Thoughts

recent art and thoughts

Angela Porter2 Comments

The woes of social media…

I’ve been almost totally absent from social media for a while. For a few reasons, I’ve been finding it somewhat overwhelming. I’m seriously considering how many social media platforms I use, deciding which ones suit how I enjoy communicating, and how to sort this out. I’ve not made any decisions other than keeping my blogs, Curious Stops, and Tea Shops.

The realisation has dawned on me about how much time social media can suck from my day, but also how much energy. Also, to be honest, I really don’t get social media. I have the same problems interacting with people on social media as I do with humans in person! Ah, the wonders of neurospiciness! And I’m slowly working out how to balance my energy levels as I learn more about my neurospiciness.

Two YouTube videos and one livestream over Monday and Tuesday depleted my energy levels. I enjoyed creating the content for my YouTube channel, but I had no idea how much this affected me. I had to go back to sleep a couple of times between 7 a.m. and 11:30 a.m.

Postie saves the day with New Noodlers Ink!

It was only a door knock by my friendly postie that got me up and moving. The last time I saw my postie was last week when I was suffering an IBS flare-up with a migraine; I was feeling and looking more than a tad grim. He asked if I was feeling better. I said kind of but migraine-y, which was true. But two mugs of tea, some food and some pain killers has worked it’s magic.

I’m glad it did, as he had a parcel with a bottle of Noodlers Walnut ink for me. After some brunch, I had to clean out one of my TWISBI Eco fountain pens and fill it with this ink. The first try of the ink was disappointing as it looked pale orange-brown; I was hoping for a much richer colour. However, it darkened to a beautifully rich, red-brown colour as it dried. The ink is semi-bulletproof, which means it’s waterproof primarily, but some will dissolve in water. That’s something I want to try!

Oh, and there are more semi-bulletproof inks in the Noodlers range. The green-brown one intrigues me!

A flip-through of my Recent Art…

So, even though I’ve been absent from social media, including this blog, for a while, I’ve been enjoying creating different kinds of art.

One of the videos I released on YouTube was a flip-through of my recent art. This included my more abstract, twiddly, entangled art, creepy-cute drawings, and some whimsical people and animals inspired by the work of Danielle Donaldson.

All of the art I’ve produced I’ve enjoyed for various reasons. Learning how I can ‘overegg’ a drawing with too much texture/pattern and not enough open space is a lesson I have yet to learn.

Working with some of the lessons in Danielle Donaldson’s book The Art of Creative Watercolour is helping me better understand watercolour, colour mixing, and how I like to work with this medium.

I’ve enjoyed drawing ‘littles’ from the same book by Danielle – whimsical people, often with wild hair and fun clothes. Then, I tried drawing cute, whimsical critters in the same manner.

However, I’m so used to drawing with a fineliner pen that using pencil instead of pen to draw the characters and adding colour felt wrong. However, looking back on my sketchbook work, I realised I immensely like it! What a revelation!

So, I tried drawing an ‘illuminated letter’ with pencil and adding colour with soft, pastel watercolours. That still doesn’t feel ‘right’ to me. My love of Celtic, Anglo-Saxon and Medieval manuscripts doesn’t let me use just pencil for such work. That’s not a problem at all!

My creepy-cute drawings bring me joy and laughter as the characters appear on the page! Ink is the suitable medium for these, though I may try the Danielle Donaldson method out of curiosity at some point. I enjoy the more ‘cartoony’ feeling of the black fineliners, but I’m open to experimenting with a different style.

The creepy-cute critters have lent themselves to using alcohol markers and cross-hatching/textural patterns to bring them more to life. I’ve particularly enjoyed using more vintage colours for them.

I’ve made some choices with the creepy cuties that I regret in hindsight. Colour choice really can be an issue for me. Using a limited palette is the best way for me to work, though I sometimes forget that (and I rolled my eyes at myself as I typed that!).

I can’t say often enough that I love creepy cuties! Pure imagination and fun, and they bring out the pink and sparkly goth in me!

Exploring motifs based on a shape.

This was a livestream I did on YouTube. It’s a technique I love to do, and encourage viewers to draw along with me.

