What to do with an entangled design that seems to want to take up just one side of a page? Add a quote!
The design was drawn on Bristol Board with a fine Uniball ‘eye’ gel pen and a 01 Unipin pen for the fine lines. The quote was added in Affinity Designer.
It was a quote that just ‘spoke’ to me this morning. Art is one of my passions and something I indulge myself in daily, whether for work or pleasure. I’m so grateful I can combine my work with my passion. Not only that, my coloring templates and books allow others to share in my passion and expressing theirs through colour.
I do get disheartened at times. I doubt myself often. I often judge myself very harshly, especially if I compare my work to others. It’s not always plain sailing. But, I’ve learned that if I persevere, I end up with work that I’m happy with, including this one.
Just trying out new 05 fineliner pens in vintage tones.
The central motif/pattern was worked on a small square of cotton watercolour paper (2″ x 2″ or 5 cm x 5 cm) coloured with Tea Dye Distress Ink. The larger panel beneath is a piece of Bristol Board (6″ x 6″ or 15.5cm x 15.5cm) coloured with Rusty Hinge Distress Ink.
I used various shades of Carbothello chalk pastel pencils and a paper tortillion to add colour and shadow. Gold higlights and a border around the central motif were added with a metallic gold Gelly Roll pen.
I’ve just noticed I really didn’t do a good idea at adding my initials so they were oriented harmoniously! Still, this really was just a trying out something kind of thing. I’d seen a Zentangle video about the use of cartouches – frames around writing or an illustration. And thought I’d try it out, in my usual clumsy kind of way.
I do like the idea of creating frames around other small pieces of art or precious items. That may be something I do going forward.
Thursday seems to come around both quickly and as if it’s been an age since last Thursday. As it’s Thursday, that means it’s time for a new colouring template /coloring page for the members of Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group.
This week’s template is a typically ‘Angela’ entangled style drawing. A stylised dragonfly floats above an entangled background containing arches and seed pods, flowers and foliage, along with various patterns and an intricate border.
I’ve chosen to part colour the template in a monochrome scheme of greens. I don’t really pay attention to light source much. mostly I use light and shadow as part of the patterns and a way to introduce a sense of depth and dimension to my art. This is something I realised only recently.
I’ve enjoyed doing these! The squares are 3.25″ x 3.25, 3.5″ x 3.5″ or 4″ x 4″ in size. The circles are almost 3.5″ in diameter.
The tiles were cut from a variety of papers – watercolour, bristol vellum and heavyweight smooth cartridge paper. I used Distress Inks to colour the paper tiles before drawing on them.
I’ve used Sakura Pigma Micron pens (05 and 01), along with some brown and one blue-green Stabilio fineliner pens.
I like them all, But my favourites are the ones that are much more geometric in nature – my initials and the A in particular. My least favourite is the E; the background to the letter just feels disjointed. I think that’s why I like the more symmetrical, geometrical designs more.
I’ve enjoyed using one or two tones of colour to add variety, interest and ‘dimension’ to the tiles. I’ve not added any shadow or highlight to these. That’s when things tend to go wrong for me as far as traditional media is concerned!
It also occurred to me that if I were to draw these on a different shaped paper, I could add dangle designs to them. (My book “A Dangle A Day” is still available). Maybe I’ll try that out in a while. Of course, I’d like to get a full set of monograms done too.
Here’s just some of the smaller pieces of art I’ve done over the past week or so. They’re all entangled, zentangle, zentangle inspired. The biggest is 9″x9″, the smallest around 3.5″x3.5″ in size.
All have been fun to created, but I’m really not sure about colour choices, the backgrounds colours of the papers I used and so on.
I have yet more in the pile created over the past two or three weeks! They’ve been comforting to do, even if I’ve doubted myself with them and what I was doing. That’s often the case when my emotions are all over the place, as they still are to some extent.
All I know is that though it is bitterly cold outside, the sun is shining and I really do need to go for a walk, take in some fresh air, and blow some cobwebs from my mind. Well, that’s my plan. It may change once I’ve showered and so on!
Note to self : Use a paper size that fits the scanner bed, or leave slightly larger margins.
I found this delightful quote by Ruskin yesterday and knew I wanted to use it in a drawing. So I did. Some of my favourite motifs, and some I don’t often use.
For this one, I used Strathmore smooth Bristol paper and as I cut it down into a square shape, I forgot that the width was too big to fit my scanner.
Anyway, I used bundled sage Distress ink to colour the paper before setting to it with Uniball Unipin pens. I’ve not added any shadow/highlights yet.
I’m fairly pleased with the vast majority of this drawing. There are bits at the bottom right I’m not happy with. However, shadows and highlights may help to sort that out.
Another entangled/zentangle style drawing. 21cm x 21cm square piece of Claire-Fontaine Paint-on mixed media paper coloured with rusty hinge distress ink (I think). Drawing done with a mixture of 03 Uniball Unipin and 01 Sakura Micron pens. Shading is in the process of being added with a deep red-violet Carbothello pastel pencil and a blending stump.
I think I’ll need to use a darker colour to really bring out the edges of layers as well and to help to separate each area of the design. I also have a hankering to add some gold to this one. I may or may not act on that very tempting idea though. I have a way to go yet before I decide on the final embellishments. White may win out!
This mixed media paper really holds on to the pastel pencil; it’s really difficult to blend out. However, that also gives an interesting finish and stops me from blending it out so much everything looks the same!
