It’s really nice to draw and share the process with others, allowing them to draw along with me.
In this design, I started with a simple seed pod design, and it’s morphed into other forms, including flowers.
It’s fascinating how one basic form can be the blueprint for so many other designs, often just by making a simple change.
I tried an experiment today – to add shadows with Faber-Castell Pitt graphite matt pencils before adding colour with watercolour pencils and a water brush. The result is rather interesting. It’s kind of metallic without the shine of specific metallic paints, if that makes any sense. I’m thinking about drawing designs in graphite and then adding colour washes over them. Maybe I’ll start with individual motifs though!
Today’s tangle is ‘Xac’ by Susan Yeo CZT. It’s another floral kind of pattern, which has plenty of possibilities for variations. This sketchbook page contains just a few. The spiral variation reminds me of a succulent. I particularly like the individual leaves/petals; they look like odd seedpods, and that is something I’d like to explore more, maybe.
Sketchbook Saturday | My week in art.
In this vlog, I look back at the first nine days of Inktober.
Taking part in Inktober Tangles 2021 is spilling over into this week’s coloring page for the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group. The result is a rather geometric design which has a very tiled floor or stained glass feel to it. The quadrants could be coloured in separate colour schemes to, say, represent the four seasons, four favourite colours … well anything really. I’ve just completed one quadrant as an example.
The tangle pattern for today is ‘Morisseau’ by Cheryl Moore CZT. I’ve included it, and a couple of other tangle patterns, in my typically entangled artwork to the right. I’ve started to add colour in rusty browns and oranges with blues. The brighter colours are Ecoline Brush pens. The more muted areas are Graphitint pencils with a damp brush. I think I prefer the Graphitint areas. They have a much more aged, vintage, weathered feel to them.
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.
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.
I’m still on the mushroom kick it seems. Today’s sketches/drawings for Sketchtember feature some mushrooms. One is a typically, perhaps, entangled style of art. The other is much more of a pen and ink drawing, making use of stippling and cross-hatching to add shadow and a sense of volume.
I used a Uniball Eye micro pen to draw on a piece of Distress Ink coloured mixed media paper from Claire Fontaine for the entangled drawing on the left.
For the drawing on the right, I used a Tombow Fudenosuke pen on a piece of Ohuhu marker paper. This paper is surprisingly nice to draw on.
I’ve yet to decide if I’m going to add colour to these drawings. I have scanned them in so that I have a record of them as they are.
This week, I ran with a kind of request from a member and created two drawings which feature a rectangular area into which a photobooth photo would fit. Or anything else you can think of putting there – a precious button or coin mounted on card, a single earring kept for sentimental value, a ticket, a clipping from a magazine or newspaper, a tiny piece of embroidery, or needlefelting, or polymerclay, or fossil, or a tiny envelope containing a precious note/letter, or, or, or. You’re only limited by your creativity, and the sizes of the nested rectangles!
I’m going to be intrigued to see what people produce with these. I can be tagged in posts as @Artwyrd on Instagram or Twitter. And as Angela Porter on Facebook.
I’ve also added a geometrical pattern in the middle of the sets of nested rectangles if you don’t want to add anything to this space.
Both images would fit on an A5 card (metric/UK size), or a folded letter sized sheet of card for those of you in the US. They also could be mounted on card and framed if wished.
I’ved used Arteza Ever Blend markers from the Gray Tones set to add colour to the designs. And, for the design on the left, I’ve added white highlights with a Sakura Soufflé pen.
In today’s vlog on Youtube, I talk about the designs, and add the highlights to the left hand design.
This week is another page that is different. Someone said that they’d love it if I could create a drawing with a space for a photobooth image. So, I’m creating two such designs, in my signature Entangled art style.
I only have photobooth images from the Tim Holtz Idea-ology range, which I have in my stash. I’ve looked on Amazon Uk, and there are a few sets left, but not the pack I have. I think I’m going to have to trim the photo of the bloke down a bit.
Of course, if you don’t have photobooth images, you can use other photos, trimmed down, magazine or book images, stickers, or even buttons, coins, jewellery, and more attached to a sturdy piece of card sized to fit the frame. I’ll show some ideas, hopefully, in tomorrow’s video.
Art is the Adventure 