This week, I continue to draw my ‘Passion’ entangled art drawing.
Zentangle Inspired art
‘Passion’ – part 1 of an entangled drawing video
Friday is youtube video day. So, today I started a new drawing, called ‘passion’, and waffled on a bit about my passions.
I’m not entirely sure I should’ve, but it crept out that I have complex PTSD, though EMDR has helped me to be ‘good enough’ to live my life and cope with life’s ups and downs.
This isn’t a surprise to anyone who’s read/followed my blog. I’m not ashamed that I have experienced mental and emotional ill-health since childhood. In the past few years I’ve gradually healed from the traumas that caused it with the help of EMDR. My experiences in life, all of them, have contributed to the person I am, and I can’t hide from that, nor should I. Nor should anyone who has, or is, experiencing mental or emotional ill-health. It’s something that can strike anyone at any time, sometimes with a reason, sometimes for no apparent reason at all.
I believe that the only way to break a stigma down is to have open and honest conversations about it, and that includes mental and emotional health. After all, we all have physical health and we’re not usually embarrassed when we’re physically unwell, and physically unwell people don’t usually experience stigma surrounding their illness.
So, whether I’m right or wrong for mentioning this in the video, it’s now done and I’m sure people will leave comments if they think it’s inappropriate, or quite appropriate.
If you do take the time to view the video, I thank you. I also thank you if you like the video and/or subscribe to my youtube channel.
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A video experiment…
I woke this morning and something had filtered through my unconscious mind about why I couldn’t get the record screen app in Movavi to work. I had to set my computer into tablet mode. And all worked well, including recording my voice as I worked.
I was a bit flustered and more than usually waffly, but if you’d like to see how I add colour digitally, then you can see the screen, and hopefully the ‘mouse’ pointer.
I can now calm down that I know I can do this!
If you watch the video and enjoy it, like and subscribe.
If there’s any helpful advice you can give, or suggestions for future projects, then please leave a comment with them.
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Coloring ‘Serendipity’
I’ve spent much of the day so far adding colour to my ‘Serendipity’ drawing that I completed yesterday. The whole process of drawing has been videoed and is available on my YouTube channel.
I thought it would be an idea to try to record a timelapse of my process in Clip Studio Paint Pro, which has a tool that does it for you. This just didn’t work, it caused everything to freeze up.
So, I thought I’d try the record screen tool in the Movavi Video Suite. It didn’t let me use my digital pen on the screen. So, I’m going to have to spelunk through the settings to see if I can resolve that issue, and the one with Clip Studio Paint Pro. A couple of things to sort out along with how to add a voice-over to a video!
So, after getting another mug of tea, I settled to starting colouring the image digitally. I wanted to use the rich colour palette I’d used for this week’s ‘Template Thursday’ design.
I’ve only got part of the design done. It’s taking me a little longer to add colour in CSPP (Clip Studio Paint Pro) than in Sketchbook as I’m not familiar with the tool layout yet.
Again, I’m taking this as an opportunity to learn more about CSPP, in very tiny, tiny steps. I seem to have found a watercolour brush I like that adds an interesting texture to the colour. Usually, my work is characterised by rather smooth colour gradients. To have such a textured finish is unusual for me, but I quite like it.
I have a lot more of this particular drawing to do, and as I’m working digitally I can always try a different colour palette or way of working.
I think I’m going to take some time away from the computer now, and return to ‘analog’ forms of art. If you’ve watched my video, I gave a short look at one of my collections of patterns and motifs. That notebook is almost full, so I had a new Leuchtturm1917 A5 notebook delivered yesterday. It turns out I’d managed to order a square grid rather than a dot grid. No problem. If anything it may work out better.
I’m not going to transfer the entirety of the nearly full notebook to this new one, just the motifs/patterns I use the most, and start to add others. They really are books full of inspiration, mostly images but sometimes words/notes too.
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Video Friday
This week, I finish this particular drawing, apart from a few bits and bobs.
Partway through the video, the microphone just stopped recording. I have no idea why. So, for the last part of the video, I’ve sped my drawing up 5x and just put some music to go with it.
Guess I’m going to have to learn to do voice-overs as well as learning the new digital art stuff!
I’d appreciate likes for this video, as well as new subscriptions to my channel.
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Template Thursday
It’s Template Thursday once again. This week’s template is an entangled sampler kind of thing. Sometimes, the whole image is overwhelming, or perhaps there’s just not enough time to do a large area. These kinds of samplers have lots of smaller designs within them. Choose one of a size you can manage or for the time you have. Complete it one motif at a time, just as a stitcher would complete a sampler one stitch or motif at a time.
