sketchbook

Inktober Tangles 2021 and an Entanglement

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Inktober Tangles 2021| Day 10 “Hirari” by Midori Furuhashi CZT

It’s Day 10 already, of October and Inktober! In the past, Inktober has felt, after the initial surge of excitement and energy, like a chore to be done. Except two years ago with the skull prompts and this year with the Zentangle patterns.

It’s hard to explain why this is. I think with the skulls, it’s because my scientific background has an interest in such things, and I often combined the drawings with mandalas. Mandalas are something I love to draw, though haven’t dome many in recent months. Of course, I draw upon many patterns and motifs to create mandalas, some of which are zentangle-ish in nature.

With the tangle pattern challenge, it’s a simple pattern each day, but it’s exploring variations and developing my own style that is fascinating to me. I’ve found the creation of one (at least) sketchbook page of variations on a theme an excellent way for me to approach the challenge. Not only can I look at different ways of drawing the tangle and keep it’s essence, I can also experiment with different media to add colour, shadow and highlight. These are all things that will spill over into my usual kinds of artwork.

Hirari was a bit of a challenge. I’ve struggled with drawing it. However, I’ve worked out that the addition of shadow and highlight is what brings this tangle to life. I wanted to see how I could arrange the motif to create both floral and border patterns. The floral patterns are relatively easy; the borders not quite so. But by drawing them, more ideas come as the issues with the drawing are identified and ways to overcome them are thought of. I’ve got work to do with the borders, that’s for sure!

I also liked the way the furls of the petals looked by themselves – rather leafy or frondy. So I made a note of them too. I think they’d work well in patterns of their own.

Talking of experimenting with different media… To add colour to this page, I used some tinted charcoal pencils from Derwent. And I’m well pleased with them. The don’t spread as far as chalk pastel pencils or graphite pencils. That means it’s much easier to control how far shadow or highlight extends. They can be layered to increase contrast, both with the same colour or other shades. In doing this, they actually blend rather well too. Once encouraged gently into the fibres of the paper with a paper stump or tortillon, they don’t smudge easily either! Oh, and they don’t have a shiny aspect to them like graphite does.

The colours of the charcoal pencils are all rather earthy and muted, which is what you’d expect from charcoal. These kind of colours really appeal to me at this time, and they’ll work well with the Graphitint pencils, also by Derwent.

So, I’m really pleased with my flash of inspiration that led me to them.

Entanglement

This drawing, on the right, was a pleasure for me to indulge in. It’s a typically ‘Angela’ entangled drawing with plenty of detail and characteristic curves and swirls and arches. Some tangle patterns have found their way into the artwork, which is to be expected as I’m focused on such things at this time.

My only worry now is whether I add shadow/higlight with the charcoal pencils or leave it as it is. I will scan it in before I make any decision. I may try to do that digitally and keep the original pristine, for now. Shadows, at the very least, are needed to bring out the layers and volume of the various elements of the design. But this is for later on.

Inktober Tangles 2021

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Inktober Tangles 2021 | Day 9

Today’s tangle is ‘Xac’ by Susan Yeo CZT. It’s another floral kind of pattern, which has plenty of possibilities for variations. This sketchbook page contains just a few. The spiral variation reminds me of a succulent. I particularly like the individual leaves/petals; they look like odd seedpods, and that is something I’d like to explore more, maybe.

Sketchbook Saturday | My week in art.

In this vlog, I look back at the first nine days of Inktober.

Inktober Tangles 2021 | Day 7 and 8

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I’ve had a lovely tangle-y, arty, creative morning. Some good stuff. Some experiments that worked, some that didn’t quite. Either way, I have two more pages in my sketchbook filled with explorations of Zentangle patterns.

On the left is the page of explorations of Morrisseau by Cheryl Moote CZT. The white lines in the wavy border are just … too stark and a clear line/edge that I don’t like much, at the moment. I much prefer the dotty embellishments! Having said that, the white lines that turn areas of the design into shell-like fragments work rather nicely. The more I play around with Morrisseau, the more it’s becoming one of my favourite tangle patterns. I have a lot more exploring to do with it, no doubt too.

