Zentangle Inspired art

An Entangled Drawing

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I woke late today after a late night chatting to my friend, the lovely Brett who runs the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group.

So, after breakfast and time to come around, I decided to have a bit of muck about with Affinity Designer – a vector graphics program that’s an alternative to Adobe Illustrator. I wanted to see how text can be added to a line or shape. It wasn’t that difficult, once I’d looked at the instructions. It’s harder to get it looking nice and well done. I used a quote from Terry Pratchett, and though it’s not exactly elegant or even well done, I thought I’d use it as the basis for adding some patterns around.

Today, I decided to use a Tombow Fudenosuke pen and to make patterns with lines of varying width. Right at the end of my drawing (and recording) session, I realised I could have ‘ink’ flow from some of the letters to break up the white edge of the quote.

This really was just me trying out the text thing and playing with line and pattern. And chatting.

If you’d like to see the YouTube video just click on this link!

Inchie and Cartouche

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This morning, I took some time to experiment with an inchie from my little stash of ephemera, a gold and a white gel pen, and Derwent Drawing Pencils on black paper.

Here’s the Time Lapse video of the process:

And, here’s the longer (approx 1 hr and 20 m) version. In this one I do talk about mental and emotional health, stigma and discrimination, so if you don’t want to listen, then watch the Time Lapse version 🙂

I did argue with myself about whether or not I should publish the full video with me talking about such things. In the end I decided to do so, along with the time lapse version. That way I can let people know about some of the content of my chatter and then they can choose for themselves which to watch/listen to.

It is Mental Health Awareness Month, so it was bound to spill over into my vlog at some point!

I’m feeling rather drained at the moment. I had my second dose of Covid vaccine earlier on. I don’t think that’s anything to do with the vaccine, I think it’s more to me being anxious about being out in the world! I did do other things – visited a Post Office and a shop as well. That’s enough of me being in places that are ‘peopley’, though just one or two people around me now counts as very peopley!

Respect – Part 2 – Completing the Drawing

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This morning, I completed this drawing, and filmed the process too.

I was up early after a really not good night. My sleep was disturbed by nausea, upset tummy and feeling very hot and sweaty. I woke at one time close to the time my Abel & Cole delivery comes. As I was visiting the bathroom and getting dressed, I heard the van arrive.

So, after putting my order away, getting myself a drink, I thought I’d complete this drawing until I was ready to go back to bed.

I managed to sleep, but I’m still feeling exhausted and my abdomen is still tender. So, it’s going to be a quiet, self-care day today for sure.

I said I filmed the completion of this drawing and here are the links:

Full vlog in real time and chat
Time Lapse video with music

Respect – Part 1 – An entangled drawing

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My morning drawing session was a pen drawing around the word ‘Respect’. The paper is a 21cm x 21cm piece of Bristol Board. The pen I used was a Uniball Eye Micro ball.

I also filmed the process and have uploaded both a real time and time lapse versions on my YouTube channel.

I’ll most probably be finishing the drawing tomorrow morning. Then, it’ll be scanning it in and adding a background and colour digitally. That may take a while to do as I have a number of uncompleted digital projects. And a deadline looming for my next coloring book for the Creative Haven series.

I do need to, however, get out and take a walk, no matter how brief, at some point today. First check the weather forecast for the day to see if it’ll be best if I go before I settle to work or after I’ve done some work, as well as fitting it around other stuff I’m involved with today.

Willingness – Part 2 – Starting to add colour

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I’ve been awake since stupid o’clock. After trying to return to sleep, I decided, around 6am, to get up and do some arty stuff.

So, I thought I’d record my next stint at adding colour to ‘Willingness’. I’m doing this digitally, and I had figured out the colour palette I’d like to use for it. I made some adjustment to the dusky purples I had in the palette and added some brighter versions, but they’re a tad too saturated and bright, so I’ll adjust those colours and re-colour the areas in which I’ve used them.

I love how the peaches and yellows almost glow against the soft blue-grey background.

