La Tene

Zentangle and Early Celtic Art Inspired Drawing

Angela PorterLeave a comment

Click on this link to view this design’s Draw With Me YouTube video.

I very much enjoyed drawing this design. It all began with a bit of chance. I grabbed my notebook full of motifs and patterns and opened it randomly. On the pages were some Early Celtic Art patterns dating back to the Iron Age. So, I started at the top left with one of these and let the rest of the design flow intuitively. Some patterns and practices were inspired by Zentangle principles. Oh, I did include some motifs inspired by the work of Yellena James.

I love Early Celtic (La Tene) art. It’s full of swirls and spirals and asymmetry too. It just intrigues me so much. Of course, I really enjoy drawing these kinds of non-representational designs very much.

Next, this design will need colour/shade/highlight somehow. I don’t know whether to use Inktense pencils or chalk pastel pencils. Either would work on the paper I used – ClaireFontaine’s PaintON mixed media paper.

I used 0.5 and 0.3 Unipin Fine Line pens from Uniball. The paper measures approx 4″ x 5.5″ (10cm x 14cm).

Let It Grow

Angela PorterLeave a comment

Let It Grow © Angela Porter

8″x 6″.  Rotring Rapidograph pen and black ink on heavy cartridge paper.

I’m not quite sure yet what I’m going to do with this outline – colour or not to colour, texture or not to texture.

Last night I had friends visiting and a look for the drawing that I did when visiting Tewkesbury Abbey a couple of years ago led they and I to looking through some of my old sketchbooks.  Suddenly, seeing all that had inspired me in the past, showed where my ‘visual vocabulary’ for my abstract art ‘doodles’ has come from.  Prehistoric art, Romanesque and Gothic architecture and sculpture, La Tene art, ammonites and other fossils, microscopic formanifera, microscopic images of cells, stained glass windows, insects, shells, flowers, ‘Celtic’ manuscripts and Anglo-Saxon art to name but a few.  I’d also picked up a copy of the BBC’s History magazine whilst out shopping as it had images of Anglo-Saxon artefacts which reminded me of patterns I use in my art.  Yesterday seems to have been a day of making links between all the work I’ve done in the past and how it flows out of me now, and a reminder of the things that inspire me as well as giving me a sense of validation with the way that I create art.

I think subtle colours for this one, with textures added in places, and just the hints of metallic highlights perhaps – after all, my inner raven demands the sparkle!