small art

Flower Buds – 29 May 2023

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Flower Buds

I absolutely love the Kuretake Gansai Tambi Art Nouveau set of watercolours! I just had to get that off my chest!

I love the texture created by the watercolours – how uncontrollable it is, but it adds so much to the final drawing and it actually makes my arty heart and soul smile a tad.

This is a drawing completed, for once, in today’s YouTube video, due to premiere at 18:00 UK Time on 29 May 2023. In the video I show how to draw the design, add colour and gold and white details.

After doing this artwork, I really do think the Kuretake Gansai Tambi’s are the watercolours I’ve been searching for. They work with me, helping me to express myself. Also, embracing the imperfections of the textures in the colours as part of my self-expression rather than searching for the unattainable.

I used single colours for each section, except for the larger leaves. And that seems to have worked out well for me.

I love how the gold and green to the right seem to glow like sunlight shining through stained glass.

The only thing I wish I’d done was coloured the paper with Distress Inks before starting the drawing. I know that so little Distress Ink is added to the background that it won’t affect the colours in a noticeable way. So that will be my next arty experiment today!

Oh, and I wish I’d remembered to erase the pencil line before starting to add the watercolour!

Again, I used Canson Imagine mixed media paper(9.5cm x 10.5cm or 3.75″ x 4.25″) and it seems to make it so easy for me and the Gansai Tambi paints to work well together.

I’m absolutely amazed that I’m embracing imperfection! I never thought I’d get to that point, or let it be part of my artistic voice.

I’m actually smiling here. I really am. And a smile that is felt in my heart and soul too; something I’ve not done much for a long while.

A sudden realisation

I had a sudden revelation today, of a practical nature. I suddenly realised I tend to create art in sizes that require custom made frames and/or mats. So, I thought I should try to get a selection of ready cut mats in standard sizes and use them to cut paper and create the right sized art to fit the mat. So that’s what I did.

I can be such a numpty, feeling quite daft it had taken me this long to work that out! But then again, perhaps the time wasn’t right before now. I’ve thought for a while now that I could sell my art, particularly the more abstract, flowy, intuitive art. Next step is to work out how to do that and ‘promote’ it/me. And that is the problem, the promotion… it fills me with horror. But maybe I’ll work it out. Time will tell for sure.

Mushrooms and Insects!

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Today’s Vlog (approx 33 mins long)

Watercolour Mushrooms!

I finished the mushroom painting! I was so engrossed in the magic of watercolour and wanting to complete this work that I spent most of yesterday working on it!

I’m really quite happy with the outcome. It was very much inspired by Danielle Donaldson, but I think I may have given it some little twists of my own too.

I’m also beginning to think that I can make watercolour work for me, with a mix of ‘tight’ shapes, the magic textures achieved by wet into wet, and details with gel pens and drawing pencil.

I added the dots with a mixture of white Posca, Uniball Signo and Sakura Gelly Roll pens. I also tried adding dots of gold from a metallic Gelly Roll pen. I like the metallic dots, though they don’t photograph well.

There’s only one thing better than mushrooms, and that’s more mushrooms!

I enjoyed this so much that I thought I’d do a smaller version on some of the Canson Imagine mixed media paper. That’s the work on the top left. I used Zig Clean Colour brush pens and Caran D’Ache Supracolour watercolour pencils on this one to see how they could work. I’m happy with some of the effects I achieved, but in other ways I’m not at all happy.

Surprisingly, I rather like the softer colours of the Supracolour pencils on the mushrooms at the top. I found I could get a ‘painterly’ effect with them too.

The dye inks in the Zig brush pens will reactivate with the slightest touch of water, which meant I had some interesting colour bleeds.

I think what I like most about this experiment were the different colours, particularly those peachy pink colours! I have a lot to learn about colour mixing of my watercolour set for sure!

Insects!

Well, I thought I’d have a little play around with some cute insects, the start of which is at the bottom left.