So, I begin with a shape or basic motif. Then, I work on variations of inner patterns, basic shapes, etc. I drew some variations in ink, left others with pencil lines, and added colour with watercolour pencils and a waterbrush. The brush was used to pick up colour from the tip of the pencils, allowing me to get delicate colours.

I managed to fill a page with variations in my A5 sketchbook. However, I didn’t get to add colour and details of highlights/shading to more than one and a half lines.

I really enjoy YouTube live streams. Interacting with people through live chat is a lot of fun. It’s also nice to know that people are joining in with me and finding inspiration in what I share, both the art and my words.

A Stylised Ammonite

The image at the top of this blog post was created in another YouTube video.

To start, looked back at the page full of the motifs created in the livestream mentioned above. My aim was to use it to make a pattern.

Now, I love ammonites. Indeed, spirals of all kinds have always fascinated me. There’s something so beautiful and joyful about drawing a spiral, or any curved line. Even my ‘straight lines’ have a softer feeling to them than those drawn with a ruler. Curvy seems to be a signature of my art! The imperfections are a manifestation of the way I draw, and I’m good with that. I’m human, not robot or AI!

Anyway, I started with a small ammonite, drawn with an 0.2 fineliner. I filled it with the Zentangle pattern Diva Dance. Diva Dance reminds me so much of the patterns you can see on shells, and it’s a pattern I love to use in various ways.

After that, I used a pencil to draw a guideline for an outer spiral. The chosen motif was repeated to fill the space and to create the pattern.

The next job was to add an underpainting. As I was completing work on the page of motifs, I’d used a Van Dyke Brown watercolour pencil to add shadows to some of the motifs. I loved this so much more than graphite and a tortillon, so I decided to use a burnt umber Inktense pencil to do similar here.

Inktense was chosen because it’s waterproof when dry. This was important as the paper I was using wasn’t watercolour paper.

The next step was to add colour. I decided to use reds, yellows, and pinky oranges for some of the motifs and turquoise and green for others. Complementary colours are one of my favourite ways of using colour. In this instance, I added the watercolour pencils to the paper and blended it with a waterbrush. I should have used a finer brush for the smaller and narrower areas. However, I wasn’t too worried if the colours ran or overspilled; this was more of a sketchbook page to try an idea out rather than a finished artwork.

I can have a tendency to hyperperfectionism. I’m learning that it’s okay not to be perfect in the art I create, that it’s OK to make mistakes or be a bit slapdash. I know I can re-draw the design, improve it, and choose how to add colour.

I often think that I’d be better off adding colour digitally—creating tradigitalart. That way, I can easily change my mistakes. That’s not something I can do on a livestream. But if I decide to redraw this design, I can scan it and colour it digitally.

Overall, I was pretty pleased with how it turned out. I’m painfully aware of all the icky bits of the artwork, but I remind myself that it’s not a finished work.

Closing thoughts

I need to consider and think about a lot of stuff. The biggie is not tiring myself out, so I’m good for nothing for several days. Social media is a constant bugbear for me. I prefer to create and explore art, knit, nap or read. Oh, and cook, eat and sleep and do all the other things that I have in my life.

I have to think about how to increase my income, too, trying to forget about my worries about AI art. So much is overwhelming, though. I will get there.

All I know, for now, is that I really enjoyed creating YouTube videos and doing a live stream. There was something energising about it, as well as tiring, in a good way.

I may be ‘missing for a couple of days, especially as I have something ‘people-y’ to do this evening; as lovely as it will be, it will exhaust me.

But for now I will sign off and do some drawing and get ready to pop out for a while this evening.

Sketchbook Sunday

Angela Porter4 Comments
Sketchbook Pages – 26 April 2020 ©Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

Over the week I’ve been adding to my sketchbook- notes and images, ideas and reflections.

Each page has been coloured with combinations of Distress Inks, applied using the black side of a piece of Cut and Dry foam, followed with a spritz of water to bring out some water-staining grungy loveliness.

