pen drawing

Sneak Peek of this week’s Coloring Page

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Click on this link to view today’s video on YouTube.

This week’s colouring page (or template) is drawn and I’ve added a little colour to it. I decided to feature some of the tangle patterns I’ve been exploring in the last couple of days. These are Ginili, Gingo and Fragment D3.

It’s really unusual of me to stick to a fairly limited number of patterns/motifs in my drawings. It was a really good experience!

I was so tempted to use the space between the stems of the Gingo leaves to add various blues, making it a bit like stained glass. I didn’t this time. Maybe for tomorrow. I’m not too keen on my colour choices today. Perhaps I really do need to get to grips with the idea that a limited colour palette is best for me and to stick to it!

That’s if I can drag myself away from the hand lettering course and practice that I’m so enthused about. I quickly show the pages completed so far in my lettering sketchbook in today’s video.

Draw With Me … Zentangle Tangle Patterns Ginili and Gingo

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In today’s video, I do a little pattern exploration of two lovely, organic tangles. Ginili is by Randi Wynne-Parry, and Gingo is by Lisa Chang CZT. The deconstruction of the tangle patterns can be found on TanglePatterns.com.

On the face of it, they may appear to be rather different tangles. However, there are some commonalities between them. This means it was quite natural to look at them together.

I particularly enjoyed using the brown 01 Micron pen for the textural lines in the patterns. It really helps to separate the different ‘petals’ or ‘leaves’ of Ginili from each other.

Gingo, based on the lovely Ginko leaves (my favourites of all!) also benefited from the use of the brown pen. It gave a light, airy feel to the pattern.

Also, I made use of a white gel pen to add dotty highlights. Sometimes, however, I used a finger to smudge the gel ink while it was still wet to give a softer, more natural highlight.

This was a lovely way to spend a little while in my sketchbook this morning. I hope you have a look at the video and try drawing these patterns and variations too.

Draw With Me … Shattuck and Flurry Tangle Pattern Variations

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I always enjoy exploring tangle patterns and motifs. I never quite know what I’m going to end up with. Today, I stumbled upon ‘Flurry’, a tangle pattern by Suzanne McNeill CZT. It reminds me of ‘Shattuck’, which is one of my favourite tangle patterns to use as a border or ribbon filler.

So, I took a look at variations of Shattuck that I often use before having a little exploration of Flurry.

You can see these explorations, which are the top row of drawings, in today’s video on YouTube. Just click on this link.

So, as the video was uploading and processing, Used the time to draw some tripoli-style gridded patterns.

The one to the centre-right was not a happy outcome. The one to the left is much happier! It reminds me of the view through the Millenium Falcon’s windows when jumping to hyperspace, just a bit, not exactly the same. That was a fun realisation.

I didn’t do as many variations of the patterns as usual. I like the triangular shapes of the basic fragments too much.

On another positive note, I finally figured out how I can draw the tripoli style arrangement of triangles! I don’t know how long I’ve struggled with it, but finally, the penny dropped today. Huzzah!

Draw With Me…Tangle Pattern Marley by Christine King

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I spend a lot of time doing large, intricate drawings, often A4 in size. I really enjoy working in this abstract and intuitive way. You can view today’s YouTube video where I draw this design by clicking on this link!

However, I’m realising that sometimes a fairly small, relatively quick project is needed. Yesterday, it was a pair of monotangle square Zentangle designs. Today, I woke up thinking that I’m not really making much use of my journal/commonplace book/zibaldone. The idea I had to encourage me to do this is to decorate the pages with a border!

So, that is exactly what I did. I had a quick look on tanglepatterns.com for a tangle pattern that is new to me that I’d like to use. Christine King’s lovely ‘Marley’ caught my attention, and so I went with it. I had to add a little plant pot, patterned with a variation of the tangle pattern ‘Well’ for Marley to grow from.

I only wanted to add one side border, or sidebar I suppose. I still wanted most of the page to write on.

I’m so glad I decided to do this. The border both gives a special feeling to the page and breaks the blankness. It’s encouraging me to write, not to leave it all lonely. So, I’m sure I will. Quotes, thoughts, ideas or other things will find their way onto this page, and others.

I hope you’ll take a look at today’s video and have a go at drawing this lovely pattern with me.

Draw With Me – Zentangle Monotangle Tiles

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I draw, step by step, two monotangle zentangle tiles in today’s video on YouTube.

