line weight

Sunday Morning Arty Things

Angela PorterLeave a comment

Drawing Zentangle Tangle Patterns Spoolies and Swerve and adding contrast/colour.

What to do on a Sunday morning? Arty things of course!

So, yesterday I drew the design to the right and added some colour to it. But it was lacking something. I eventually worked out, at around the same time someone made a suggestion on my YouTube video, that it needed more contrast.

So, I set about doing just that, as well as showing/explaining how I add weight to lines to help increase the contrast and sense of volume. That’s what the greyscale drawing is all about.

For the other one, I used sepia and red oxide Inktense pencils and a damp brush to add more colour and increase contrast. I made some bad decisions in adding cross-hatching to some of the elements of that design. But that meant it was a great piece to work on improving my skills.

I’m often way too timid with contrast, at the start. But as long as I use a medium that allows me to gradually build up layers, I eventually get there.

Today’s video shows how I achieved this higher contrast finish with both line weight and colour/shadow, and you can watch it by clicking on this link.

Entangled fantastic fungi

Angela PorterLeave a comment
Entangled Fantastic Fungi © Angela Porter 2019 at Artwyrd.com
Entangled Fantastic Fungi © Angela Porter 2019 at Artwyrd.com

I’ve had a lovely, quiet Sunday and I’m glad to say my emotional wellbeing is better than yesterday. Still a bit fragile, but there’s that hint of contentment that has been lacking over the past few days.

I’ve even had my oompf back to draw. This took the guise of adding patterns and outline drawings to my visual reference journal, and then using some of these ideas, plus some old favourites, in this drawing. I even added some dangles in places. Just little, delicate dangles, but still there’s dangles there.

For the drawing, I used a hard nib Tombow Fudenosuke pen. This has a flexible nib, not overly flexible, and so I could vary line weight while drawing.

I was inspired to try the Fudenosuke pen again after my experiments with digital brushes that vary line width with pressure and found that so much fun.

I found it much easier to use the Fudenosuke pen after my experience with digital brushes; it turns out working digitally does influence my work in traditional media and helps me gain new skills or confidence in new media.

I drew this design on an A5 piece of Winsor and Newton Bristol Board which is white and very smooth. Then, scanned it in and digitally added a background texture and some colour, along with my watermarks.

The drawing was mainly to try out the Fudenosuke pen, but also a bit of quiet self-care too. I’m quite happy with it, especially as it’s main purpose was to explore using the pen for drawing with.

I’ve relied on line weight to add some dimension to the drawing, though some colour and/or shading could help a lot. Maybe that’ll be my next task with this – to colour it either digitally or to use my Chameleon DuoTone and Color Tops marker pens after I print the image out.