This is the central panel from this week’s colouring page for the Angela Porter’s Colouring Book Fans facebook group.
It is a mandala, just not a round one! I enjoyed drawing this, and adding the softer colours too. It never ceases to amaze me what a difference colour makes to my line art.
A nice way to spend a few hours this and art always keeps me company.
I love drawing mandalas. I love the symmetry, the flow, the sense of calmness that they bring when being drawn or coloured. I am fascinated with the never-ending possibilities of mandala design. They also make it easier for me to arrange motifs and patterns when my head is filled with pink fluffy and sparkly fairy dust (all due to prescribed medication).
This one was fun and a bit different, with some new kinds of motifs in it. The colour palette is soft and soothing, with the splashes of gold give those sunshiny-joyful accents that lift it.
Yes, I know I’ve not finished adding colour. But I really, really need to finish the social media stuff and then go and get something to eat!
This is available as a colouring page to members of the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group.
I always enjoy drawing a mandala. It’s not often that I completely colour one in, but I’ve managed to do so with this one!
I’m not so sure about the colour choices in some places. I haven’t added enough contrast or shade in other areas. However, they’ll have to stay as they are for now. I can feel my ability to focus sliding away again as I type. It’s actually amazing I’ve done this much today.
The problems with focus are a side effect, temporary, of the medication I’m taking for anxiety/depression. This will pass; it did when I was taking them years ago. I still get some wobbly times, and surprisingly, I can still cry this time around with the medication. This is a good thing, as any upset/distress/happiness/wonder/joy still needs to be expressed!
I may have said too much here, but I know that it’s important for others to know they’re not alone when experiencing mental or emotional or physical ill health.
For me, art really helps me. Though when the ability to focus goes, it is time to nap. It’s nearly that time now, it seems.
Link to Angela Porter’s Colouring Book Fans Facebook Group.
I finally managed to get some mental focus this evening and enjoyed drawing this mandala, and adding some colour to it. Colour really does put some ‘flesh’ on the bare bones of the line drawing.
It was a soothing process for me to do, which is what I need at this time.
This colouring page is available to members of the Angela Porters Coloring Book Fans facebook group.
Given how unsettled my maelstrom and tsunami stricken inner being is, I really needed to draw a mandala.
I love the soothing creativity that drawing a mandala brings. This one, partly coloured in monochrome greens with those little dashes of purple-ruby, looks like some weird succulent or an alien sea creature of some kind. Maybe a jellyfish.
This week’s template for the Facebook group Angela Porter’s Colouring Book Fans is a mandala.
I need soothing, calming art today. One day I may share why I’m so topsy-turvy emotionally and mentally. But not now.
For now, I’m being creative in a way that soothes my inner maelstrom. It’s a mini maelstrom, but still enough to provoke unease, fear, and unsettling emotions. Still, these things pass in time. And I have a lot to experience and learn connected to this unease and fear. I just don’t know the timescale and that kind of makes it worse!
But art is always my solace, though I need to find others too. There’s my illustrated journal – writing and, erm, art! It’s been a long while since I played my flute. Nearly a week since I went out for a walk. I still have an electric folk harp I’ve not learned how to play! And there’s plenty of tea to drink.
Tea! Twice, thrice and twice-twice blessed! Tea is always soothing, especially at that magic temperature where it just feels like every part of you relaxes, and a sigh of relief and pleasure is released!
So, once I’ve finished all my social media stuff, I’ll get another mug of tea and get a YouTube video done. Yes, more art. But I love drawing!
Today’s art is a mandala with hearts and flowers as the main themes. I’ve only used three colours – red, green and gold! That’s surprising to me; usually, I go to town on colour. However, in this case, it gives a coherency to the design I prefer.
One thing I may do is to revisit it and add textures to the spaces between the design elements. And a drop shadow would help to lift it off the paper a bit more.
Mandalas are really soothing and meditative to draw and add colour to. And I certainly need that today.
The last few days have had me intensely inking in colouring pages and adding colour to some of them. Yesterday I was determined to get the last couple done, and I overdid it a bit; my damaged muscles/tendons/ligaments between two ribs are rather stiff and sore. But I got it done! Whimsical Houses is complete, and the cover and back art for the next book is also done. So, now I can take a bit of a breather and spend some time on personal projects.
I’m also so tired today. My mind was working twenty-nine to the dozen last night. I woke before 4 a.m. and couldn’t get back to sleep. So, I see a nap not too far in the future. But before that tea. Lots of tea. Probably some lunch too!
Thursday is the day when I create a colouring template for Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans Facebook group. It’s also the last one of this calendar year.
I’ve created a mandala that has a definitely starry theme. There are many ways of picking the starry shapes out for sure. I thought that stars radiating outwards would signify light and hope and good things spreading out around the world, a world that needs so much good now.
I’ve spent the few waking hours of this morning adding colour to the mandala design in my previous post.
I found some contentment and peace when I got into the flow, that meditative state. Contentment and peace are very much needed at this time, and not just by myself, but so many around the world. And if my art gives one person a little smile, a lift in their heart and spirits, then it’s done a good job.
This mandala has been unconsciously inspired by the work of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement artists and artisans. Medieval illuminated manuscripts inspired the colour palette. These are huge sources of inspiration and wonder and joy to me, and have been for a long time. Only recently, I realised how much they influence my artistic style. I’m embracing this, as well as combining other sources of inspiration and my own particular twist.
I still find myself bothered by wanting to do things the ‘right’ way when it comes to adding colour or putting a design together. But slowly I’m figuring out that the only ‘right way’ is to do it my way. In this mandala, you get a little snapshot of what has fascinated me in the past three or so months, if not for the whole of my life! Sometimes you have to circle around and around and around until the blinding obvious is, well, obvious!
I say just about my whole life. Since I was nearly six years old, I’ve lived a few miles away from Castell Coch, a Victorian castle in a fanciful medieval and arts and crafts style that lies on Cardiff’s outskirts. The Third Marquis of Bute engaged William Burges. He designed and built the castle, built upon the foundations of a 13th Century medieval castle built by the ruthless Marcher Lord Gilbert de Clare. Burges had free reign to design the castle as he wished and to decorate and furnish it too. Money was no object for the Marquis of Bute.
It is an imaginative, romantic view of what medieval castles were like, but it is absolutely glorious! Burges was one of a number of artists who heralded the birth of the Arts and Crafts Movement.
As a child, I remember many Sunday afternoons spent wandering the castle in awe of its structure, the decorations and more. Although I don’t often visit now, it is always a wondrous time for me.
Wishing each and every one of you the very best of the season’s blessings, not just for the seasonal holidays, but for each and every day ahead of you.
Angela Porter 