I used a 0.3mm pencil to draw the design on Canson Imagine paper and then set to adding colour with Mijello Mission Gold watercolours. I’d forgotten that I wasn’t fussed about using them on the Imagine paper. However, I carried on working with them and worked with how they interacted with the paper. I definitely wasn’t working in the prescribed way of watercolour work. But, I ended up with some effects I rather like.

Small Art

I often revert to working on a small scale. It’s something I’ve done throughout my art journey. I’ve never really been happy with working on a huge scale, except when working with pastels and charcoal.

Even when I create A4 art, which is the biggest I do in traditional media nowadays, my artwork is full of tiny details – the size of those details varies depending on whether it is personal art or art for a colouring book.

I get a lot of pleasure from creating small, precious works of art. If I were to frame them, I’d be tempted to put the tiny art in the centre of a huge frame to give that feeling of preciousness. But that would be very pretentious of me, wouldn’t it?

Tiny Abstract Art

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5″ x 3.09″ (12.7cm x 7.84cm) Tea Dye Distress Ink coloured Moulin du Roy watercolour paper.
01 Sakura Pigma Micron Pen.

Duvet Day

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Do you know the kind of days where it’s hard to get out of bed? Days when your body and soul need a day cwtched up safe and warm in bed? Well that was today for me.

A day spent doing very little. A bit of art. Watching geology videos on youtube. Playing games on my phone.

I’m now vertical, at my desk. I’ve scanned in one of my little drawings (approx 3¼” x 4″, or 8cm x 10cm) and digitally added a background, shadow and highlight. The shadow and highlight are a tad patchy, but they do help to bring the drawing to life.

Tranquility

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Watercolour

It’s taken me a couple of days to complete this small watercolour. The paper is approx 5¼” x 3¼”. So, it’s tiny and rather detailed.

I stuck to my intention of using blues, teals, greens and purples. This palette gives a rather calming and tranquil feel to the artwork. That was also the mood I was doing my best to create for myself.

I’m usually calm, content when I create. However, events in life can disrupt that to some degree, mainly my ability to relax and settle into my artistic or creative pursuits.

I do enjoy doing these abstract watercolours; the lack of black lines is a change for me, but something I’m learning to be comfortable with. It’s taken me a long time and many, many trials with that. Digital art has been the medium that has helped me find that sense of comfort at leaving out the black lines.

It’s nice that I’m able to translate those skills into more traditional media, particularly watercolours. I love the way watercolours work, but I’ve never found a way for them to work for me. I’ve struggled with them time and time again. However, I think that these abstract watercolour art experiments have helped me.

I love to see people create beautiful botanical watercolours, especially the looser kinds. Whenever I try it, as successful as I may be, it never seems right to me. It never sits ‘right’ in my creative soul. It’s another case of finding out what isn’t me to help me discover, or accept, what is me.

In that vein, my sketchbook is gaining small drawings of abstract designs. Whether I use all of them for paintings is a moot point at the moment. Making use of a sketchbook again is something that seems important at this time. In some ways it’s nice as there is no pressure to get something right or perfect. There’s still quite a bit of the hyper-perfectionist in me, though I’m better at recognising when something is ‘good enough’ to be finished.

RedBubble

Just a little message to say I have a RedBubble shop – there’s a link to it in the sidebar to the right. Please take a look, and a share of the shop would be most appreciated. There’s a wide range of quality products available at prices to suit all budgets.

#RedBubble #findyourthing

Watercolour WIP

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I’ve finished the editing for a colouring book due out later this year, and coloured the cover design for the next one. So, I turned my attention to a bit of watercolouring this morning, and this is how far I’ve got.

I actually started this one last night, and it’s taken me around 6 hours to complete so far. Oh, the paper I’m working on is 100% cotton rag and is approx 5″ x 4″ size, but the design is around quarter of an inch smaller on each side. I’m using White Knights watercolours from St Petersburg. I’m also using a grey watercolour pencil to draw the design. This way, the lines will disappear, mostly, as I paint over them.

Nothing much else to say today. The rest of the day is going to be some self-care time.

