I love spirals, I really do. They tend to feature a lot in my abstract drawings. So, “Spynes”, by Heidi Kay CZT, was going to be a pattern I would enjoy.
Working on variations though … I’ve got a few, but, not as many as for other tangles. Shadow and highlight is the key to increasing the dimensionality of this particular pattern.
I could’ve done square-ish, rectangular-ish, hexagon-ish, or any other shape-ish for this pattern, but I kept it to a vaguely circle spiral. Instead, I focused on how I could change the ‘spynes’. I also changed the direction of the ‘spynes’ to pointing inwards. I have to say, those variations reminded me of the Sarlacc of the Great Pit of Carkoon in the Dune Sea of Tattooine in Return of the Jedi – the sand-pit dwelling monster that Jabba the Hutt attempted to throw Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Chewbacca into. Well not Jabba himself personally; he gave the order for it to be done.
I may not have been quite so creative as I am just so darned tired and not feeling too well in the digestive system. I’ve been awake much of the night. It’s now just after 8:30am here in the UK and I’m about ready to go and try to get some sleep before I tackle Wednesday’s task of creating a new colouring template for the facebook group. Yes, sleep is a very good idea, and soon. Very, very soon.
Inktober Tangles 2021| Day 10 “Hirari” by Midori Furuhashi CZT
It’s Day 10 already, of October and Inktober! In the past, Inktober has felt, after the initial surge of excitement and energy, like a chore to be done. Except two years ago with the skull prompts and this year with the Zentangle patterns.
It’s hard to explain why this is. I think with the skulls, it’s because my scientific background has an interest in such things, and I often combined the drawings with mandalas. Mandalas are something I love to draw, though haven’t dome many in recent months. Of course, I draw upon many patterns and motifs to create mandalas, some of which are zentangle-ish in nature.
With the tangle pattern challenge, it’s a simple pattern each day, but it’s exploring variations and developing my own style that is fascinating to me. I’ve found the creation of one (at least) sketchbook page of variations on a theme an excellent way for me to approach the challenge. Not only can I look at different ways of drawing the tangle and keep it’s essence, I can also experiment with different media to add colour, shadow and highlight. These are all things that will spill over into my usual kinds of artwork.
Hirari was a bit of a challenge. I’ve struggled with drawing it. However, I’ve worked out that the addition of shadow and highlight is what brings this tangle to life. I wanted to see how I could arrange the motif to create both floral and border patterns. The floral patterns are relatively easy; the borders not quite so. But by drawing them, more ideas come as the issues with the drawing are identified and ways to overcome them are thought of. I’ve got work to do with the borders, that’s for sure!
I also liked the way the furls of the petals looked by themselves – rather leafy or frondy. So I made a note of them too. I think they’d work well in patterns of their own.
Talking of experimenting with different media… To add colour to this page, I used some tinted charcoal pencils from Derwent. And I’m well pleased with them. The don’t spread as far as chalk pastel pencils or graphite pencils. That means it’s much easier to control how far shadow or highlight extends. They can be layered to increase contrast, both with the same colour or other shades. In doing this, they actually blend rather well too. Once encouraged gently into the fibres of the paper with a paper stump or tortillon, they don’t smudge easily either! Oh, and they don’t have a shiny aspect to them like graphite does.
The colours of the charcoal pencils are all rather earthy and muted, which is what you’d expect from charcoal. These kind of colours really appeal to me at this time, and they’ll work well with the Graphitint pencils, also by Derwent.
So, I’m really pleased with my flash of inspiration that led me to them.
Entanglement
This drawing, on the right, was a pleasure for me to indulge in. It’s a typically ‘Angela’ entangled drawing with plenty of detail and characteristic curves and swirls and arches. Some tangle patterns have found their way into the artwork, which is to be expected as I’m focused on such things at this time.
My only worry now is whether I add shadow/higlight with the charcoal pencils or leave it as it is. I will scan it in before I make any decision. I may try to do that digitally and keep the original pristine, for now. Shadows, at the very least, are needed to bring out the layers and volume of the various elements of the design. But this is for later on.