Each piece of paper is 4″ x 4″ or 10cm x 10cm. I coloured them with Distress Inks before starting to draw. For the orangey-yellow tile, I used mustard seed, dried marigold and abandoned coral. For the bluey-green tile, I used broken china, peacock feathers and evergreen bough.

Each tile is made of a variation of fragment D5 from the Zentangle Primer. I used 0.35 and 0.20 Copic Multiliner SP pens to draw the designs. Then, I used a black Ohuhu brush marker pen and various colours of Arteza EverBlend marker pens to add colour and shadow.

These tiles would look fab mounted on blank greetings cards, and that is to be their destiny!

I really enjoyed the two to three hours I spent this morning creating these designs. I’m quite happy with them. More-so as the Distress Ink worked well with the Ohuhu marker paper, and the alcohol inks worked well on top of that.

Which is your favourite one? Or, are you like me and I like them both equally!

Template Thursday

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This week, a little more than usual, my thoughts have been on peace.

Mother Theresa said, “I will never attend an anti-war rally. If you have a peace rally, invite me.” The essence of this is that if we want peace, our thoughts, words and actions need to be on peace. That resonates with me a great deal, and I did before I’d heard of this particular quote!

So, with peace on my mind, I’ve drawn not one but two colouring pages/colouring templates this week. They are available to Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans Facebook group members.

However, if anyone wishes to send me an email to Artwyrd at AOL dot com, I can send them to you.

I was born in the early 1960s and have a sister who is ten years older than me. I was, from my birth, surrounded by music and imagery of the hippy era. So, it’s natural that some of the symbols of that time can be seen in my drawings.

Art is my way of not just expressing my creativity but is a way to take my mind off worries and troubles and to focus on more positive thoughts. Any creative activity that you can lose yourself in, not being aware of your thoughts, brings a sense of peace and calm, relaxation and pleasure. Colouring has the same effect on the mind as mediation, something else that I do.

Both templates were drawn with fineliner pens on paper. Colours and coloured backgrounds have been added digitally using ClipStudio Paint.

Doodling around in a new sketchbook

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Link to today’s video on YouTube.

It’s been a funny old day. A load of deliveries were scheduled today. I’d woken way too early, and by the time I’d drifted back to sleep, well it was time to get up ready for the Abel & Cole delivery, which didn’t arrive until after 11am. If only I’d known, I could’ve had a couple hours more sleep! Ho-hum.

Still, I pottered around with different colours on yesterday’s ‘Give Peace A Chance’ drawing, as well as adding colours to some other drawings.

Finally, all my deliveries had arrived, the last one being my order from CultPens, which included a pair of D&S A5 landscape Hahnemuhle sketchbooks. So I just had to try one out.

The paper is quite thick, has some tooth to it, but not too much. You can very, very faintly see the pen drawing through the paper, but that’s not a problem at all. And adding some tinted charcoal to the drawing was a pleasure as it was gently eased into the paper fibres by the careful use of a paper stump.

I’ve tried some Graphitint pencils and a damp brush to see if that would be ok on the paper. So far so good!

So, I’m quite happy with the sketchbook paper.

Give Peace A Chance

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Hand-drawn typography. Stylised botanicals. Some of my favourite things to draw along with one of my core beliefs!

I’m not at all sure about my colour choices. I think I could’ve done the gradient rainbow first, then taken my palette from that to use with the outer border of botanica. It’ll be easy to sort out though. I added colour digitally, but drew the design with pen on paper.

If you’d like to see my process of drawing, then take a look at today’s video by clicking on this link.

My current sketchbook page

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This page is just a kind of doodleart that I’m exploring, along with working with alcohol markers and trying to understand how I can best work with them.

All these ‘doodles’ turned out kind of organic in a kind of mechanical way, possibly. I’ll be turning my attention to them again this evening.

Flor-In-Square by Anita Hou CZT – A monotangle

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Oh, I had a lot of fun drawing this lovely tangle pattern for the first time! It combines both geometric and organic elements most delightfully.

I kept the colour simple and chose not to add any shadow. This one will end up as a greetings card for sure.

There is just something so satisfying in drawing such a geometrical, repetitive pattern. It’s both relaxing but needs focus.

As I was drawing it, I started to see possible variations on this tangle pattern. Those will be shared in the goodness of time!

Until then, here’s today’s video, where I show, step by step, how to draw this monotangle. If you’d be so kind as to click the ‘Watch on YouTube’ button, I’d appreciate it very much. (It helps with the algorithm that shares my videos with others!).