On the right is a page of explorations of today’s tangle, Zenith, by Zentangle Inc. This was kind of fun to play around with, some ideas more successful than others. less colour on this page, but plenty of dots and white highlights!

As these are pages in my sketchbook, I feel no need to finish them completely. They’re there as a reference for ideas growing forward. Also, they’re a record showing how I’m working at developing both patterns and addition of colour, shadow and highlight.

For colour, I’ve used Graphitint pencils with a damp brush to activate the colour and gently spread it out. I like the earthier tones much more than the bright and intense colours of the Ecoline pens at the moment.

For shadow and highlight on the Zenith page, I used charcoal pencils. Now, these I like far more than graphite pencils. They don’t add any shine at all. Hurrah!

For white highlights, a white Sakura Soufflé pen was used, both before and after adding colour/shadow/highlight. With the charcoal pencils it really needs to be added afterwards as the charcoal is abrasive enough to stick to the dry pen. With graphitint it doesn’t matter. Indeed, the way colour pools around the white dots/lines adds depth and interest to the colour.

I’ve also used some metallic paints that are fairly opaque in some of the drawings. I enjoyed doing this, especially as I could add different shades of gold to add a highlight. I think I’ll be using these more going forward; they give a much smoother finish in large-ish areas than a metallic gel pen would. I like smooth finishes with metallics. The uneven colour that results from spreading the graphitint pencils pleases me too.

Inktober & Inktober Tangles 2021 – Day 5

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Ack to my ravens. I really do need to spend some time working out how I’d like to draw a cute, funny, cuddly kind of raven. Perhaps I need to use my cuddly toy ravens (yes, I have more than one!) as models, maybe.

Anyway, the ravens are just quick drawings/sketches. I may spend more time today drawing more iterations. Maybe.

Ayame, a tangle pattern by Eniko Kaneko CZT, is an interesting and troublesome one for me to draw. I’ve tried several times to follow the step out by Eniko, but always ended up with weird, lopsided, overly wonky versions.

So, I started by working out how one petal would work for me, then took it from there, and have some variations I’m kind of happy with.

I’ve yet to work it into a whole drawing. Maybe I’ll spend some time today doing that. I’m not sure yet what I’m going to do, other than to get all this social media stuff done and then get some breakfast!

Sketchbook Saturday – My week in art

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Saturday is the day I look back over the art I’ve done from the past week, and a bit older than that too!

Inktober and Inktober Tangles 2021

Naaki by Nadine Roller CZT and ‘suit’ are the two prompts I worked with today.

Instead of creating one drawing, I decided to try out variations of the tangle pattern. And I included the symbols for the four suits in playing cards too.

I may do this for the rest of Inktober. It’s a lot of fun to do, no pressure to create a finished ’tile’ or ‘picture’. And no pressure on me is just what I need at the moment.

Sketchtember 2021 | Days 21 to 24

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Two sketchbook pages done over the past four days. Abstract patterns and shapes, that’s the theme! Just small drawings, lots of them. Perhaps they’ll inspire work in the future.

Pen drawings done on paper coloured and patterned with Distress Inks. Colour adding using Inktense pencils or Cartothello pastel pencils.

Sketchtember 2021 | Day 20

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Click on this link to see today’s vlog on YouTube.

Mushrooms. Lots of mushrooms. A sketchbook page full of simple line drawings of mushrooms drawn from memory and/or imagination, some brightly coloured with Ecoline watercolour ink.

This page was a lot of fun to draw. I wasn’t aiming for realism or detail. It was all about drawing simple, stylised, imaginary mushrooms. I planned to add colour to bring volume to the drawings.

As I used imagination to draw these whimsically wonky mushrooms, it was easier to give myself permission to forgo the pressures I put on myself to be realistic in adding colour. I could use whatever colours I wanted to for each mushroom, I could be as stylised as I wished about the colour too.

Adding colour in this way is easy when I add colour to my coloring book pages/templates. As these pages are stylised, I can add colour in a simpler, more fun way. This is especially true for my Doodleworlds style of art.

Transferring that mindset to my drawings from nature, architecture and so on isn’t quite so easy for me. I still hear that critical voice of ‘It’s not good art if it doesn’t look like photograph or like the real thing’ in my head. This is a message that is repeated to us time and time again from our earliest days of starting to draw. It was these critical messages that led to me having a belief that I was no good at art, and those messages were seared deeply into my view of myself.

