mushroom

Turtle skull and Xerocomus dangle design – Inktober 2019 day 4 v2

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Dangle design for Inktober day 4

Inktober Day 4 – a dangle design

I thought it would be fun to do a really simple turtle skull drawing along with those Xerocomus fungi and turn them into a dangle design.

I kept to simple line drawings, focused on ocean-themed charms for the dangle, and added really simple colour in places just to give an idea of how it could look fully coloured in.

I worked digitally, with Autodesk Sketchbook Pro along with a Surface Pen and Surface Studio by Microsoft.

The splashes of colour show how the line drawing, as simple as it is, just comes to life with colour.

If you’d like to know more about drawing dangle designs, then my book “A Dangle A Day” is a good place to start. I show you how, one step at a time, you too can draw dangle designs and I have over 150 examples of dangle designs you can copy or use for inspiration.

Inktober – day 5

My prompts for day 5 are owl skull and Favolaschia calocera. The prompt lists I’m using are from two people on instagram – @book_polygamist and @nyan_sun.

I’m partway through my design – the owl skull is drawn and I’m rather pleased with it. I have yet to draw the Favolaschia and other design elements around it.

Again, I’m working digitally for day 5 and pushing stylised design just a little bit more with this one.

Reflecting on Inktober so far.

Five days in and I am really enjoying it. The hardest thing for me is to not let it dominate my arty work each day. For three out of the four days so far I have also managed to get my goal of at least two illustrations for the coloring book I’m working on done. The Inktober drawings are also giving me some ideas for the illustrations for the book as well.

I’m also finding I’m ‘rediscovering’ styles of art that I haven’t done for a long time; the owl skull is an example of this and I will write more about that when I post day 5’s ink.

Dangle Day Friday

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Angela Porter Dangle Day 14 September 2018

Here’s two dangle designs for dangle day Friday. Simple designs, perfect for getting into the weekend vibe.

These are both experiments where I’ve worked on vellum/parchment, the kind that is used for Pergamano.

The one on the left – the monogram A – is nowhere near as garish in colour in real-life; I really don’t know what the scanner has done to the colours. I drew the design with a metallic gold Sakura Gellyroll pen. I then used Tombow Dual brush pens to colour the design on the reverse. I used shades of yellow, orange, red and magenta, but the scanner seems to have removed much of the red. I also managed to smudge the colours too. I don’t think I’ll be using Tombows on Vellum again.

I do like the gold linework and I think I’ll draw this design out again and colour on the reverse with coloured pencils, like in the dangle design on the right.

You may recognise the design on the right as last weeks dangle design. I traced that design onto vellum using a white Uniball Signo pen. I altered some of the details and the style of lettering.

Next, I did a little bit of ‘whitework’ on the reverse. This gave the highlights on the design that help to give the illusion of dimension as well as some texture. I let the design rest under a heavy book for an hour or so.

Finally, I used my Chameleon coloured pencils to colour the design in, again doing this on the reverse.

I like the colours on this one. The vellum mutes the colours somewhat, but it also softens any imperfections in the colouring.

I’m not sure about the white lines though. I need to try this one with some coloured paper underneath to help the lines stand out a bit more. I’ll post an image of it if it works.

I’d like to draw this design in gold and see how that looks. I may try black too. As well as using coloured pencils, I want to try using Copic  or Chameleon markers to colour the designs in, to see how they work on vellum.

These certainly were experiments, which I’ve learned from. Not only that, I’ve got some ideas to try out the next time I use vellum. I’m trusting I’ll find the combination of line colour and colouring medium that works for me and my style of working.

What would I do with these designs? Well, they would both work really well as spreads in Bujos, planners, journals and scrapbooks. I also think the monogram would make a lovely bookmark. They’d both make nice greetings cards or notecards. I’m sure there’s lots of other things they could be used for, such as framed pictures.

If you have any suggestions for how they could be used, leave a comment.