This was lovely to do, as art usually is for me. It’s quite different for me and it doesn’t seem to flow as well. Perhaps that’s simply because it didn’t feel like it was flowing as I was drawing it. I started with the large motif of three weird seeds and the ribbon border wrapped partly around it. Not something I would usually do and I think it threw me a little. But it’s done now, and I just keep reminding myself every drawing is an experiment. it’s only some time, paper and ink, so if thing’s don’t work out, nothing much is wasted and new lessons are gained along the way.
I often say to myself, “Angela, what on earth were you thinking?” This is one of those times.
I started with hand lettering the words. Ok-ish Good enough to mess around with. And mess around them I did – with an “aura” and pattern, then more patterns and repeated motifs … until I’d mostly filled a square sketchbook page.
The drawing was OK. I liked some bits, others I didn’t.
Then, I thought, “What would it look like with colour? Let’s try Inktense and water!”
How often have I mused here about how I struggle with colour? All was going OK-ish with just pinks and greens … and then I added blues and browns…
The geometric pattern at the bottom were colours that didn’t fit well. So, I added watercolours to glaze the colours. Big mistake. I lost any sense of shadow and highlight …
So, I used a white graphite/chalk pencil to try to add the highlights back in …
YEUCH!
So, I put it to one side while I did some other stuff and had lunch.
Then, it caught my eye and with fresh eyes I thought that maybe it’s not as bad as I thought it was .. maybe.
I constantly do this – try to add colour with traditional media and fail. Monochrome seems to work best for me. Monochrome where I can play with shadow and light. Monochrome colours that are added digitally seems to work the best of all.
No matter how often I tell myself this, put notes up to remind me of this, I still insist on trying to use traditional coloured media.
I just think that I hope one day that something will just ‘click’ with me. Today wasn’t that day it seems!
So, back to either white or simple coloured backgrounds, and adding monochrome colours for the sense of dimensionality I like. And I have no hopes that I’ll remember this in a day, a week, or a month or two and I’ll end up asking myself the exact same question; “Angela, what were you thinking?”
The end result may be something I’m unhappy with, but adding colour was enjoyable. I just seem unable to stick to just one or two colours, with variations in their intensity and tone. Then, I descend, bit by bit, into insecurity and self-doubt and incredulity that I did it again!
Ho hum! Not to worry, it’s only pen, paper and some other media. It’s yet another experience to help me, hopefully, learn more and be more comfortable with my artistic style. If we did everything perfectly every time we’d never learn and grow.
So, back to a blank piece of paper with pens I go, and may make some art to remind me, “Angela, monochrome is best!”
I really needed some structure to my artwork yesterday and early this morning. This kind of work has really hit the mark. The smaller size also meant I wasn’t feeling overwhelmed by the task. The symmetrical nature of the patterns/designs really soothed me. All these things let me find that sense of peace and contentment that I needed from art.
Making square ’tiles’.
I cut some 100% cotton watercolour paper into squares of different sizes, trying to get the most out of each sheet. These squares are either 4½” x 4½” or 3½ x 3½” in size (approx 11.5 cm x 11.5 cm or 9 cm x 9 cm).
Next, I used Tea Dye, Old Paper, Vintage Photo, Rusty Hinge, Gathered Twigs, and Old Burlap Distress Inks to colour the tiles. I used one colour only on each tile. On the watercolour paper the colour wasn’t even, and I really like the aged, distressed look that gives, along with the darker edge.
I set out a net of pencil lines to help keep my designs fairly symmetrical. I did draw the lines free hand rather than using a ruler. The result is perfectly imperfect symmetry. I then set to creating patterns/designs with 05 and 01 black Pigma Micron pens.
Other materials used.
In the bottom left tile, I used Carbothello pencils and a Prismacolor Ebony pencil to add colour and shadow to the design, smoothing them with a paper tortillon.
In some of the other tiles, I used Chameleon and Triplus fineliners to add detailed patterns to the design. A happy accident resulted in me using a waterbrush to see what I could do with it. The ink flowed to colour the space, but the pattern was still visible, but more subtle. I liked the effect! So, I made use of it in the designs.
That led to me experimenting with Inktense pencils and a waterbrush. These pencils are great for adding intense, waterproof colour to areas.
A white gelly roll pen was used to add highlights to all the designs. Also, a gold gelly roll pen was used to add metallic highlights to a couple of the designs.
Reflections
I like all of these tiles for different reasons. But I can see how I could add more shadow and highlight to the designs to bring out an illusion of depth and dimension. I may turn my attention to that in a short while.
There’s an antique feel to all the tiles, which is an unusual thing for me. But I do like it! Working on a coloured background really prompts me to play with shadow and highlight.
I do want to scan in the blank, coloured tiles to use as backgrounds in digital art. It’s the distressed nature of the colour along with the darker border that really appeals to me.
Now, I need to work out what to do with these little works of art. Also, my mind is trying to work out how I can convert these designs to coloring pages/templates. But, these will have to be looked at later on today. I’m really needing to sleep. I was up at stupid o’clock again, and I’m now beginning to flag, a lot.
It was one of those nights. I woke way too early feeling way too hot, even though the windows were open in the Welsh Winter. Hot flashes, again. So, the only thing to do was to draw until I was cool enough to get back to sleep. That took until nearly 8 am, GMT.
These are the little drawings I completed during my insomniac hours. My Sakura Pigma Sensei 04 pen is nearly done – either the nib is too worn to work properly or the ink is mostly gone, I’m not entirely sure which. I know I have a heavy hand with pens and tend to wreck them before all the ink has gone.
Anyway, I witter. I’m still trying to figure out how to add words into my drawings. I’m not entirely sure I’m being successful in this. No doubt I’ll keep on trying though!
These were drawn on A4 acid-free cartridge paper in one of my current sketchbooks. I added the background colour digitally.
Art is the Adventure 