Tiny Botanicals

Angela Porter6 Comments

I have been really enjoying drawing tiny botanicals in little ‘windows’. So, I combined drawing with watercolor practice.

The image on the left involved me using a pencil to draw the boxes and their contents, then watercoloring. For some, I tried painting the image in sections and with layers of colour. I really wasn’t happy with the results. I painted the rest of the boxes with washes of watercolour and then either inked or re-drew the designs in pencil. I felt happier with these.

I used Daler-Rowney Smooth watercolour paper and I’ve been struggling to get the paper to stay wet enough for long enough to mix colours wet in wet. Not even on these tiny little windows. It was becoming very frustrating.

A couple of days ago, I’d ordered a pack of 100% cotton rag paper and it arrived early evening. I used a small piece of it for the illustration on the right.

I started by painting rectangles of colour on the paper. I used a waterbrush rather than a paintbrush for this. I used the same kind of transparency of watercolour for each as I did for the illustration on the left. Oh my gosh, did the colours shine and show up so much more vibrantly! Not only that, it was so easy to mix colours, wet in wet. The cotton rag paper is an absolute joy to work with!

I was beginning to get frustrated with myself and watercolors once again. This has been a common feature of my love-hate affair with them over many years. This paper may change that totally.

This morning, after letting the paper dry, I drew tiny botanicals in each window. I used, as in the image on the left, a 005 Sakura Pigma Micron pen to draw with. I was worried it would struggle with the paper’s rough texture. The lines aren’t as uniform as they’d be on, say, smooth Bristol board. I just went with the rougher nature of the lines and was surprised at how much I enjoyed them. They meant I loosened up my drawing style a little.

I really enjoyed creating these little artworks (the one on the left is approx. 5″ x 5″, the on on the right 4″ x 4.75″). There is something I find really satisfying about creating teeny tiny drawings, in the same way I find drawing intricate designs makes something inside me smile.

What I do want to try later on today is adding some more colour to some of the design elements on both drawings using both watercolours and watercolour pencils or inktense pencils. On second thoughts, I think I’ll do some samples to experiment on, annotate and add to my journal, just in case I don’t like what transpires.

Before I do any of that, I woke with a headache. It’s beginning to shift, but as it lifts it’s leaving me feeling really tired.

So much fun!

Angela Porter2 Comments
So Much Fun ©Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

I had so much fun making these little abstract art creations! They really do go back to my roots, but in the way I like to create now.

To give you an idea of size, the purple one is 3″ x 4″, the other two are 2½” x 4″ in size. I have mounted them on cards that are 4½” x 5″ in size, made from some white Daler-Rowney mixed media paper, and I love how they look!

I started by creating the backgrounds using Distress Inks, a mini foam blending tool and a spritz of water.

Then, I painted on some basic shapes using a brush, water and either colour from Zig Clean Real Brush pens or Distress Inks, followed by some splatters of colour.

The the real fun began. Taking some things I really wasn’t happy with and adding line and pattern to them to give them form, definition, and some dimension.

I used Sakura Pigma Micron pens (05 and 02). I also used a glass pen and gold ink in the top right design. For all designs, I used a gold Sakura Gelly Roll pen to add gold highlights, which haven’t shown up well in the scans.

There was something so satisfying and pleasing in working with vague shapes and patterns, the random nature of the background, and using them to inform how my art would develop in each case.

I really, really enjoyed creating these, and I will do more in the future.

I’m not sure how I could create similar digitally – the randomness of wet media isn’t something I’ve worked out how to do…yet. Maybe I never will. Maybe it’s the case of me creating the backgrounds separately using traditional media, then adding the lines digitally. I don’t know yet, however. It may be that this is something I reserve solely for traditional media.

What I do know, is that each design is a work of art in it’s own right and these would look fab framed. In fact, I had a huge inner smile as I mounted them on the card blanks, giving them a simple frame, and saw how finished they then looked. Teeny, tiny pieces of art, by me, Angela.