Time for the creative soul – A Zentangle Inspired Bookmark WIP

Slowly, I’m learning about using colour digitally, and I love it! I’m beginning to understand how I can use layers effectively. Bringing dimension to my ‘flat’ pen drawings is so fascinating!

I realise now that I need to spend more time working with colour digitally. I’m finding getting that feeling of volume in my artwork is relatively easy. But, choosing colours isn’t my best skill for sure! So, once the process of layers is incorporated into my mental “muscle memory”, I need to learn more about how to choose colours.

I’ll get there. It may be that monochrome is the way to go for me. But only time will tell.

For now, I need a bit of a break from the computer as well as another mug of tea!

Draw with me … A Zentangle Inspired Bookmark | #TimeForTheCreativeSoul

It’s been a lovely day today. I’ve spent time drawing, which is always a pleasure and relaxing to boot! I had a lovely long phone chat with a pal too, partway through filming. But it was lovely to chat!

I’ve decided that on Saturdays, I’ll focus on arty projects that could be useful or gifted. All about taking time out not just to feed my creative soul, but to share that with others.

A bookmark seemed a good idea for today. It’s a relatively small project. Useful too! I’ll laminate this when I’m happy with it. I already have a recipient in mind.

Of course I’ve scanned the drawing in and I’ll be using it to practice adding shadow, colour, highlights/lowlights digitally.

There’ll be no social media posts from me tomorrow – I have a day with many pleasant online events. I’ll be back on Monday for sure!

Oh, before I forget, here’s today’s video.

Fragment Friday! 11 Feb ’22

I love alliteration! Back in the so-called ‘Dark Ages’, the time between the collapse of the Roman Empire and the Battle of Hastings in 1066, alliteration was used for rhymes. One reason I’d love to learn to speak, write and read Anglo-Saxon.

I’ve decided to have a different alliterative social media theme for each day.

Fragment Friday was a natural choice. I absolutely enjoyed creating variations for each of the fragments in the “Fragments of Your Imagination Challenge” that ran through January. I miss doing these variations. So that led to this particular theme.

For my first Friday Fragment, I decided to use ‘Hearts’ as the theme. Today it’s not so much creating variations on a particular fragment but the use of a particular motif within each variation. Some of the variations are familiar fragments or tangle patterns. Others go off in surprising directions.

Of course I filmed the process (though not the addition of colour and shadow with marker pens). You can see the video by clicking on this link.

Template Thursday! 10 Feb 2022

Another Thursday, another colouring template (or colouring page) for the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans Facebook group.

It’s another Doodleworlds meets Zentangle/Entangled kind of mashup. I have so much fun drawing these at the moment. I really do need a good dose of whimsy and cuteness in my arty life at this time. This fills the bill for sure.

I’ve not had much time today to do a lot of colouring. So, I’ve just added some flat colours. Should I get around to colouring this one in my usual way, I’ll post the results.

I had planned to do a page with two illustrations, each slightly smaller than A5 in size. That just didn’t happen. Yesterday and today have had some unexpected events, all good. So fast and dirty colouring was just the ticket.

I have been drawing this template for YouTube. Today’s instalment is below.

Zentangle Drawing “Love”

Pen drawing on 5.5″ x 4″ (14.5cm x 10cm) Canson Imagine paper coloured with Victorian Velvet Distress Ink.

I’m not at all sure about this design. It started fairly well with the hand-lettering and corner designs. But it went a bit downhill from there, in my opinion. In hindsight, the use of pink metallic pen was a bit of a mistake too. Seemed a good idea at the time though!

By the end of the drawing process, I think it is more a melange of heart-themed tangle patterns than anything else. That is how I’d describe today’s video for sure.

The video is an hour-long, real-time tutorial.

Doodleworlds Critters – Part 2, partly coloured

Have you ever lost hours engrossed in an activity? It happens often, doesn’t it? This afternoon, I’ve lost seven or eight hours adding colour to this Doodleworlds drawing. Yet, contentment oozed out of every pore of me.

I think I’ve finally found the perfect digital brushes during this time. That made adding colour such an enjoyable and engrossing activity today. So much so, that I kept saying to myself, “Just one more,” or, This one will be the last.”

I think I’ve only come to a stop for now as I need some food and drink. Also, I really need to get my Welsh Lesson done on Duolingo.

I had planned to pop out this afternoon, but I got so lost in art the afternoon has flown by!

The bonus is that not only have I enjoyed this time, but I’m pretty pleased with what has been produced. I’m even considering that it may be time to find a good cause to gift a lot of my traditional media to. I’ve not quite decided on that step yet.

I tried adding colour to this drawing yesterday, using traditional media. Unfortunately, I was so disappointed with what I produced that I re-drew the picture. Yup, I forgot to scan the partly drawn version in. Ho-hum.

I feel I’m OK adding shadow to my drawings with chalk pastel pencils. But adding colour with traditional media…

So, I’ll sit with this decision, focus on drawing with pen and adding colour digitally. In most cases that is.

Draw with me… Doodleworlds Critters Part 2

Yet more cute, whimsical and kawaii Doodleworlds critters! I draw them step by step in today’s video, which carries on from yesterday’s.

These are a lot of fun to draw, so much so I drew a Doodleworlds coloring page yesterday. It needs a bit of editing and tidying up, but I’ll make it available to purchase in my Etsy shop soon.

Draw With Me … Doodleworlds Critters (Part 1)

Yesterday, my YouTube video tutorial was about drawing the botanical, zentangle patterns and other motifs in this week’s colouring page.

In today’s video, I focus on the cute, if somewhat unruly, Doodleworlds critters. There’s so many of them that this is the first part! Then, there’s adding colour to the design.

I had a lot of fun filming this tutorial. There is a kind of narrative with the Doodleworlds characters. I’m definitely looking forward to part 2!

Template Thursyay!

Each week during the pandemic, I’ve created a colouring template or (colouring page if you prefer ;-)) for the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans Facebook group members.

This week’s template is an entangled Zentangle meets Doodleworlds mash-up! I had a lot of fun drawing this one. Doodleworlds characters always have me smiling. Mind you, drawing intricate designs always makes me smile too!

03 and 01 Unipin pens on Canson Imagine mixed media paper. Colour added digitally using Clip Studio Paint.

Template Thursday…on a Wednesday? A sneak peek at this week’s colouring template

I started work on this week’s colouring page last night. So, this morning I drew a bit more and filmed it. You can see the video by clicking on this link.

I’d started off in an organic Entangled, Zentangle fashion but decided I’d really like to include some cuteness and whimsy in the design. So, enter Doodleworlds through a crack in the space-time continuum. Or maybe just in one corner of the page, for now.

Of course, the template in the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans Facebook group won’t be available until tomorrow, but there’s no harm in having a sneak peek, is there?