I’ve had a lovely tangle-y, arty, creative morning. Some good stuff. Some experiments that worked, some that didn’t quite. Either way, I have two more pages in my sketchbook filled with explorations of Zentangle patterns.
On the left is the page of explorations of Morrisseau by Cheryl Moote CZT. The white lines in the wavy border are just … too stark and a clear line/edge that I don’t like much, at the moment. I much prefer the dotty embellishments! Having said that, the white lines that turn areas of the design into shell-like fragments work rather nicely. The more I play around with Morrisseau, the more it’s becoming one of my favourite tangle patterns. I have a lot more exploring to do with it, no doubt too.
On the right is a page of explorations of today’s tangle, Zenith, by Zentangle Inc. This was kind of fun to play around with, some ideas more successful than others. less colour on this page, but plenty of dots and white highlights!
As these are pages in my sketchbook, I feel no need to finish them completely. They’re there as a reference for ideas growing forward. Also, they’re a record showing how I’m working at developing both patterns and addition of colour, shadow and highlight.
For colour, I’ve used Graphitint pencils with a damp brush to activate the colour and gently spread it out. I like the earthier tones much more than the bright and intense colours of the Ecoline pens at the moment.
For shadow and highlight on the Zenith page, I used charcoal pencils. Now, these I like far more than graphite pencils. They don’t add any shine at all. Hurrah!
For white highlights, a white Sakura Soufflé pen was used, both before and after adding colour/shadow/highlight. With the charcoal pencils it really needs to be added afterwards as the charcoal is abrasive enough to stick to the dry pen. With graphitint it doesn’t matter. Indeed, the way colour pools around the white dots/lines adds depth and interest to the colour.
I’ve also used some metallic paints that are fairly opaque in some of the drawings. I enjoyed doing this, especially as I could add different shades of gold to add a highlight. I think I’ll be using these more going forward; they give a much smoother finish in large-ish areas than a metallic gel pen would. I like smooth finishes with metallics. The uneven colour that results from spreading the graphitint pencils pleases me too.
A sneak peek of part of this week’s coloring template for the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group.
As I’ve been immersed in Zentangle patterns as part of the Inktober Tangles 2021 challenge, it’s no surprise that this template is full of tangle patterns.
I took one ‘petal’ from the Ayame tangle, designed by Emiko Kaneko CZT, and used it for the outside border. In the inner section, I’ve used a variation of Naaki by Nadine Roller CZT, Lunar Flux by Debbie New CZT, and Printemps and Mooka by Zentangle Inc.
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.
This Zentangle tile contains the first three tangle patterns of the Inktober Tangle 2021 prompt list. They are Lunar Flux, Naaki and Dewd, by Debbie New CZT, Nadine Roller CZT, and Zentangle Inc. respectively.
I’ve used Lunar Flux in a similar way to my tile for Day 1. I just think it’s lovely as sprigs of foliage. Dewd works well as a filler pattern behind Lunar Flux. Finally, I used Naaki in the square to create a border.
A 15cm x 10.5cm (approx 4⅛” x 5⅞”) piece of Bristol board coloured with Rusty Hinge Distress ink was the base for the design. The line drawing was completed with a 0.3 Unipin pen. Pastel pencils added colour and shadow to the drawing. Finally, Sakura Souffle and Sakura Metallic Gelly roll pens were used to add highlights in white and gold.
A monochrome colour scheme of warm and cool browns was the way to go here. They worked harmoniously with the Distress Ink background colour. For highlights, I didn’t use a white pastel pencil as it didn’t make much of a difference. Instead, I went with dots of white.
It’s all a bit wibbly and wobbly; well, I did draw it sat in bed whilst coming around from a deep night’s sleep.
I do have a couple more sketchbook pages of explorations of Naaki from yesterday. I do want to do similar for Dewd. I’m finding this an interesting experience. Creating variations and iterations of a pattern or motif isn’t something I’ve done much of, but I’m sure I will be doing so going forward with lots of art.
