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Pen and Wash | Entangled Art | WIP

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Link to today’s vlog on YouTube.

A very small penny dropped yesterday. I realised that what I’m doing is pen and wash, or ink and wash, or line and wash. I’m not entirely sure that a label is required, but it seems to fit.

I’m adding watercolour of one kind or another – Inktense, Ecoline, Mijello Mission Gold, Distress Inks, etc – to a pen drawing. Why I haven’t made that connection to the description of the method/process? I have no idea! Still, I have made that connection and a realisation that it gives a sense of artistic legitimacy to my work. That is a function of my insecurities when it comes to my artistic espression.

Yes, that’s right. Insecurities. Lack of confidence. Lack of belief in myself. Self-questioning about what on Earth I’m doing.

It is always nice for me when pieces of a rather abstract, metaphoric jigsaw fall into place, giving me a more coherent view of my method, my artistic voice.

These pieces always fall into place at the right time for me. I’m ready to accept that line and wash is what I do well, when I work within ‘an elegance of limits’ to quote the team at Zentangle. In this case a limited palette of colours harmonious with the background.

As well as working on this particular drawing, I have included some views of recent work in my sketchbook in today’s vlog. This other work shows me trying to work out how to add more contrast to the wash of colour. Fine ballpoint pen, graphite pencil and tortillon or coloured drawing pencils/chalk pastels are what I’m exploring. Eventually, I will settle on a method that I particularly like. I’m not happy with any of these at the moment.

I will continue to explore an figure it out. That’s what I’ve done with adding colour to my drawings, and that’s what I’ll do when it comes to increasing contrast with shadows and highlights.

Of course, I’m talking here about traditional art. When it comes to digital art, I think I have found a way I’m comfortable with in adding colour to pen drawings. I’m not quite there yet with traditional media, as well as finding the traditional media I like to work with.

Adding Color WIP

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Link to today’s vlog on YouTube.

Yesterday, I added pieces of paper coloured with either Distress Ink or Distress Oxide to pages in one of my sketchbooks. These pages had been previously coloured with Distress Inks.

I wasn’t at all sure that what I was doing was a great idea. So, I decided to add patterns to one page using a micro Uniball Eye pen. I still wasn’t sure, but a bit more confident in my idea. So, I started to add colour to see if that would make me happier with what I was doing.

To add colour, I started with some Tombow Dual brush pens in rather vintage, autumnal colours that work well with the background.

As the Distress Ink tends to alter the properties of the paper, I thought I’d try the Ecoline Brush pens. And, they were so much easier to blend out with a waterbrush. Actually, the Distress Ink makes it much easier to blend the Tombow Dual Brush pen ink out too.

So, I’m quite happy with the result. Now, I can complete the drawing and finish up adding colour. And I look forward to working on the other pages in the sketchbook too.

Entangled Thursday…on a Wednesday?

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Link to the time Lapse video of most of the drawing of this template

Link to today’s vlog and drawing of part of this template

This is a sneak peek at tomorrow’s coloring template for the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group.

It’s an entangled drawing, but a bit of a difference too. I’m not entirely sure it’s worked out well. For now, I really do need to get the cover for the new book completed.

Entangled Art WIP

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Link to today’s vlog on YouTube

I made a bit of a serendipitous discovery yesterday. I have no idea if anyone else has come across this, but I haven’t before.

Anyway, I was waiting for the sun to get less strong in the afternoon so I could venture out for a walk. So, I thought I’d add some Copic shading to some of my entangled drawings. All was fine and good with the first one (which you can see in the vlog).

Then, I started to do the same to this drawing. I’d used a black biro to add shading to the drawing and didn’t expect anything to happen. But, the biro reacted with the alcohol marker. Some of the colours in the ink were dissolved and moved a little way by the marker – purple when moist and blue when dry.

I had a ‘duh!’ moment when the scientist in me awoke. Of course alcohol would dissolve the coloured dyes in the biro.

It was an also quite magical moment too. It added to the shadows in an interesting, subtle way. This is something that needs to be investigated further with different coloured ball point pens!

