September Colouring Template

Template for the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group, September 2019

The first day of a new month means I add a colouring template to the “Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans” Facebook group. I make the template an exclusive freebie for members of the group. The group is free to join. Why not pop over get access to this and all other group templates.

I drew the template on Winsor and Newton Bristol Board using a couple of Uniball Unipin pens. I scanned it in, cleaned up some smudges overruns.

As it’s September, my mind is on the changing seasons; we’re heading into autumn here in the UK. The rowan and hawthorn trees are laden with red berries already. The sycamore helicopters and ash keys are turning golden and are visible amongst the still-green foliage.

It is my favourite time of year. I love the comfortably warm days and the chilly nights. It’s a delight to snuggle down in bed with a warm body and a cool head. I sleep so much better too. Mind you, I think my weighted blanket is helping with that.

I love the change in the colour and quality of light – the golden hue delights me. I’m also looking forward to seeing the relatively rapid colour-changes that happen as the dull, dark greens of summer give way to the fiery conflagration of autumn.

So, my September template has autumnal motifs in it, though they’d work for any season no matter where you are in the world.

I will continue to add colour to this template throughout the month, hopefully. Then, at the close of September, I’ll show the finished coloured version.

I always look forward to seeing how different people colour the drawing. I love to see the different colours, media and techniques they use.

Coloring Book Day 2019

Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans August Template ©Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

That’s right, there’s an annual day to celebrate coloring books and to indulge yourself in the relaxing, calming, stress-busting activity of coloring, no matter your age or gender!

As you can see if you browse this blog, I do a lot of art. Whether drawing, colouring, or other forms of creativity in art it really does relax, calm and soothe me when I need it.

And there are times when I really do need calming and relaxing. It’s no secret to anyone who has followed my blog for a while that I have complex PTSD (CPTSD) and I am slowly recovering from it with the help of EMDR therapy. On the days where I have low mood or anxiety or I’ve been startled into hyper-vigilance, art really helps to soothe my jarred emotions and calm me until the stress hormones leach from my body returning to their normal level for me. That is still an elevated level, but a level that has always been there in my life.

It’s not just me saying this. Research has shown that spending time colouring has a similar effect on the brain as mindfulness meditation.

One piece of research at the University of West England in Bristol has shown that colouring can reduce stress, boost creativity and increased mindfulness (being aware of what you are doing at that moment, not thinking about the future or past).

The benefits of colouring are listed in an article on the developing good habits blog.

There are so many coloring books available as well as colouring pages, you can find just about anything to suit your tastes. Also, I have many colouring books available (I think it’s around 20 now) – have peek at at my Angela Porter Amazon author page.

If you like to draw your own designs to colour and are looking for something new and a little different, then you may like to take a look at my book ‘A Dangle A Day’. In the book I show you what dangles are, how to draw them and use them with hand lettered sentiments and monograms. They’re fun to draw, simple, and there are many ways to use them such as in bullet journals (BuJos), planners, journals, scrapbooks, greetingscards, note cards, bookmarks and more.

Also, I gift an exclusive template to the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group at least once a month. They’re free to members and shouldn’t be available anywhere else, though intellectual theft isn’t unknown in the realms of the internet.

The image above is the August template for the facebook group. I coloured it digitally using gradient tools for some speed. It would take me weeks to do the way I’ve been creating digital art of late!

No matter what you use to colour – digital or traditional media – I’d love to see how you’ve brought my line art to life, whether from one of my books or from one of the templates available in the facebook group. There’s also some templates available on my angela porter illustrator facebook page too.

Here’s the tags you can use to connect with me on the social media platforms that I use:

• facebook @artwyrd
• twitter @artwyrd
• Instagram @angelaporterillustrator

Etsy Listings for Colouring Pages

 

In the last day, I’ve uploaded three more colouring sheets to my Etsy shop – Artwyrd.

For each, there’s either a fully coloured, or partly coloured, version of the line art to see.  Yes, I’ve been using them to practice colouring in digitally.

I’ve also started work today on a new book for Dover, the theme for it being eerie.

Dragonfly Mandala – available on Etsy

I’ve started getting my head together around colouring templates for sale on my Etsy shop, Artwyrd, and this is my first design – Dragonfly Mandala.

It’s offered as a high resolution pdf file for instant download.

As always, I love to see how people colour my designs in, and hope that people will share their finished works with me via social media!

 

Colorist Windows App – announcement and review

First, the announcement!  I’m doing some coloring templates for the Colorist App, and my first book of ten pages – called DoodleWorlds – is now available for it!

 

Review of Colorist

Colorist is the only app that lets you color with exactly the same feel as coloring pencils! Relax on the couch and enjoy coloring a complex design, a vacation spot, or a crazy cartoon cat – tons of pages to choose from. Even color the same picture more than once, to see what else you can do with it. No need to worry about losing your coloring pencils in the couch anymore!

I have tried the Colorist app out, and here’s an honest review of it.

I had a quick look at the app before I agreed to do any design work for Faction Apps as I’d not want to have my artwork on any platform that I didn’t think was a good thing.