I spent nearly an hour on just a few bits and pieces, and while I was working I was chatting away. I then realised I’d started having a bit of a rant about a couple of poor shopping experiences I’d had with businesses abroad, and how products sent to me weren’t what I’d ordered or were not as they were described. Not just that, but the huge difficulty in getting a refund of any kind from them. With the latest one, I just feel like throwing the towel in. I’m out of pocket with product that is not fit for purpose, but they’re whinging about how they’ll lose profit if they refund me, even if I return it all to them, at my own cost, so either way I’ll be out of pocket, not them.

Sometimes, I really think it’s just not worth the hassle and stress.

Anyway, that made me turn the video into a timelapse with music. Nearly an hour of art condensed into about seventeen minutes. You can view it here.

Have an open heart – part 2 – adding color

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A time lapse video of me adding colour to yesterday’s drawing. Please click on ‘view in YouTube’ so it can count the views! If you like the video, give it a thumbs up and consider subscribing to my channel.

I’m not paid, sponsored nor gifted any product in order to promote or review any product. I show them just in case you’re interested in what I use, that’s all.

“Have an open heart” – Part 1

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This morning I created this entangled artwork.

I chose one of the backgrounds I’d made earlier on in the week with Distress Inks and a white Posca pen. A micro Uniball Eye pen was used to draw the design. I added some metallic highlights with Sakura Gelly Roll pens. To add colour, I used Kuretake’s Zig Clean Colour Real Brush pens and a damp paintbrush.

Here’s a link to the the vlog showing the first part in creating this design – Open Heart.

Part 2 will be shared tomorrow.

As always, I’m not paid, sponsored nor gifted any materials I mention in order to promote them. They are all bought by myself and I share them so you can, perhaps, see materials you’ve not used before.

Thanks to all who’ve looked at my videos, liked and/or subscribed to my channel. I really do appreciate it.

Morning drawing and Distress Ink Backgrounds

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This morning, I created some backgrounds to draw on. All the paper as Fabriano Medioevalis (3.3″ x 5.5″).

With three of the papers, I used white Posca pen to draw a pattern before colouring the paper with Distress Inks. For the other four, I just used distress inks.

Finally, I chose one of the papers to draw an entangled garden design on. I used a Uniball Eye pen (micro) and a Signo DX 0.38 pen.

It was all a bit of an experiment, especially the Posca pen. I was, however, quite happy with the results, and I now have a little collection of coloured papers to draw on when a large, blank sheet of white paper overwhelms me. And of course, they’ll be useful for the morning vlogs too!

I’ve yet to decide what I’d like to do with today’s drawing. It needs some shadow, highlight and/or colour to bring it to life. I’m going to sit with that for a while.

Of course, I’ve made a vlog of this mornings arty experiments and, here it is:

Now, I need to turn my attention to gathering sketches for my next colouring book for the Creative Haven series.

Morning drawing – failure and recovery?

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Yesterday, I worked to add colour to my drawing using Distress Inks as watercolours. I was soon really disheartened and disappointed with the colours.

This morning, I decided to finish adding colour and then to try adding details with a white Posca pen and various fineliners and gel pens to see if I could achieve something I felt was OK. Also, I used it as an opportunity to learn.

I’m still not at all sure of the partly finished artwork, but it is what it is.

WIP Wednesday

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An abstract drawing that I started yesterday. I think the drawing is complete, maybe. But I wanted to start to add colour to work out what palette I want to use.

This is it so far, after a couple of hours mucking about with colours, layer settings and so on. I’m quite happy with the dusky pink and mossy green, but not so sure about the dusty blue.

This isn’t my only work in progress. I’ve just finished uploading my daily morning drawing vlog on YouTube:

I started to draw another abstract drawing in this vlog as I talk about inner critics, overly talkative me, and other stuff.

Both drawings are being done with a micro sized Uniball Eye pen on Canson marker paper. The paper is so smooth and a pleasure to draw on with pens that dry quite quickly, like the Eye pen.

For now, once I’ve done my social media posts, I need a break. The sun is shining and my feet are feeling eager for a little walk. So that’s what I’ll be doing in about an hour!