So, I actually feel a tad excited by this discovery and wanted to share it.

Entangled Drawing | Adding Colour Part 3

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This morning, I spent nearly an hour adding some more colour to this entangled drawing. I estimate that a bit more than a half has been coloured.

Today’s video on YouTube is a time lapse of this process.

I’m using a fairly limited colour palette of inktense pencils.

Saturday Sketchbook

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The newest drawing in my sketchbook

Link to Sketchbook Flip Through Vlog on YouTube

Sketchbook Saturday is upon us once again. I’ve created a vlog for YouTube where I flip through my current sketchbook.

The drawing at the top is now finished. I used a Tombow Fudenosuke ‘hard’ pen to draw the design on paper that has been coloured with Distress Inks. The sketch book is 21cm x 21cm (approx 8″ x 8″).

Drawing on coloured paper is something that is pleasurable to do. The colours add mood to the drawing and are an inspiration for any colour scheme I may use, should I choose to add colour.

The grungy, distressed nature of the page is also interesting; already depth and dimension are added to the artwork.

I’ve enjoyed drawing on coloured paper so much, that I actually have coloured quite a number of pages in my sketchbook and you can see them all in the vlog. What I can’t remember is exactly which colours were used for each page.

Some of the pages I like so much that I really do need to scan them in so I can use them as backgrounds for digital art, social media posts and so on going forward.

The colour choices I’m making are often veering away from the bright, saturated colours that were so characteristic of my earlier work. Such colours are still used for my colouring templates / pages and that’s not likely to change much going forward. However, for my more personal art, less saturated, vintage, even grungy, are what I am drawn to so much at the moment. Also, I seem to favour analogous colour schemes, sometimes with a pop of complementary colours.

It’s Template Thursyay!

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Link to a Time Lapse Coloring video on YouTube

It’s Thursday, so it’s time to release a new coloring template into the magical colorists that form the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group.

I did a bit more coloring of the template this morning, and filmed the process. A time lapse video is the result and can be found on YouTube.

I know it’s two Doodleworlds style templates in a row, but I really needed some whimsy in my life.

Of course, it’s always amazing to see the many different ways people add colour to my templates. Creativity is a wonderful thing!

Entangled Art | Adding Colour Part 1

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Link to today’s vlog on YouTube

I’m at a bit of an impasse with my other entangled drawing works in progress. So, I’ve started to add colour to this one.

Shadow was added with a grey Pitt Artist Pen on Saturday, along with some of the colour. I think my morning ‘art and a cuppa’ will continue for the next few days, with videos being released of the process.

I’m doing my best to work with a limited colour palette. I started with reds, oranges, yellows and browns. this morning I thought a couple of complementary colours were needed to lift the colours a bit. So blue and green was added.

Inktense pencils and a damp brush are being used, and the specific colours used so far are – Cherry Red, Madder Brown, Baked Earth, Mustard, Sienna Gold, Deep Indigo, Blue Aquamarine and Spring Green.

I did post a photo of the drawing with just reds/oranges/browns on Instagram on Saturday. Adding the blues and green is making the colours seem so much brighter. That’s the magic of complementary colours – colours opposite each other on the colour wheel.

The way that complementary colours, particularly blues with reds/oranges/yellows, is something I am really fold of. I think it harks back to the album covers designed by Roger Dean, to mention one artist! Being a child in the sixties and seventies and the preponderance of psychedelic art at that time.

My original plan was to use an analogous colour scheme (colours next to each other on the colour wheel). But as my mood is so much better and back to normal, complementary colours are totally necessary now!

Template Thursday … on a Wednesday?

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A sneak peek of this week’s template for the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group members. And it’s another Doodleworlds style template.

I have a video on youtube, catching up with the last few days’ art as well as starting to colour this template with chalk pastel pencils. Disaster struck as I continued after the video, so turned to digital colouring.

The template will be available in the facebook group tomorrow. Now, I need to take a nap as I really haven’t had enough sleep the past three nights and I’m barely keeping my eyes open.