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Tangle Tuesday – Hatooringkle, Springkle and Zinger

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Click on this link to see today’s video.

Time for Tangle Tuesday! This week, I have a brief look at three tangle patterns that feel very related to each other – Hatooringlke by Mina Hsiao, Springle by Zentangle Inc. and Zinger by Zentangle Inc.

I wanted to add some botanicals to a pile of greeblie, robotic, mechanical space junk and these patterns spoke to me. They could very well be made from metal and futuristic material themselves!

At the last knocking, I remembered to try Diva Dance, another tangle pattern from Zentangle Inc, as a variation to the nice curvy lines. Something interesting happened … and that needs a bit more exploration.

Motif Monday

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Click on this link to see today’s video.

I love playing around with motifs, letting variations appear on my paper. So, having a day dedicated to exploring in such a way is, I think, a good idea for me!

Today, I chose two templates. One ‘seedling-y’, the other ‘coral-ish’. I ended up with this page (A5) full of possibilities and potential.

I worked in an A5 Arteza plain paper notebook rather than a sketchbook. I’m getting papers all over the place again. As much as I like the discbound sketchbooks I have, I just felt the time was right to dedicate a casebound book to my motif, tangle and fragment pursuits.

The paper reminds me of dot-grid notebook paper, without the dots. I didn’t expect it to work well with the washes of colour. However, as a sketchbook, it’ll be fine for me. The smooth surface of the paper is a pleasure to draw on. Also, I won’t wreck the nibs of my fineliner pens so quickly!

Oh, I also used a matt graphite pencil to add shadows – no tortillon or paper stump, just using pressure and/or layering to increase the depth of the shadow. I also worked with texture in the shadow in the blue seed-pod/sea anemone/round thing. That is something I want to look at a bit more going forward too.

Something Different Sunday – Bots invade my sketchbook…pesky things!

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Click on this link to see today’s video!

A rainy, windy, grey morning here in the Valleys of South Wales. The perfect day to cwtch up in the warm and dry and work on some art.

I’ve been drawing robots, or bots, in my sketchbook lately. I blame Bill Making Stuff on YouTube. I stumbled across his channel a lil while ago, and it seems his insidious bots and makes have found a corner in my creative mind to lurk. It’s inevitable, I suppose, that they should creep out.

But my drawing style has exerted its muscle …and these are typical ‘Angela’ style drawings! Actually, I had started to work on some new bots and characters for my Doodleworlds style of cute and whimsical art. But Bill gave me, unknowingly by him, the push to have a go at drawing these creations.

Fun. Whimsical. Cute. Different. Just what I needed to do on a rainy, windy, grey morning.

A Zentangle Bookmark-sized Card | #ArtForTheCreativeSoul

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Having fun today, combining drawing and cardmaking! Zentangle inspired drawing of course.

This card is 2½” x 7″ in size, and the paper I drew on is a 2½” x 6″ piece of Canson Imagine paper.

I chose to use Sandswirl and Holly tangle patterns in the design. After all, they were my tangle pattern and fragment of the week! Plus a couple of other bits and bobs – flowers, crystals, a bit of mooka and a sprinkling of flux.

I did make a boo-boo though. I didn’t let the silver ink dry long enough before I used an eraser. I checked that it was touch-dry, but it wasn’t eraser-dry. Ho hum, dash and darn it!

I used the same metallic silver to draw a border and add a little bit of embellishment. The embellishment is under my fingers, duh!

The sketchy diagram to the right are the dimensions for making an envelope for the card. Red means cut out, blue add glue.

Of course I made a video for this, and you can see it by following this link. (It’s a new link – I managed to re-upload yesterday’s video as today’s one. Duh go me! It seems to be one of them days…)

#FragmentFriday – “Holly” by Linda Dawson

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Ah! Fragment variations! One of my favourite things to do just for fun!

Today, I chose the lovely tangle pattern ‘Holly’, by Linda Dawson, as the source of the initial fragment.

My coddiwomple through the variations let to some lovely variations. Some were definitely dead ends, and some just don’t work in a reticulum.

Each dead-end and ‘fail’ teaches something. To persevere. And to accept that playing around with variations means mistakes, yeuchy variations are going to result. This is what sketchbooks are for – to make mistakes, to try things out, to work out what does and what does not work. And more importantly, to help get over the fear of failure, of having a go.

