spider

#Inktober52 Weeks 8, 9 & 10

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#Inktober 52 weeks 8, 9 & 10 ©Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

Today, I thought I’d tackle the last three weeks of #Inktober52 in the form of a digital sketchbook page.

I took it as an opportunity to try out the new techniques I’ve been learning in Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, and a chance to try out different ways of using them.

One of the prompts was for ‘spider’. You can see the basic sketch I started with for one spider, and the main steps I took. I drew a cuter, face-on spider as well, trying out some other techniques.

I’m really pleased with the cute spider; I really had to figure out how to lose the line art I drew to begin with and I kind of ‘dissolved’ it into the colours.

For wave I ended up drawing some simple waves and colouring them in ‘flat’.

Elf was the most troublesome prompt. I don’t like to draw people, so did a couple of elf hats, and then I thought I’d write the word elf in different styles, including an elvish script, runes, Star Wars alphabets and some hand-lettering too. This turned out to be a good idea as I got to practice my digital hand lettering!

I would like to revisit the lettering and add shadows/highlights to the letters to help them look less ‘flat’. Maybe I’ll do that after I’ve done my ‘adulting’ that I need to get done today.

Just in case you’re interested, this sheet took me over five hours to complete. I used Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, Microsoft Surface Studio and Microsoft Surface Slim Pen.

Whimsical Autumn Dangle Designs and More.

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Autumn dangle designs and more © Angela Porter

About the art.

It’s been a while since I did any whimsical dangle designs, so here’s an A4 sheet full of ideas!

There are six complete dangle designs on this sheet along with lots of ideas for motifs to use. I’ve also done some hand lettering, something I don’t do often enough these days.

I know there are likely to be things associated with autumn missing from the sheet, but it is a collection of some of my favourites. I had a lot of fun filling in some of the space around the dangle designs with the lettering and design elements.

I used Tombow Fudenosuke and Faber-Castell Pitt Artist pens to draw and hand letter on an A4 sheet of dot grid paper by Claire Fontaine.

After scanning in, I decided I’d like to add some colour digitally. I used a different kind of brush setting – natural blend with an airbrush. I’ve not quite worked out how it works, but I like the way it’s turned out here. The colour blends turn out quite soft and gentle, however this brush setting does need some more experimentation by me.

These are lovely, simple designs that would be perfect for using in bullet journals (BuJos), planners, diaries, scrapbooks and journals as well as for greeting cards, bookmarks and more.

My book “A Dangle A Day” is a great resource for dangle designs and design elements (called ‘charms’ in the book), even if I say so myself. It also has easy to follow step by step instructions for beginners to more confident creatives, as well as lots of inspiration – there’s nearly 200 dangle designs in the book!

So, Angela, how are you feeling today?

I’m feeling content, fairly upbeat and the exhaustion of the past few days seems to have mostly subsided. There’s still some tiredness there, but I feel more able to cope with the demands of daily life.

I do have to venture forth into the world; in my rather emotionally fragile state the thought of going grocery shopping filled me with, well not horror but trepidation. Fortunately, I keep a fairly well stocked fridge, freezer and cupboard, but now I do need to go get some fresh fruit and veg, which I will do in a short while I expect.

It is good to be back to having the contentedness the dominant feeling – it’s not as strong as it has been which tells me there’s still some emotional distress lingering. However, it is the prevalent emotion.

I’ve weathered another emotional storm. I do try to remind myself that I’ve come through plenty of hurricane force emotional and mental storms in the past and I can come through them again. Nowadays, I know what contentedness feels like and during emotional storms it acts a lighthouse to guide me back to emotionally calm waters.

Now, that’s a nice metaphor!

October’s Bujo Spread

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Angela Porter October BuJo Spread 2018Can you believe it? September is just about all and over with. Time does seem to be flying by at the moment.

This was a really quick bujo spread due to me being away last week.

It’s also a very messily coloured one. I can tell I’ve barely wielded a pen in the last week! Talk about shaky and wobbly and lacking the fine skills I had.

Goes to show you gotta keep working it daily, even if it’s for a short while.

Mind you, I have new glasses and getting used to them is going to take a little while. For work, I have ‘occupational varifocals’. This means the lenses gradually change from intermediate distance at the top to reading distance at the bottom. I didn’t get to use them much last week, so it’s going to take a little while and some practice with them.

I also have varifocals of the usual kind (distance, intermediate and reading). They’re great if I’m sitting down and out sketching, or drawing, or knitting and watching TV. I find them a bit disconcerting for walking around and going up/down hills or stairs or twisty turny ways they cause me to feel a bit dizzy. I know my problem is that I have really good peripheral vision and there’s a part of the varifocal lens on the outside and innermost areas that causes fuzzy vision.

So, yesterday I took my favourite pairs of glasses which double up as sunglasses (they’re very cleverly designed to have removable polaroid lenses that look like they’re part of the glasses, which essentially they are) to have single vision distance lenses put in them so I can use them for walking around and driving. I can drive with the varifocals, but that fuzzy bit bothers me.

Anyways, I have a lot of practice to do with drawing in the next day or two before I return to my next Entangled Coloring book. I’m half-way through the templates and I have some lovely reference photos from my trip for the next ones, including some ideas inspired by Forbidden Corner, maybe.

Back to the BuJo spread. I drew the design on dot grid paper using Sakura Pigma Micron pens and coloured in with Chameleon pencils.

I like the design, not fussed on my colouring skills today that’s for sure.

What theme should I go with for November? Remembrance, bonfires, fireworks…feel free to leave suggestions!