6″ x 8″ (15cm x 20cm). Sharpie and rotring pens, Caran d’Ache watersoluble pencils with water wash and metallic paints and inks on heavy cartridge paper.
The colouring has taken most of yesterday and another 3 hours today and it’s now done.
I own the copyright to this image and it may not be used or altered in any way without my written permission.
Well, it’s been snowing here. The school was closed today for pupils and staff and I can’t say that I’m sorry. It’s been a long, busy, hardworking and stressful week with the inspection going on. Few of us were seen – just 25 lessons from over 70 staff. The reporting back is delayed until next week due to the closure today, but at least the evidence collecting was done before the school closed so we won’t have to face this again for a while …
I am shattered. I have very mixed emotions about the inspection and the great sense of aloneness/loneliness I felt throughout it all. I found it hard to not put an enormous amount of pressure on myself to do more and more and more as others around me were doing more and more and more to dazzle and impress. No wonder everyone is exhausted and many looking haggard, increasingly so as the days went by.
I had little time for art, little time for myself. I’m exhausted today, teary, with the negative self-talk in full force at times.
I did manage to get a little art done. These two are my efforts. Both around 6″ x 8″ (15cm x 20cm) in size. One worked with Rotring pens, the other with an ultrafine Sharpie. Titles for them, ‘Flowing from the heart’ and ‘Flowing from the heart 2’.
8″x 6″. Rotring Rapidograph pen and black ink on heavy cartridge paper.
I’m not quite sure yet what I’m going to do with this outline – colour or not to colour, texture or not to texture.
Last night I had friends visiting and a look for the drawing that I did when visiting Tewkesbury Abbey a couple of years ago led they and I to looking through some of my old sketchbooks. Suddenly, seeing all that had inspired me in the past, showed where my ‘visual vocabulary’ for my abstract art ‘doodles’ has come from. Prehistoric art, Romanesque and Gothic architecture and sculpture, La Tene art, ammonites and other fossils, microscopic formanifera, microscopic images of cells, stained glass windows, insects, shells, flowers, ‘Celtic’ manuscripts and Anglo-Saxon art to name but a few. I’d also picked up a copy of the BBC’s History magazine whilst out shopping as it had images of Anglo-Saxon artefacts which reminded me of patterns I use in my art. Yesterday seems to have been a day of making links between all the work I’ve done in the past and how it flows out of me now, and a reminder of the things that inspire me as well as giving me a sense of validation with the way that I create art.
I think subtle colours for this one, with textures added in places, and just the hints of metallic highlights perhaps – after all, my inner raven demands the sparkle!
I have spent the day working on this. I have used Rotring pens, watercolour paints and metallic watercolours on watercolour paper to create this imaginary landscape.
I thought I’d use colours that represent the different seasons, as well as autumnal and spring/summer trees. Spirals and curls are a feature of my artworks, as well as the highly detailed pen lines/textures.
I find it easy to do this kind of work, yet if I was to try to express a real landscape, I would end up bogged down in trying to make it real, to get it perfect, to use realistic colours …
I’ve had a ponder about such things in my journal today…but I’ve enjoyed working on this and am pleased, mostly, with it. It’s certainly something to continue experimenting with.
Oh, it’s 4″ x 6″ in size, if you were wondering!
Approx 19 x 12 cm. Technical drawing pens and black ink, Derwent Inktense pencils with water wash, Uni-Ball Gold pen.
Rotring pens with black ink, watercolour paints, Derwent Inktense pencils and wash, and gold Cosmic Shimmer watercolour paint.
The shapes and colours in this experiment were inspired by a photograph of some Australian sandstone.
I’m not happy with the middle more ‘scribbly’ bit, though the gold highlights have helped to make it part of the the whole. It’s similar to other work, yet different too.
A busily creative and productive couple of days off work – at long last, hurrah! I do so feel out of sorts when a busy life gets in the way of creativity.
Approx 12cm x 12cm. Black Rotring pen, Inktense pencils with water wash and various iridescent/metallic watercolour paints on Bristol Board.
The shapes and were inspired by one of the previous little textile pieces, the filling patterns by Romanesque architecture, prehistoric pottery, natural forms.
Fun to do something this fiddly and fussy and completely potty!
4″ x 3″. Rotring pens, watercolours, metallic gold paint and pens on Bristol Board.
Just playing really with the Bristol Board; it’s very white and very smooth and will take a bit of a colour wash. The design is very much influenced by early Celtic art and prehistoric rock art, though the hearts have crept in unconsciously. In fact, most of my art is created while in a meditative kind of state, the lines, shapes, textures and colours flow from my unconscious, from my inner being. Perhaps the hearts represent the self-love starting to bloom within me, or maybe the artwork symbolises the start of love being sent out and shared. I’m sticking with the title ‘Growing Love’ for now.
Angela Porter 