Promarkers

Tangle Pattern Sampler

Angela PorterLeave a comment

YouTube #DrawWithMe Video Part 1
YouTube #DrawWithMe Video Part 2

About the pattern sampler

This little pattern sampler has been fun to do! I’ve used patterns inspired by the work of Rebecca Blair, some Zentangle style tangle patterns, and possibly some variations of my own too.

I do love Rebecca’s work. I can see the influence of medieval manuscripts on her work and her love of pattern, texture and a wonderful use of textured lines too! The simplicity of her colour palettes and the myriad of ways she combines her signature patterns/textures is wonderful! I really do suggest you take a look at her work on Instagram.

I used a piece of Ohuhu marker paper that measures 4″ x 7″ ( approx 10cm x 1.7cm) and marked out the basic sections with a Uni Kuru Toga 0.3 mechanical pencil (and a ruler for the straight lines). The pencil lines were just a guide for me.

In the first video, I did most of the black line work using an 03 Sakura Pigma Micron pen. In part 2, I added colour using Winsor and Newton Promarkers in Ivory, Sandstone and Caramel.

After that, I added some fine line work and some colours using three Stabilo Point88 0.4 fine pens. These had olive-green kind of tones to them that worked well with the soft browns of the Promarkers.

I also added some black lines in places using a 0.1 UniPin fineliner pen.

Finally, I added highlights using white gel pens.

I really like the more monochrome, subdued colours of this finished drawing. The various panels really do have the feel of a needlework or cross-stitch sampler; hence the name!

I spoiled myself with a set of Promarkers last week, and I don’t feel a bit guilty about it! I was getting frustrated with the Ohuhu markers – way too many bright, in your face, vibrant colours and not enough subtler, less saturated colours.

I’ve also found that as nice as the Ohuhu marker paper is (and it is lovely and smooth and fab to draw on), I much prefer Winsor and Newton, Daler-Rowney or Canson Marker paper for my alcohol marker work; the ink doesn’t sink into the paper as much and the colours are more vibrant. Also, you use less ink in creating the artwork!

Organising a new pattern, texture and motif ‘repository’ and a bout of illness

I keep faffing about with this. After getting frustrated with a six-ring A5 ringbinder and the limited number of pages that can be stored within, I discovered there’s such a thing as A5 landscape lever arch files! So one was bought post haste! I still can’t draw/write directly in it, but it makes it so much easier to store paper and finished pages. So, I’m one happy bunny.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time in the last couple of weeks starting to put together my collections of patterns etc. Especially as I’ve not been too well. I had been in contact with some people who subsequently tested positive for Covid. I had a nervous few days wondering whether I’d get it. I didn’t. Instead I had runny nose, slight cough, and a mild case or tonsillitis!

I’ve not had tonsillitis for the best part of twenty years. The last time I was getting it 4 times a year and was referred to an ENT surgeon. Let’s just say he didn’t need to use the tongue pressor thing to see my tonsils – they’re permanently large and have lots of tunnels (crypts) inside them from all the tonsillitis I’ve had from a young age. Seeing the surgeon seemed to scare the tonsillitis away; I elected not to go through with surgery to remove the tonsils. There are potentially serious complications that can arise in an, ahem, older person.

Anyhoo, It was a mild case. All covid tests for over a week were negative. But I’m left feeling run down from being ill. I’ll recover gradually!

Losing myself in reorganising and redrawing patterns etc was just what I needed. I’ve barely made a dent in my collection, especially as I’ve added loads more variations as I go! I know it’s going to be a long term project, for sure.

Other arty stuff

I have done other arty projects since my last post here. But the fatigue has been strong and my concentration and focus weak. I will post a gallery of them in the next day or two!

Doodle art

Angela PorterLeave a comment

At the weekend, I finished all the illustrations for the upcoming colouring book ‘By the Sea‘, to be one of the titles in the Escapes series from Dover publications.

So, over the last couple of days I’ve been doing other things, some arty, some not.  However, after watching some videos on YouTube by piccandle, I thought I’d have a go at their particular style of doodle art, and this is my homage to them.

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I had a lot of fun drawing this I must admit. It’s full size is shy of A4 in size, and I drew it on squared paper, scanned it in, cleaned it up using GiMP, then printed it out ready to colour, most probably with Copics, Spectrum Noir Illustrator markers and Promarkers.

Spectrum Noir Illustrator pens – Review

Angela Porter6 Comments

Today, I popped into my local craft shop – Dandie Crafts (Dandie Crafts Facebook Page)- in their new premises in Caerphilly.

The shop is larger, smells fresh and new, has more space for stock and much more space for classes and demos.  The warm welcome was very much the same.

I had gone there to stock up on paper for my printer; I like their own range of acid-free heavy-weight paper (usually 160g/m²) and found the Spectrum Noir Illustrator  twin-tip alcohol markers in stock.

I bought the six packs of pens, which cost £12.99, so the pens work out a little over £2 each, which is about half the price of a Copic Sketch marker, Promarkers you can get for a little over £1 each at the moment.

Debbie, the lovely lady in charge today, told me they’re supposed to be a new formulation of ink that blends more easily with quality Japanese nibs.  One of the nibs is a bullet nib, the other a brush nib.

On the Illustrator marker packaging it says:

For smooth, natural linework and detailed colouring.  Fully blendable, streak-free coverage.  Perfect for drawing and illustration.

So, I just had to buy and try them out!

I drew the design using the True Black marker and the bullet tip.

The bullet tip isn’t as fine as I thought it would be.  The tip is softer than the bullet tips found on the Promarker pens.  Personally, I’d prefer the bullet nibs to be firmer.

The pen drew nicely with plenty of ink in the new pen (something that hasn’t always happened with my experience of Spectrum Noir pens in the past).  Also, the ink seems jucier in a different way that I can’t describe.  It does seem to be a different formulation.

The black lines are thicker than I’d usually draw, but I’m hoping they’ll give a stained-glass kind of feel to the art.

Once I’d inked out the design on 160gsm smooth white card, I started to colour in the design using just two colour blending.  That was going to be a bit of a challenge as I have eight of the six pen sets which aren’t the full range of colours in the Illustrator pens.

What I did notice is that the colours do blend much more easily than the original Spectrum Noir markers, and also the Promarkers and the Copics!  The ink in the Illustrator pens is definitely different to the others.

Also, where I coloured fairly large areas with one colour, there was no streaking!  Admittedly I didn’t colour a huge area, but so far so good.  The lack of streaks was the case with both the bullet nib and the brush nib.

For the green leaves, I also used a tip-to-tip method to transfer a little of the darker colour on to the lighter colour to help blending with two quite different shades of green. That worked well.

The brush nib is made up of fibres that do spread out – more like the Chameleon pen nibs than Copics.  I don’t now how that will affect their ability to get into small nooks and crannies as they are used over time.

I also noticed that the inks are a lot more vibrant and ‘cleaner’ in colour than the original Spectrum Noir pens, which is a huge plus for them.

The only downside is that as I was colouring, the inks would blend out the black ink, so some of the lines have bled where I don’t want them to bleed.

I do need to test them out with the usual pens I use for drawing and also with the Epson Ultra-brite ink I favour, which hasn’t been affected by alcohol markers previously.

Overall, I’m happy with the pens.  I most probably will get the full set of 96 and will use them along with my other alcohol markers as I’m sure they’ll work well with them.