Dangle Day Friday

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Angela Porter September 2018 coloured

Friday is dangle day!

We’re a week into September and autumn is nearly here in the Northern hemisphere, so I thought my dangle design should be one for this season. I think this would be a lovely BuJo page to separate the autumn months. I also think it would make a pretty notecard or greetings card. The hand lettering could be changed for another sentiment and it would be suitable for an autumn celebration. Alternatively, it would look great framed and hung as part of a quartet of designs that cover the four seasons; now there’s a project for me to do!

I drew the design on squared paper using Sakura pigma micron pens.

Then, I scanned the image in, used GiMP to remove the squares and create a transparent background

Next, I used Autodesk Sketchbook Pro to colour the image, create the textured background and add a shadow to the design.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, I love autumn! I love the way the world changes in terms of colours over the space of a few weeks, and the colours can be absolutely glorious.

I don’t know how the long, very hot and dry summer in here in the UK will affect autumn this year.

If you would like to design some dangles and not quite sure how, then my upcoming book A Dangle A Day (available for pre-order) will lead you through the steps as well as giving you plenty of ideas for dangle design.

Friday freebie

Just a reminder that today is the last day for you to enter any of my giveaways, the prizes being signed copies of Eerily Entangled Art, my latest book in Dover’s Creative Haven series of coloring books.

See my previous blog post for details on how to enter.  I’ll be drawing the winners at random tomorrow evening, UK time.

Furbaby Friday

Over on the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group, it’s furbaby friday.

Of course, it’s Furbaby Everyday over on the Happy Tails Animal Group facebook group.

Both groups would love to see your pictures of your furbabies, as would I.

Halloween Entangled Octahedron

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Halloween Octahedron Montage _ Angela Porter _ 21 Sept 2017

Ok, not the best photo in the world, but the octahedron (bipyramidal) was fun to draw, and the colour certainly brought it to life (death?).

Quite apt I’ve done some autumnal themed work on the Autumnal Equinox.

Another fantasy fungus mixed media – work in progress

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The last couple or so days I’ve been working on stuff in preparation for this, though I wasn’t quite sure how it was going to work out, if at all.

The background I made earlier today just wasn’t the right thing…so had to re-do that. I’m happier with this one, and the first background has been consigned to patterned, coloured, embossed papers for future projects.

There’s still a fair amount of work to do on this one, and I think it’ll work out OK in the end.

Fantasy fungus mixed media

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This one is mostly finished. I need to add shadows around the elements and some shiny patterns to the layers I think.  Oh, and the hole in the tag needs something added.

The fungus I drew and coloured myself.  That was enjoyable to do!  In fact, the whole thing has been satisfying.

Needle felted mushroom

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The last four hours have been spent happily stabbing – lots of stabbing.  All to create my first needle felted ‘sculpture – a mushroom.

The photo isn’t brilliant (it is after 2am here in the UK, and I lost track of time..), and grey isn’t my usual colour of choice; however I used it for the mushroom as I have lots of grey wool and if it didn’t work out, it would be no great loss.

However, it has worked out.  It’s been a bit of a learning thing, and I still have lots to learn, learning that can only be done by doing it seems.

I do have a few coloured ‘circles’ to add, and then I’m sure I’ll want to add beads and stuff to add sparkle (that inner raven of mine demands sparkle whenever I can manage it!).

Overall, I’m really quite pleased with the outcome so far!

I’ve not done any sculpting for many, many years, and only then with clay.  I enjoyed working with clay, but I don’t have the facilities to do that now, but I can use wool and felt it, and I really have enjoyed the felting.  It’s easy on my fingers too (apart from the one stab to my thumb when I missed the mushroom a tad!).  It’s sculpting in terms of building the form up, rather than removing material to reveal a form, such as you’d do in stone sulpture.  The building up appeals to me far more.

I’ll finish this mushroom, then I’m sure there’ll be more things to be made.