I also thought some shimmer and shine was needed on the berries and flowers. So, I used some Perfect Pearls gold spray as well as some gold and silver Cosmic Shimmer Iridescent watercolour paints.

Finally, I added some spatters of the pearlescent colour to distress the background a bit more.

One thing I didn’t do was to add some shadows to lift the border from the background. I often say that I forgot to add shadows. One day I may remember!

All the same, I’m happy with this little design. The space is perfect for a quote or sentiment I think.

Entangled designs

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Entangled Designs ©Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

I’ve had a nice couple of hours this morning playing around with drawing and paper coloured (and not coloured) with Distress Ink.

I started with drawing the border with the flower straight onto the coloured square of mixed media paper (top right).

For the middle design, I cut a rectangular panel of Distress Ink coloured mixed media paper and glued it to another piece of coloured paper. Then, I decorated the panel along with some simple patterns spilling onto the background.

The bottom right design uses a square piece of plain paper with a small rectangle cut from some Distress Inked paper. I used a die with a stitched detail to cut this panel out along with a Sizzix Big Shot die cutting machine.

I’m not at all fussed on the stitched detail in this case. However, I do like the contrast of the coloured panel against the white background.

I do have a fair few pieces of paper coloured with Distress Inks, so I think some fairly quick, simple and soothing designs will be done over the next day or several.

Not sure what I’ll do with them yet. If you have any helpful suggestions, leave a comment! Also, leave a comment to let me know which design is your favourite.

Wintry Dangle Designs

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Dangle Designs ©Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

Yesterday was a crazy busy day with no time for art, let alone blogging!

This morning, I finally had some time to myself. As it’s Friday I wanted to do a dangle design, and I ended up doing four!

I cut the card into the wrong dimensions to create a card, so I thought I’d just make use of the pieces I had and make some custom card blanks and envelopes for them another time.

I coloured the pieces of card with Distress Inks in shades of blue and green. I used Chipped Sapphire, Tumbled Glass, Broken China, Evergreen Bough, Cracked Pistachio and Salty Ocean in various combinations.

These colours gave the card a frosty kind of feel, so I went with some snowy, icy, wintry designs.

I drew the designs and completed the hand lettering with Faber-Castell Pitt Artist pens, which are waterproof.

Plain black lines on the coloured background did look a tad lacking. So, I added some shimmer and colour using Cosmic Shimmer watercolour paints.

I’m not so fussed on the ‘Let it snow’ design. However, I am quite pleased with the others.

I am going to mount them as greeting or note cards. However, the designs would look charming in a BuJo, journal, planner, diary or scrapbook. They could easily be adapted to make bookmarks too, or place cards for a special meal.

I hope you’ll give drawing these designs a go, or use them as inspiration for your own projects. I’d love to see what you create – please tag me on social media so I don’t miss them!

If you’d like to know more about dangle designs and have some guidance and inspiration for them, then my book ‘A Dangle A Day’ is a good place to start.

It’s been nice to have a couple of hours to indulge myself in art. The past four weeks or so have been crazy busy with other projects being quite demanding of my time, mind and energy. However, they will soon be over and my focus can return, properly, to art.

Mandala 4 Dec 2019

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Mandala 4 Dec 2019 ©Angela Porter | Artwyrd

I thought I’d use the coloured paper from yesterday in some digital art.

Entangled 3 Dec 2019

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Entangled 3 Dec 19 ©Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

Two photos of the same drawing today.

I started by colouring a 6″ x 6″ piece of Strathmore Bristol paper with various shades of green Distress Ink (Peeled Paint, Shabby Shutters, Crushed Olive, Bundled Sage and Iced Spruce) and edged it with some Aged Mahogany.

Then, I drew the design using a metallic bronze Uniball Signo gel pen. Finally,I added some shading and depth with an olive green Chameleon Fineliner pen.

My photography skills aren’t good, which is why there’s two photos. The top one is a bit truer to and you can see the design more clearly on it. The bottom one shows the shiny bronze ink I used.

I think you’ll get the idea of what I’ve created.

It’s been a busy day here in the Angela studio/office. I’ve been focused on social media stuff for something I’m involved with at the moment. I had to get things done this morning and afternoon, so it wasn’t until quite late in the day I could turn my attention to art.

By then, I just wanted to draw something that was comforting, familiar, soothing. Which is why I ended up with another entangled design.

It did it’s job in soothing and calming me somewhat. Now, I can settle down, after I finish off a couple of things. I think time away from technology is required this evening.

Entangled 02 Dec 19

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Entangled 02 Dec 19 © Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

This morning I thought it would be nice to use some Distress Inks to colour a 6″ x 6″ piece of Strathmore Vellum Bristol Paper and then draw a more traditional kind of zentangle design.

Before drawing on the coloured paper I scanned it in to use as a background for digital art at some point.

Anyway, I used Tattered Rose, Victorian Velvet and Rich Mahogany Distress inks with a foam blender to colour the paper.

Then, I used Pitt artist pens to draw the design. To help parts of the design stand out a bit more, I used some Chameleon coloured pencils to gently shade in the floral elements.

Finally, I couldn’t resist adding a little sparkle to the stamen of the flowers in the top right!

It’s always nice to relax with some familiar styles of art, and this morning I needed a bit of a relaxing time as I have a busy day ahead of me, which I must now go and sort myself out for!

Hello December!

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Hello December! ©Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

With a new month comes a new colouring template for the members of the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group, and above is my partly coloured version of it.

Of course, December brings Christmas and the start of winter in the Northern Hemisphere. Familiar motifs are stars, hearts, holly, fir trees, gifts, sweet treats, poinsettias, Santa hats, baubles. I’ve included these in this month’s coloring template, though there are many more motifs to consider – ivy, bells, angels, hot chocolate, socks, gloves, scarves, hats, ice skates, sleighs, reindeer, pine cones, fairy lights, to name but a few.

If you’d like to download and print this template then pop along to the facebook group. It’s free to join and free to download the template. All I ask is that you follow the terms and conditions of use and don’t share the uncoloured template. A mention of myself as the artist would be most welcome when you share your gloriously coloured version.

Happy coloring!