vlog

Pattern Exploration No. 2 | Day 3

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I woke up this morning thinking that I really need to capitalise on my early morning energy and creativity and focus on the coloring templates for ‘Adorable Dogs’. When I’ve achieved my quota of sketches for the day (at least the quota), I can then turn my attention to my personal projects, such as my pattern explorations, and all my social media posting.

That’s why my posts may be later than is usual.

The explorations for pattern No.2 are just about done. I will spend the rest of this afternoon working on the page to complete it, well as much as I want to complete it at this time. Leaving some space for future additions is something that I think will be beneficial. It will encourage me to revisit and add to each pattern, something I’ve not done in the past.

Today, I wanted to try adding Zentangle patterns to the bands in the flowers. Rather than try just one pattern on each flower, I added different patterns to the bands, just to see what would happen! That’s exactly what the pages are for in this sketchbook (and any future pattern explorations ones too) – trying things out to see what happens!

Talking of trying things out. To the left and middle bottom, I’ve added some background patterns and colours. I wanted this to be something rather subtle. I think I’ve achieved that in the top left. In all cases, I used Derwent SoftColour pencils to draw the pattern. As they’d be resistant to water, I added a wash of colour over them achieve shadows, some areas more successfully than others.

I did, of course, film and talk through my thoughts and observations as I added to this page. And here it is:

Pattern Exploration No. 2 | Day 1

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Today marks the start of explorations around pattern 2, which is a lovely, stylised floral design.

In the video, I walk you through drawing a couple of the variations and my style of stems too.

Sketchbook Saturday

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A quick look at the art I’ve created in the past week in a vlog.

Pattern Explorations #1, Day 4 and Template Thursday.

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Pattern Explorations

The sketchbook page for pattern 1 is filling up nicely! Some more variations added today. The pinky-purple and greens look nice together, adding a kind of playful feel to the drawing added today. Joining the motifs in a Morrisseau tangle pattern way also adds interest and plenty of spaces that may be begging for colour and/or patterns! Who knows what tomorrow will bring.

Here’s the video/vlog that shows the addition of the next bits and pieces of this page.

Template Thursday

Here’s the partly coloured sample of this week’s coloring template for the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group.

Sample is quite an apt word as this drawing does remind me a bit of an embroidery sampler. It’s been a while since I last designed one of these, and it’s always fun to do.

This kind of sampler template is perfect if you get overwhelmed by the thought of completing a full sized, intricate template. As this one is split up into small sections for you, you can spend as much, or as little, time as you wish adding colour.

Inktober Tangles 2021 | Day 29 “Tree Leaf” by Debbie New CZT

Angela Porter3 Comments

Tree Leaf is a lovely tangle pattern by Debbie New CZT . It is, to me, an unusual way of drawing a branch of leaves, but it works out. I have to say that I fell into my way of drawing branches where I use the gaps to attach the leaves. Either way seems to work just fine and dandy for sure.

The branch I kept fairly consistent in my drawing today. However the leaves…it was fun to use my favourite shapes of leaves, and a few others. A couple of berries and acorns have sneaked their way in as well.

This tangle pattern makes it really easy to layer leaves; very useful for me in my work creating coloring books!

To add colour to the leaves (and berries), I’ve used a whole host of media – Pitt graphite matt pencil, Graphitint pencils, Graphitint paints, Inktense blocks used like watercolours, and Sakura metallic, starlight and moonlight gelly roll pens. I also used white Gelly Roll and Posca pens to add the higlights.

I’ve not done much in the way of shading. There comes a point when I really need to take a break from the work. I’ve reached that point with this page. I may return to add shadow and more highlight, I may not. Regardless, this page is a great reference for me going forward. In fact, I have an idea to incorporate it into one of my other drawings I’m working on at the moment.

Tomorrow, I’ll film my thoughts and reflections as I look back on my week in art. But for today, I have filmed a video of the drawing and colouring of the small branch in the top left.

Inktober Tangles 2021 | Day 28 “Effie”

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Effie, by Annett Rumpler CZT, is a lovely floral tangle pattern and one I’ve enjoyed creating variations of, and also different ways of adding colour. For the more brightly coloured flowers I’ve used Sakura Gelly Roll Moonlight, Starlight and Metallic pens along with a damp water brush to create gradients. Just another way of using supplies in a stash! Add the colour before adding detailed lines, however.