If you’d like to access this template, for free, then you need to be a member of the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group. The group is free to join and the members are lovely. There’s a monthly color palette challenge and I’m trying to get my head around time zones to organise some get togethers on zoom.
The template was drawn with pen on paper. I’ve added colour digitally.
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Nature
Nature – an entangled artwork. It looks like batik, silk painting or stained glass!
The design was drawn in pen on bristol board and then coloured digitally in Clip Studio Paint Pro using a textured watercolour brush.
I’m determined to find my way around this piece of software, along with Affinity Designer at some point. The effects are the same as Sketchbook, but just not quite so easy to find the tools I want to use at first. It’s all a case of familiarity and I’m definitely outside of being familiar with the software at the moment.
Having said that, all that I’ve learned about layers, the various effects that can be applied, brush settings and so on, apply to all digital art platforms. It’s just finding my way around the software and learning more about it.
The one thing that’s top of my list at the moment is setting up a custom colour palette.
I’ve discovered that Clip Studio Paint has symmetry tools – phew! And these tools do a thing or two not available in Sketchbook as well as working slightly differently (and making certain things a lot easier for sure.
So, onwards and upwards I go.
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So frustrating!
It’s been a frustrating few hours. I scanned these two drawings in, went to edit and colour in Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, only to find that Autodesk has cancelled the pro, subscribed version and the only one available is the free version.
The free version doesn’t allow me to alter contrast, or work at different dpi, and it is a tad unstable it seems.
Also, there was no warning of this and I had no chance to save all my own custom brushes.
To say I’m gutted is an understatement. Sketchbook Pro has been my pathway into digital art and I absolutely love its intuitive interface.
So, I’m now looking into other software I have on my ‘puter. I learned to edit and colour and add texture layers, background and text using Clip Studio Paint.
It works well, but the interface isn’t so intuitive, it’s so much like the Adobe products, with menu after menu after menu. I can see that it’s more powerful.
Trying to look on the bright side, maybe I’d become way too comfortable with Sketchbook Pro and it’s now time for me to learn new digital skills and extend the ones I already have. So this may be a blessing in disguise.
All I know is that it’s going to be darn frustrating for a while until I get to grips with this new software.
I’m tempted to have a look at Corel Paint, but I suspect it’s user interface is as confusing and not intuitive either.
I still have access to the free version of Autodesk Sketchbook. But it is missing some of the features I loved so much about the subscription version.
Anyways, I discovered the watercolour brushes in Clip Studio and used them to add colour to the top design, and I like these ones very much. I’ll see how I get along with it, but first I need breakfast. Yes, It’s nearly 2:30pm and I’ve not had breakfast yet! So I’m going to eat and then it’ll be onwards and upwards digitally, I trust.
Now I’ve had my moan, here’s some info about the drawings:
14.5cm x 14.5cm Bristol board
Faber-Castell fineliner pen
Colours and textures added digitally using Clip Studio Paint
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Template Thursday
Another week has passed us by, and so it’s time for another coloring template for the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group members.
This week, it’s a more geometric design, albeit with plenty of curves. I was inspired by my art of yesterday. Also, I played around with adding some texture/pattern to areas of the design as there are fairly large spaces in this one – perfect for entangling/tangling/zentangling in, if you’re of a mind to do so.
Digital art – Autodesk Sketchbook Pro.
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Mandala Tile
As I was coming around from yesterday’s headache, I plopped yesterday’s drawing into Repper to see what geometric patterns and tiles I could create.
Repper is a browser app that is great fun to play around with and makes the creation of tiling patterns from my artwork so simple.
Rather than save the patterns, I saved the tiles as so many of them looked like perfect inspiration for mandalas.
So, I chose one design, popped it into Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, and used it to inspire this particular pattern.
I chose a colour palette of soft pinks and greens, colours that are related to self-love, self-care, balance and harmony. Perfect for how I was feeling yesterday!
Today, I’m still feeling somewhat tired and fragile. That’s mainly due to a really poor night’s sleep. Emotionally, however, I feel a lot better than I have the past few days. There was an emotional storm brewing and it the headache was the torrential downpour that was needed to clear the skies by forcing me to take care and shelter myself.
So, the rest of today is going to be a quiet. nurturing kind of time to shake off the lingering wisps of stormy clouds.
Art is the Adventure 