There’s also the question of whether I tackle today’s official Inktober 2021 prompt, which is “vessel”. I dunno. I’ll see how I feel about that later today.
Saturday is the day I look back over the art I’ve done from the past week, and a bit older than that too!
Inktober and Inktober Tangles 2021
Naaki by Nadine Roller CZT and ‘suit’ are the two prompts I worked with today.
Instead of creating one drawing, I decided to try out variations of the tangle pattern. And I included the symbols for the four suits in playing cards too.
I may do this for the rest of Inktober. It’s a lot of fun to do, no pressure to create a finished ’tile’ or ‘picture’. And no pressure on me is just what I need at the moment.
Today, I’ve managed that. ‘Crystals’ is the prompt from the Inktober list. The tangle pattern for today is ‘Lunar Flux’ by Debbie New CZT.
I dug out a piece of paper coloured with Distress Inks from my stash of such paper. It’s a rather grungy kind of green, which appealed to me first thing this morning.
0.1 and 0.3 Unipin pens were used to draw the design. Next, a variety of green and white chalk pastels were used to add colour, shadow and highlight to the design. Finally, embellishments were added with white Sakura Soufflé, yellow/gold Sakura Stardust, and clear Sakura Glaze pens.
There were a number of times through the process where I wondered what on Earth I was doing and was going to give up. The first was when I started to dislike the coloured paper. The next was when I thought the pen work wasn’t looking too good, I didn’t have the space to add a third stem of lunar flux (I like groups of odd numbers). Finally, adding colour with the pastels felt like I was making a bad job worse.
I’m glad I didn’t give up. I’m actually quite pleased with the finished drawing. There’s some volume to the elements, and a sense of layers too. The highlights and shadows really helped to lift the colours and the design.
It’s been a lovely, if a tad frustrating at times, way to spend a couple of hours this morning.
Yesterday evening, I spent some time playing around with the basic idea of Lunar Flux and came up with a sketchbook page full of variations. I’ll show this in tomorrow’s Sketchbook Saturday vlog.
For now, I’m going to get a fresh mug of mocha, and spend sometime drawing, making use of Lunar Flux. I’m still not feeling quite right after my upset tummy Wednesday and yesterday. I had a horrible night’s sleep, with two vivid nightmares that had me wrenching myself awake from them. I have no idea what caused them, but the unease and fear they provoked in me is lingering today, along with a sense of exhaustion too. So, self-care time is very much needed today for sure.
Today it’s only part of the template. Truly a sneak peek at a work in progress (WIP). I’ve used, so far, two Zentangle Patterns (oysteroid and flux) and a triangle leaf/seaweed kind of motif. I have no idea how this is going to finish, other than well, hopefully.
I’m drawing with a Tombow Fudenosuke brush pen on ClaireFontaine dot grid ‘Sketch’ paper. The pen dries quickly on this paper, there’s little to no feathering of the ink, and the dots I can remove digitally when I’ve finished the drawing. And then add colour…eek!
I started adding colour to another drawing early this morning. Mistake. A BIG mistake. You can see that drawing over on Instagram.
I have no idea why I keep inflicting the torture of colouring drawings in with traditional media upon myself. I don’t know how many times I say to myself I need to stop doing this, and then I go and do it again any way. “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome”, is a quote mis-attributed to Einstein, but it seems relevant to myself and my colour struggles!
Today, I’m going to put it down to waking early for the weekly Abel & Cole delivery and being just plain tired. I had to return to sleep after that disastrous coloring session.
This template, when finished, will have some colour added to it digitally. I seem to do so much better when I work with colour in an art package, currently Clip Studio Paint Pro. I think it’s partly because I can make an awful colour choice and then correct/edit it easily. And I tend to stick to limited colour palettes a lot more easily than I do when I have a whole load of pencils, pens, or paints in front of me to choose from. Then it becomes a nightmare for me!
One day, I trust I’ll remember not to add colour when tired and to use limited colour palettes only. One day soon I hope!
Art is the Adventure 