It’s been a really interesting month with the Inktober Tangles 2021 Challenge. It’s prompted me to explore patterns, create variations. This is something I don’t do much; I tend to draw intuitively.

However, I now understand the benefits of this practice, and I intend to continue to do this kind of stuff going forward. I had started doing this in an A4 sketchbook, but I’ve found the size of the page a bit daunting and everything looks a bit disorganised. The A5 sketchbook I’ve used has been the perfect size. If I need more space for more variations/ideas I can turn to a new page.

That means I’ve had to order some A5 sketchbooks!

I did film the drawing of the first few Effies, and here’s the video :

Template Thursday

It’s Template Thursday! So the uncoloured template will be available in the facebook group in a little while.

Template Thursday…on a Wednesday? | 27 Oct 21

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It’s Wednesday! So, that means I spend time drawing a new coloring template for the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group.

Yesterday, I set up a poll in the group so members could vote on options or make suggestions for this week’s template. As you can see, a mandala with a hallowe’en theme, including cats and spider webs, is the result. Of course, there’s some drunken skulls – no party hats this week!

As I created this digitally, I didn’t film the process. I do have, however, a short vlog where I show the uncoloured template and a couple of other pieces of art and waffle on a bit!

Inktober Tangles 2021 Day 23 and Sketchbook Saturday

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Inktober Tangles 2021 Day 23 “Ple-A” by Apple Lim CZT

This was a new tangle to me, but not any more!

It took a while for me to understand it’s basic structure. Then, it was experimenting with it to fill (mostly) a page of my A5 sketchbook with just a few possibilities.

I did start adding shadow and highlight, but went on to focus on patterns in both black and colour. I may return to add those shadows and highlights to increase the illusion of volume.

Sketchbook Saturday – My week in art

It took nearly an hour for me to look back on my week in art. I didn’t think I’d done this much as I’d been unwell for a few days and needed to sleep a lot.

In the video, I share with you my observations, reflections and lessons from all of this work.

Inktober Tangles 2021 Day 16 “Moonesque” and Saturday Sketchbook – My week in art.

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“Moonesque”

Today’s tangle pattern is the lovely grid based tangle ‘Moonesque’ by Leslee Feiwus CZT.

Grid based tangles are often my favourites, though during Inktober I’ve discovered that I really like other tangles too.

All grid based tangles are full of opportunities for variations, and so a page full of them was the most natural thing for me to do. And there’s only a few possible variations here.

Sketchbook Saturday – My week in art.

It’s become my habit to take a look back at my week in art with you via a video. It’s a really good way for me to reflect on my recent art and insights gained about myself and my arty journey.

This week, I think it’s discovering how valuable it is to work on variations of a motif or pattern. This aids in understanding the design, but also leads to variations that, perhaps. are more my style. I really think I’m going to do this with more of my favourite motifs and patterns going forward too. The result could be both a library of inspiration for myself, and a regular art practice too.

I wondered if people would like me to share that daily (or almost daily) practice with them, explaining how I draw various patterns and motifs. If it’s something you’d like to see, leave me a comment!

It’s also been a surprise that I’ve enjoyed drawing motifs and patterns on a larger scale than I would usually. That gives me much more space, both on the page and in my mind, to explore and experiment. That’s saying something from me, who tends towards the small and highly detailed, fussy kind of line drawings!

Discovering that using graphite pencils for shading can be useful and attractive is another surprise of the past couple of days. I’m not entirely convinced it will be something I use regularly in any work I do; I think it’s likely to depend on my mood at the time as well as the colours/media upon which I add it. Still, it was a surprise!

Inktober Tangles 2021 | Day 4

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The tangle for day 4 is ‘WhipDCreem” by Doris Bisschop CZT. You can see how I used it at the bottom of the image.

Yeuch to my addition of colour/shading on this one. Reminder to self – don’t use drawing pencils and a blender pencil!!!! Stick to pastel pencils …

The design is fine, I think, the colour is not so fine, generally. Still, it’s all a learning experience, even if I keep repeating the same mistakes with colour.

I’ve yet to do the Inktober 2021 Day 4 prompt, which is ‘knot’. I feel a Celtic knot coming on … possibly …

I’ve done a quick vlog showing my sketchbook pages for the first four days of Inktober Tangles 2021. You can view it here.