In fairness to myself, I have overcome some of these critical beliefs foisted upon me by others. However, some linger and rise up from time to time. I suspect their influence is most noticed in my lack of confidence in myself when it comes to colour.

Identifying these ‘inner critics’ is the first step to dispelling them. This is a multi-step process as the inner critic is armed with many weapons to destroy my self-confidence. I’ve disarmed this critic time and time again, but it always seems to find a new weapon. Eventually though, it will run out of weapons to use.

It’s a process, a long winded process, but it’s one that’s worth doing, step by step.

Sketchtember 2021 | Day 19

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A page full of whimsical, wonky butterflies. Partly coloured with Ecoline Brush Pens. Embellishments with a variety of Uniball and Sakura gel pens.

I have a sheet of whimsical flutterbys drawn on a piece of marker paper that I’ve started to colour with alcohol ink pens.

A lovely way to spend a quiet Sunday at home. Mind you, every day for me is a quiet day at home, which suits me rather well.

Sketchtember 2021 | Day 17

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Link to today’s vlog on YouTube.

Anxiety-ed Out!

I’ve had a few days of periods of intense anxiety/stress. The come down from each of these has left me exhausted and my mind unfocused. I’m much better now that all the appointments related to the anxiety are over, and all is well. I knew it would be, but my mind and emotions have other ideas about that at times!

Anyhoo, as I had a bit of focus yesterday afternoon/evening, I decided to draw a few buttons for Sketchtember Day 17. A few turned into a whole page full of pen drawings! And some really not good hand-lettering, ho hum.

So, I thought I’d spend some chilled out time this morning starting to add colour to some of the buttons.

Ecoline and an insight..

Ecoline Brush Pens were my medium of choice this morning. A lot of the details on the drawings were just a bit too small for marker pens to cope with. Also, I thought a change of medium could be good for me, and it was!

To start with, I scribbled some colour onto a palette and then picked it up with a damp brush and worked with it like watercolour. However, as the areas dried, the intensity of colour faded.

So, I decided to brave trying to directly add colour to the page and then spread it out with a damp brush. It worked! I suddenly realised that I have a much more illustrative way of adding colour, rather than realistic. It’s about time I accepted that and embraced it too!

A page full of different objects, rather than a single illustration, has helped me to realise this, as well as put it into practice.

Now, I just have to remember this insight, which isn’t as easy as you may think!

Perhaps I should write a list of Angela’s Artwork Insights to refer to before I do any work, as well as while I’m working.

Bright and cheerful!

The other thing I really loved was working with these really bright, vibrant colours. I’ve been using a lot of more muted and vintage colours of late, and I love them. But these bright colours were just what I need during a post-anxiety funk.

Sketchtember 2021 Day 14

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My art of the previous day or so. More seed pods for Sketchtember, this time colour’s been added with Ecoline Brush pens. Just for a bit of a change from alcohol markers!

There’s also some Zentangle-style drawings, small ’tiles’ approx 3.5″ x 3.5″ in size.

The green one has been coloured with Color Soft pencils. The peachy background ones are still works in progress, but fixed into my sketchbook.

You may notice patterns upon the backgrounds in some of these images. I spent some time yesterday using some stencils from my stash to add texture to the Distress Ink coloured pages. I wanted some subtle pattern/texture, so chose colours that toned in with the background.

It’s actually quite fun to draw on these papers. Leaving ‘windows’ to let the background pattern show through is rather fun and a bit of a challenge.

Yes, I’m dabbling in Zentangle again, which is a sign all is not well with me emotionally. I’ve been rather stressed the last couple of days. Nowt serious, just organising some health check-ups and becoming overwhelmed with information and making myself understood, both to myself and the receptionist. All’s sorted now, well the appointments anyway. But I’m still stressed!

It takes a few days for the stress hormones to leach from my body; about four or five based on my reckoning. I have the appointments later on this week, so the current high stress levels won’t have vanished before then. So, I guess I’ll be partaking of ‘comfort art’ for a while yet!