Even the ‘fails’ can lead to fragments that are lovely and unexpected.

Also, it’s nice not to have the pressure to create finished and highly polished artwork. It’s always nice to draw just for the joy of drawing.

Of course, I created a video showing my exploration. You can view it by clicking on this link.

Tangle Tuesday – “Sandswirl” by Karry Heun

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Tuesdays are #TangleTuesday! This week I’ve chosen “Sandswirl” to draw and work out some variations with.

Sandswirl has long been a favourite tangle pattern of mine. I’ve never thought about exploring variations of it. I really enjoyed doing so!

When shadows are added, this tangle pattern becomes really dimensional in an interesting way.

I’ve never thought of using Sandswirl as a border before. This shows that all the time I’ve spent exploring patterns and fragments is paying off! I’d always thought of Sandswirl as a filler pattern. Today, I discovered otherwise.

If you’d like to see my explorations today, then here’s the link to today’s video on YouTube.

Motif Monday – Flower Motifs #1

Angela Porter2 Comments

Keep the alliterative theme going; today is #MotifMonday! Also, happy Valentine’s Day to you all too.

A motif is something I use either for a focal point or in clusters as part of my drawing. Although motifs can form patterns, I tend to use the term for a particular design I like to use. I tend to use the word ‘fragment’ for that kind of motif that would fit into a grid (reticulum in Zentangle-ese).

As it’s Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d start off with roses, which led to other favourite flower motifs. Along with some, hopefully helpful, suggestions about creating volume in the drawings.

I use a lot of floral, botanical, organic motifs in my artwork, so I’m looking forward to sharing some of these with you.

Talking of sharing, here’s the link to today’s video!

Draw with me … A Zentangle Inspired Bookmark | #TimeForTheCreativeSoul

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It’s been a lovely day today. I’ve spent time drawing, which is always a pleasure and relaxing to boot! I had a lovely long phone chat with a pal too, partway through filming. But it was lovely to chat!

I’ve decided that on Saturdays, I’ll focus on arty projects that could be useful or gifted. All about taking time out not just to feed my creative soul, but to share that with others.

A bookmark seemed a good idea for today. It’s a relatively small project. Useful too! I’ll laminate this when I’m happy with it. I already have a recipient in mind.

Of course I’ve scanned the drawing in and I’ll be using it to practice adding shadow, colour, highlights/lowlights digitally.

There’ll be no social media posts from me tomorrow – I have a day with many pleasant online events. I’ll be back on Monday for sure!

Oh, before I forget, here’s today’s video.

Fragment Friday! 11 Feb ’22

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I love alliteration! Back in the so-called ‘Dark Ages’, the time between the collapse of the Roman Empire and the Battle of Hastings in 1066, alliteration was used for rhymes. One reason I’d love to learn to speak, write and read Anglo-Saxon.

I’ve decided to have a different alliterative social media theme for each day.

Fragment Friday was a natural choice. I absolutely enjoyed creating variations for each of the fragments in the “Fragments of Your Imagination Challenge” that ran through January. I miss doing these variations. So that led to this particular theme.

For my first Friday Fragment, I decided to use ‘Hearts’ as the theme. Today it’s not so much creating variations on a particular fragment but the use of a particular motif within each variation. Some of the variations are familiar fragments or tangle patterns. Others go off in surprising directions.

Of course I filmed the process (though not the addition of colour and shadow with marker pens). You can see the video by clicking on this link.

Template Thursday! 10 Feb 2022

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Another Thursday, another colouring template (or colouring page) for the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans Facebook group.

It’s another Doodleworlds meets Zentangle/Entangled kind of mashup. I have so much fun drawing these at the moment. I really do need a good dose of whimsy and cuteness in my arty life at this time. This fills the bill for sure.

I’ve not had much time today to do a lot of colouring. So, I’ve just added some flat colours. Should I get around to colouring this one in my usual way, I’ll post the results.

I had planned to do a page with two illustrations, each slightly smaller than A5 in size. That just didn’t happen. Yesterday and today have had some unexpected events, all good. So fast and dirty colouring was just the ticket.

I have been drawing this template for YouTube. Today’s instalment is below.