I’ve given it a test run using my Surface book and the Surface pen.  I haven’t tried it out in touch mode with my finger. You can see what I did in the image above, which is one of the free downloads as my own weren’t available at the time I did this test.

Here’s a close up of the section I coloured in.

 

The colour palette

There’s a large number of colours available in the palette, and the bar that appears beside the image retains the last eight colours you’ve used, which is really useful and makes colouring in areas you want in the same colours easy to do.  It also means it’s easy to use many colours to get a smooth colour gradation, something that you can’t do with other colouring apps I’ve seen.

The pencil tool

There’s a slider bar with the tool so you can select the width of the pencil stroke, which is great.  The finest settings allowed me to add patterns to the image.  This is something that sets the app apart from others I’ve seen, which only allow a flood fill.

The finer lines and the ability to zoom in to the area you’re colouring mean you can get into the tiniest areas to colour, which at the original image size may have been a challenge, especially when printed on paper and coloured using coloured pencils.

The line isn’t a solid line, it has texture to it just as if you’re colouring on paper with a ‘tooth’ (texture).  This means that optical mixing of colours is possible, as well as adding texture to that mixing.  It also means that a smooth blend of colours is achievable.

The colours lay nicely on top of each other, thanks to that bitty texture; one colour doesn’t obsure the other, unless you use a lot of pressure and it’s what you want.

Oh, the colours don’t obscure the black outlines of the colouring page, no matter how hard you press.

My surface pen is pressure sensitive, and that makes the colouring experience a lot more comparable to colouring on paper with pencils, but without the mess!  I don’t know what it’s like on a screen that isn’t pressure sensitive, or how it works if I use my finger instead of the pen.

I am really impressed with the results and how the pencil tool works.

Also, I can get a bit irritated when I’m colouring with physical pencils; they often make my arthritic joints ache.  No such problem here; indeed, I wanted to carry on colouring but had to put it aside so I could get on with other things.

Eraser tool and Undo Button

It works!  However, I preferred to use the white from the palette to erase small areas to add highlights as I could control the thickness of the line being used to remove colour.

The undo button would be really useful too.

Together, they are things you can’t do when you’re colouring on paper, well not easily.

Saving your art

You can save your work at any time by using the save button on the app. You can also colour each page in as many times as you like in as many different colour schemes as you like too.

Final thoughts

I like this app, very, very much.  I found it easy to use, quick to master, and it gives really lovely results.  It’s a well thought through app, it does what it says it does, and the experience and results are a lot like using coloured pencils on paper!

I just want to repeat that although I have done some artwork for the app, these views are my own and not influenced by me working for them; if hadn’t htought the app was a good product I wouldn’t have agreed to do work for them!

Coloured doodle-de-doo

Between a couple of ‘meh’ days, busy days with appointments, I’ve managed to colour this particular illustration of mine.

I coloured this one using copics, and the scan has washed some colours out.

New coloring books out!

New year, new books out!

The first is the sixth in the ‘Color Me’ series from Race Point Publishing, part of the Quartos group.  This one is called Color Me Grateful, and is Lacy Mucklow and I  It’s already available in the US, and in the UK from Thursday.

Out now, are two titles in the Forever Inspired series from Skyhorse Publishing – Angela Porter’s Designer Doodles and Angela Porter’s Tropical Rainforest.

To see all the books which have coloring templates designed by me, check out Angela Porter’s Amazon Author Page

Color Me Stamps!

I have designed sets of clear stamps for Hampton Arts.  The range is called ‘Color Me by Angela Porter’.  It’s been a lovely challenge to do, and another string to my artistic bow too.

I’m being sent my own sets of the stamps and I can’t wait to play with them and embossing powder in particular to get the ‘stained glass’ kind of colours that I so love!

Of course I’ll post my versions here.  It’s all exciting for me!  Everything!

My colouring day coloured design!

Admittedly not the best photo, but this was drawn yesterday.  I started to colour it yesterday, using various brands of coloured pencils, and completed it today.  An hour or so to draw, 10 hours to colour is my estimate!

I have also realised why I tend to use paints and markers and inks for colours so much these days – these media are kinder to my arthritic-y finger and thumb joints!  I do love coloured pencils, the intensity of colour you can achieve, but needs must.

I have ordered various designs of cushioned pencil grips to see if they help with keeping my joints ache-free in the future.

In the meantime, I return to designing and drawing colouring templates with drawing pencil and pens, which seem to cause very few problems with the old joints.

Happy colouring day!

It’s colouring day, if you’re taking part, have a lovely time with all your colours and templates.  Enjoy taking the time out to create, relax, unwind and reconnect with yourself away from all the busyness of modern life.

I’m just drawing my design to colour in, as colouring in is a bit of a novelty for me these days due to all the linework I’ve been doing for colouring templates for new books up and coming – a fourth in the Color Me line, two more for Dover Publishing’s Creative Haven series.

There’s also two projects I’ve yet to have the clearance to announce, but they are exciting, and as soon as I can mention them, I will!

So, once again, happy colouring and happy creating!