I managed to film some drawing this morning, putting into practice some of the things I learned from yesterday’s ‘messes’, and some kind of successes.
For this tile, I’m using Arteza Everblend markers to add colour, and a humble black ball point pen to add shadow.
Oh, what a difference the ballpoint pen makes. Graphite always feels a bit ‘grimy’ to me, which is fine. But the lines and cleaner grey that can be achieved by the ballpoint pen… well, they’re different.
Anyhoo, here’s today’s video:
My warm up art this morning was to add some pattern to this particular 4″ square tile. I made a couple of booboos, again. Decided to leave them and see what would happen when I added shadow to the design.
I decided to use a brown Micron pen to add pattern to the inner segments, to separate them from the outer edges.
I have to say, I’m not at all sure about this. Perhaps that’s because I know there are booboos in it. It may be because I’ve not added enough shadow, particularly to the brown segments. Or, it could be that I need to do something to help with the confusion of all the borders around the various sections.
I have to think about what to do next.
I did video adding more to this tile, and you can view the video by clicking on this link.
Today, I continue the exploration of “Well”, a tangle pattern deconstructed by Zentangle Inc.
Some of the variations work out well, others not quite so, and a couple I’m just a tad confused about too. I also decided to create a 4″ square Zentangle “tile” using Well as the main pattern. I slipped up on one of the sections and now I have a dilemma – do I try to work with it and make it part of the whole design, or do I re-draw the tile so far.
In the realms of Zentangle, there are no mistakes. Whatever you do you work with. The hyperperfectionist (which is edging closer to just being a perfectionist!) in me is getting rather antsy about that though. Perhaps I’ll just do two tiles!
Anyways, I did record today’s morning warm-up art (which is what the pattern explorations tend to be). Click on this link to view the video in YouTube.
My Wednesday mornings nearly always begin with drawing, either in part or full, this week’s coloring page / coloring template for the members of the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group.
This week it has a bit of a winter theme going on, and a part of it you can see above. I did film my drawing process this morning, and you can view the video by following this link.
The video does start with me showing how I’ve been enhancing the trees drawn and coloured on previous days.
There was no post, nor video, yesterday as between focusing on inking the templates for adorable dogs, a medical appointment, and a couple of online meetings, there just wasn’t time.
After several hours digitally inking in colouring templates for “Adorable Dogs”, I needed to do some pen drawing, on paper. So set to drawing … more trees. Even a couple of gravity defying ones!
I had a lot of fun with these. Some of them, I realised, would make fab earrings. Shame I can’t make jewellery! Though I would love to design jewellery, for someone else to make!
Of course there’s a video showing how I drew these trees, and here it is!
In yesterday’s vlog, as I was drawing the last part of this week’s template, I commented that the leaves in the top right reminded me of trees. That was followed up with a statement that it’s an idea I need to explore more.
And so I am! I spent sometime messing around with quick pen drawings to figure some things out. Then, I drew the best of the mini-forest to create a small copse in my A5 pattern explorations sketchbook. Which I filmed.
Of course, as it’s a sketchbook, I can try out variations as I go. Some of these worked, some didn’t. And others I got totally confused on.
Adding shadow with matt graphite pencils, then colour with Ecoline Watercolour Inks, helped to give volume and some life to these trees. I still think I should’ve done one pink and purple! Maybe the next seedlings in my copse will be such colours.
And yes, I’ve already been doing more variants in my larger, A4 sketchbook. That has surprised me as I got so frustrated with the A4 size when I started this long term project of pattern and motif explorations.
I’m so late doing anything today. I woke with a migraine-y headache. The result of yesterday’s anxiety-provoking/stress-inducing trip to the pharmacy and then a small supermarket. So, headache tablets taken, a return to sleep when the pain began to wear off meant I didn’t wake up until gone 11am UK time.
I wasn’t going to risk starting a headache up again by working on digital inking of the Adorable Dogs templates straight away. So, I filmed a drawing session instead. That gave me time to drink tea, let some of the fuzzy-head, drifty-floaty feeling subside. So, once I’ve finished all of this I can settle to work for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening.
I’m not so behind, really. It’s just that I prefer to work in the morning and early afternoon, then I can relax with other projects, like my vlogs.
Today was just one of those days where other things happened. That is life! I know, from past experience, there will be other days where it’s easy to work and a lot more gets done.
