sea urchins

Draw With Me | Starfish, Sea Urchins and Mussel Shells

Angela PorterLeave a comment

Click on this link to view the tutorial video that goes with this sketchbook page.

Carrying on with the sea-life theme, I filled a sketchbook page with simple drawings of stylised, whimsical starfish, sea urchins and mussel shells. I recorded my process as a tutorial video, showing and explaining my step by step process of drawing. I start with simple shapes and gradually add more and more complexity.

There is something very intriguing and curiosity-provoking about exploring variations based on the same simple shapes and steps. The possibilities are endless and it certainly gives creativity a bit of a workout!

These kinds of exercises are what sketchbooks are perfect for. A sketchbook is a safe place to experiment and explore, and the end result is a valuable resource of ideas as well as a visual record of your development of artistic skills. They’re a place to practice fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and for trying out new media or techniques.

Sketchbooks chart the development of our skills, our pattern and motif preferences, and show how we develop and evolve our artistic style.

This revelation about sketchbooks is exciting to me. I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to work this out. I think the Inktober Tangle Pattern Challenge back in 2021, the Fragments of Your Imagination Challenge earlier this year (both challenges hosted by the 7F5R Challenge Facebook group) as well as the Lettering Sketchbook course on Domestika have definitely been significant activities that have helped me reach this realisation.

The other major realisation I’m having at this time is that I think I’ve finally found what kind of YouTube content I like to make!

I was a science teacher for 28 years. Teaching is part of who I am. My focus as a teacher was always to inspire and encourage my students, to help them to believe they could do science, and to have better self-esteem and self-confidence. I loved to see them grow and develop and gain skills and knowledge they never thought they could, and that was a wonderful thing to be a part of.

If I can do the same thing for others, who have no confidence in drawing. If I can use my love of whimsical and stylised art/motifs, the function of a sketchbook to encourage others to take up pen and paper and draw, then that is a good thing!

I also think it’s important that I show my process, warts and all. Variations that are lovely, and others that are not so. It’s all part of the process of developing as an artist. I think my work with traditional coloured media is a testament to my ability to make a total mess of a fairly nice drawing! I am better with digital colours, but not much!

It all takes time to work these things out, and I can be really dense and stubborn at times! But I do get there … eventually. ‘There’ being a point of understanding myself and accepting something or a sudden revelation, you know the kinds of things. But ‘there’ isn’t the final destination. The journey of exploration and development never ends, and a sketchbook is now, for me, a vital companion going forward.

Draw With Me … Sand Dollars and Cockle or Scallop Shells

Angela PorterLeave a comment

Click on this link to view the tutorial that goes with this post on YouTube.

After drawing whimsical fish floating through the air, I thought it was time to draw some other water-based things. Sand dollars (or sea urchins) and cockle/scallop shells seemed like a good place to start. And I do my best to start simple and gradually get more complex!

Sand dollars begin with a circle and a five-pointed star. Then things get more complicated, one step at a time. The first step is to divide the space up. The next step is to add pattern/texture and/or colour and/or shadow. The steps are totally interchangeable and can be repeated.

This is sketchbook work. A chance to practice drawing skills. A time to exercise creativity. And a time to relax and enjoy what you’re doing with no expectation of perfection. The only expectation is to do, experiment, explore, learn and, most importantly, experience the simple joy of a creative process.

Joy, contentment, inner peace. These are such important things to experience, even if for a short while each day. That’s why I draw so much just for pleasure. And that’s why I’m finding my feet in the realm of YouTube and realising that I can help others, you, to do the same, simply and one step at a time.

Draw With Me … Sketchbook Page of Whimsical Flowers and more…

Angela Porter1 Comment

Click on this link to watch the accompanying video tutorial on YouTube.

This was fun! A page full of flowery, shelly, poddy motifs all starting with a circle! I’ve actually already filled nearly six pages in my A5 sketchbook with such explorations. And I’ve not finished!

A simple exercise like this really gets your creative juices flowing. There are so many, many ways to fill a circle with patterns to create a new motif. And as it’s in a sketchbook, there’s absolutely no pressure to make everything perfectly polished. The point is to get an idea down quickly and then move on to the next.

After the page (or pages) are full, there’s time to go back and add finishing details, patterns, textures, colours and/or shadows. There’s no requirement to do this to every single motif on the page. Nor is it essential that each space on a motif is filled identically. This is a space to just try things out, whether they work or not at this time. Be that drawing, patterns, textures, colours or different media.

Eventually, the sketchbook will be full of ideas and inspiration. It will be a place to dip into when at a loss. it will be full of exercises that can be done again and again or varied quite simply.

Exercises that get you drawing and being creative just for the sheer fun of it!

This is exactly what a sketchbook is for! There can be some more polished drawings in there, of course. There can be notes and ephemera and colour palettes and swatches and more too. But the fun of just drawing to see how many variations on a theme, starting with one simple shape or motif. Well, you’ll surprise yourself!

Give it a go! No one ever has to see what’s in your sketchbook. It can be a place where you play with watercolours just to watch the magic of that medium. To lose yourself in a pleasurable activity for a while and take a break from the busyness of modern life and all the stuff going on in the world around.

Drawing in a whimsical, stylised or doodly way takes the pressure off the belief that art has to look like a photograph (it doesn’t!). It allows you to just enjoy the process.

Seeking Calm

Angela Porter3 Comments

Another morning, another migraine-y headache. Yet again caused by stress and worry. Painkillers taken, just waiting for the pain to go so I can sleep the remains off.

I also completed this peace of art which I started last night. I painted circles of watercolour on a 5.5″ x 6.5″ piece of Canson Moulin Du Roy watercolour paper and left it to dry overnight.

This morning, I wanted to add pattern to the circles. I tried using a white gel pen, but it wasn’t quite opaque enough. So, I used a fine brush and white gouache. That worked really well. It was also good practice using a brush like a pen or pencil. Is it still drawing if you draw with a brush, or is it painting? I don’t know!

The circles have ended up looking like diatoms, formanifera, microscopic bits and bobs, seeds, sea urchins…

Once the gouache dried, I added some more watercolour to add shadows and details to help bring some sense of dimension or volume. The white gouache works really nicely with the watercolour. Black pen can often feel too harsh to me with delicate colours. The white lines of gouache seems a lot more sympathetic with the delicate colours. It adds a lightness, airiness, delicateness to the design. The opacity gives a sense of more solid support, architecture.

While I like the transparency of watercolour, the way I’ve added the lines and shadows doesn’t quite work being able to see the lower layers, and my head doesn’t quite work right at the moment to work out how to add details from the lower layers that could be seen. Mind you, it does give me something to think about (when ny head will let me think) in doing similar kinds of work in the future. I definitely want to explore using gouache with watercolours.

I did think of adding some metallic dots, but haven’t done so at this time. I can always revisit this painting in the future.

It’s also giving me something to think about in working digitally, though I’m not sure what those thoughts are at the moment.

While I was doing this, I felt calm, content, at peace, and the headache wasn’t so noticeable. Hence the title – “Seeking Calm”. That’s exactly what I was hoping to find while finishing this artwork off.

Detailed drawing is something I love to do. Creating abstracts based on patterns/shapes that I’ve observed in the world around me and in nature is also something I love to do.

Exploring different ways of working with different media to see how I can get it to work for me (or not work for me) is also important. Watercolour is something I do struggle with and would like to work with. This little work of art is something that is a stepping stone on my way to finding a way of working that works for me.