All the little drawings have been done on either Daler-Rowney Smooth watercolour paper (300gsm) or mixed media paper, either from Claire Fontaine or Daler-Rowney. The papers have been coloured with Distress Oxide Inks, Distress Inks, or a combination of them. Most of the pieces have had the inks applied with the foam, but some were made by brayering Distress Oxide inks onto a gelli plate and taking a print of them.

The reflection about what I like, what I don’t like, and ideas that arise is important to me in my sketchbook/journal. I do reflect on my art, a bit too much in my head. When I write it down, it forces my sometimes abstract and swirling thoughts into some kind of order. When I make these thoughts a material manifestation by writing them down, it helps me to recognise the thoughts, sift through that which is useful, and still record those that are not particularly useful at this moment but may be in the future.

I think I need to find a way to do this with my digital art. My mind goes to using One Note to do this. I shall think on this one, and make a note of it in my physical sketchbook/journal.

RSPB Newport – a mandala

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Yesterday I took a short trip for a short visit to the RSPB reserve in Newport, Gwent.

With dark, leaden skies with golden sunshine pouring through gaps in the cloud cover the lighting was dramatic; it caused the winter colours to positively glow against the dark blue-grey of the sky.

This mandala is my response to those colours, along with some very stylised motifs from the things I saw – arching branches, dancing golden grasses, fungi and more.

I took photographs as I took a walk around part of the reserve. I also stopped to record my observations, my thoughts, in words in my journal.

I surprised myself…

It was all a bit of a spur of the moment decision to head to the wetlands reserve. I was still feeling headachy and emotionally drained after my Time to Change Wales talk to the police yesterday. I needed to do something to help shift this and to lift my mood and getting out and about is something I do struggle with, hugely. Anxiety about being around people kicks in and I can become almost paralysed with it. However, today I didn’t. Perhaps because the reserve is familiar to me; I have been there a few times before. However, I’ve never really taken much of a walk around it. That has always been a problem for me.

But not today. Today, I walked along some paths that were unfamiliar to me. I didn’t go all that far, though my walk took an hour. I did fear getting lost there, but I kept my eye on some fairly obvious landmarks such as wind turbines, the lighthouse at Nash and the huge powerstation. Being able to see these gave me some confidence that I knew what direction to head in to return to the visitors centre. If I strayed from where I could see at least one of them, I backtracked and took a different route.

Most of the people walking and visiting the reserve smiled and said hello, as did I, and that helped me feel at ease too. That, and the rhythm of walking, the sounds of nature – birdsong, rustling leaves in the breeze – and I took pleasure in moving my body, which is something that is new to me.

It’s also something I need to remember and try to get a walk into my schedule most days, somewhere where there’s nature but also where I feel safe to walk. In the wilds by myself is not a good idea, but somewhere like RSPB Newport, with it’s structured. signposted paths is a good idea. Or the beach…somewhere I’ve not been since July, yet it’s only a 40 minute drive away from me.

I forget all too easily how good it is for my mental health to take a walk where there’s nature, birdsong, and not too many people.

As I walked, I could feel the tension leach from me, down through my feet into the forgiving and loving earth. With each step and each breath I felt the anxiety ease little by little. The headache began to lift as well. By the time my walk was over I felt much better. There were still cobwebs left by the headache, but they were manageable.

When I returned to the visitors centre, I browsed in the shop and finally managed to find a raven pin badge! I also bought a small guide to trees. I also had a nice lunch and a very welcome mug of tea in the cafe there, where I continued to write and reflect in my journal until it was time to return home ahead of the rush hour traffic.

Back to art…

I love the stained glass feel of this design. I did try working with the colours in the style of my latest mandalas, but it just didn’t seem to work out for me. Perhaps I was trying to work a step, or several steps, too far for me to be comfortable with that change.

There’s also something about the black lines that gives a definite form to the mandala and this reminds me of how in winter I can can see the underlying form, the architecture that usually is hidden beneath leaves and flowers.

As is my way, I used my Microsoft Surface Pen, Microsoft Surface Studio and Autodesk Sketchbook Pro to draw and colour this mandala.

I used my photos of my visit to get the colour palette I used. And for me this is an unusual colour palette, but it reflects very much nature’s palette on the day and time that I visited.

There’s a bit more about my visit on my other blog – Curious Stops and Tea Shops.