I finished drawing this Entangled-Doodleworlds template this morning (and videoed the process too).
It’s full of whimsy and cuteness, patterns and critters, plants and other items. I always enjoy drawing templates like this, ones that have little stories in them (or so I discovered yesterday while videoing!).
The nicest thing, however, is that there are lots of areas, so it’s easy to choose one place, one arch, one motif to colour if you don’t have much time or are just overwhelmed by the overall task. This way, you get the satisfaction of completing one part of the design – whether it be a tiny heart, or one of the little worlds under the arches.
I enjoyed adding colour to just a few sections today. It’s always a good thing for me to work with Clip Studio Paint regularly so I can become familiar with the tools, and to learn new ways of working with it.
I always look forward to seeing how people use colour to bring my templates to life.
Here’s today’s video. It’s over an hour long … just a little warning!
This page is getting fuller by the day! What started off as semi-circular botanical motifs has taken a direction of it’s own. Oh, the starting shape is basically the same – an arch. But some of my arches are now tall and thin!
They’re not all botanical anymore either. Some feel distinctly mechanical, others more coral-like. The more semi-circular ones look like fancy fish scales. The tall and thin ones look a bit like feathers.
Hence the name change. However, what is the same is the idea of exploring patterns/basic shapes and seeing where that leads. What happens is the page becomes filled with lots of variations on a theme. Like here.
I enjoy these more abstract motifs, lots. They’re fun to do and the only limits are your imagaination and/or creativity.
I didn’t film all of the new motifs being drawn, but here’s today’s vlog.
At the top of the photo is the almost completed sketchbook page for the recent seed pod pattern explorations.
I’ve gone a bit wild with colour! I wanted to see how using graphite under-shadowing worked with Ecoline Watercolour Inks, and to see how that ‘stained glass’, fragmented background would work.
I think, going forward, I need to think more about using different sets of colours for the background and motifs. I don’t know though for sure. I do like this kind of background though.
I’ve not added pattern to any of these background sections…yet. Maybe I’ll look at that in the coming days.
At the bottom of the photo are the motifs I drew in today’s vlog. These are all based on circular/semi-circular kinds of pods, capsules, designs. Some are quite architectural in feel, but also work as botanicals.
Yesterday’s realisation that the bigger seed pods reminded me of the photos taken of horsetail plants by Karl Blossfeldt. He believed that “the plant must be valued as a totally artistic and architectural structure.”
I tend to agree with him! I often describe winter as the season where nature shows off the underlying architecture of the natural world. we can see the support structure of trees and other woody plants. Land that was hidden by foliage and flower is revealed, showing how the swathes of trees follow the contours of the land, it’s streams and rivers and so on.
I don’t like the cold of winter, nor the short days. The limited sunlight tends to lower my mood a lot, and a sunlight therapy lamp is needed on may days to stave off creeping depression and despair at my abilities. But I do like being able to see that architecture, the way the patterns in the world are so different. That makes up for the short days!
It’s hard not to see how architects of the past must have been influenced by nature. The soaring columns with arched ceilings in gothic churches and cathedrals look so much like stone trees.
It’s no wonder, when I think about how much I enjoyed exploring Blossfeldt’s work, amongst others, when I started my artistic journey around two decades ago, that I can see their influence in my work.
I took a break from drawing Adorable Dogs coloring templates (nearly all done, at least in sketch form…) to do some art just for fun. And that means, at this moment in time, seed pods. The three to the top right are today’s creations.
I couldn’t remember what plant they reminded me of. I thought mullein, but that’s not right. The closest I could figure out is Banskia seed pods, and these may be a very stylised interpretation of them. But not the stems. Weird stems are my own imagination in overdrive.
Of course, the drawings need shadow, colour and highlight to bring them to some kind of life. So, as I’m enjoying using graphite pencils for shading and watercolour pencils to add colour so much, that’s what I did.
I also tried adding some black line patterns to intensify the contrast and add interest to some of the shapes that make up the pods. That was just to see what happens. After all, this page is part of a sketchbook full of pattern explorations. It’s about giving myself permission to experiment, not to have to finish anything. The end result, I hope, will be something I dip into for inspiration at times when I don’t seem to have much of it.
And I share this process via a YouTube video.
Art is the Adventure 