Colouring postcards

I've been colouring in some more postcards from Secret Japan by Zoe de las Cases. I really love colouring postcards because they are lovely and compact to carry around, and you don't have to worry about colouring into the crease of the page. I love trying to add a bit of depth and shadow when I colour them in, and I'm really pleased with how these have turned out, in particular the sandals.

Decorated notebooks

I had started a couple of new Moleskine Cahiers to take notes on a couple of subjects, and I always like to decorate them with coloured pencils so that I can tell them apart.

I had started a re-read of the Chalet School books a few months ago, because my collection is almost complete, so I started a notebook to help me remember which book comes next (there are about 60 in the series), and to keep track of the characters and major events. I based my drawing on the original cover of the book Jo Returns to the Chalet School, which shows the school, lake, and mountains. Unfortunately my hardback copy is missing the front of its dustcover, so I had to turn to the internet for reference!

The other notebook is for everything to do with my current medical issues - I've just been diagnosed with fibroids and will be having a hysterectomy later in the year. This will be my first time in hospital, and it's a major operation, so I've got lots of lists to make of what I need to take with me, and my exercise and eating plans to get me back to full health! The cover of this notebook features a character I doodled on a post-it note one day, Phyllis the Fiendish Fibroid!

If you'd like some more ideas for decorating your Moleskine covers (or any other notebooks), I have some here.

Colouring postcards

I wrote a post at the start of the year about colouring, and I've been doing a little more in recent months so I thought I'd let you see. This particular set of colouring postcards is all on a Japanese theme.

I like colouring postcards, because they are small and easy to leave lying around, you don't need to hold them open like a book.

I don't always have a great plan in mind when I start colouring a design. I just get started and see where it takes me. Sometimes I limit myself to a certain colour palette.

Colouring

I've really got into colouring recently! I was given a colouring book as a present a few months ago, I realised I hadn't done much with those I'd got last Christmas, and the librarian at work gave me some Christmas colouring bookmarks!

I realised that while colouring is quite a simple thing to do, it doesn't have to be mindless and un-creative - there are lots of ways that you can experiment and make your colouring pages unique by adding shading and colour gradients.

I'd coloured in one of the Japanese colouring postcards last year with Tombow brush pens, but was disappointed with how flat the colour was and how streaky the finish was. After reading a bit about colouring techniques, I discovered that I could use pencil on top of the pen and I was delighted with how it turned out - I've used this technique on a few other pictures since.

I've discovered that I particularly like colouring postcards and bookmarks, because they lie flat and are handy to keep beside you for those idle moments. I've actually considered cutting up some of the colouring books for this reason!

I've also bought some Stabilo Triplus fineliners which were in the sale at Cass Art, and they are great for getting into fiddly areas. I already had a handful of these so I knew that I liked them for writing and drawing with anyway, so it's great to have a bigger selection of colours.

Book review: The Mindfulness Colouring Book

I'd fancied getting a colouring book for ages, and the compact size of The Mindfulness Colouring Book by Emma Farrarons really appealed to me. I also loved the wave design shown on the cover, which reminded me of Chinese and Japanese art.

The size of the book means it is perfect for keeping in my desk drawer at work, so that I can use it to unwind at breaktimes and lunchtimes. However, I do find that I tend to get interrupted if I sit at my desk, so I've found a quiet spot I can escape to at lunchtimes if I want peace! Unfortunately there isn't space in my desk drawer for the huge box of coloured pencils shown here, either, I have to make do with a much smaller selection!

There's a good variety of designs in the book, abstract, floral, teacups, a cat, waves, and much more! I did start colouring them in in the sequence they appear in the book, but then I started to just flick through the book and choose the pattern that most appealed to me that day.

It's fun trying to choose the best colours for each design, and colouring the designs really is a good way of unwinding because you forget about everything else.

Colourful flask drawing

When I looked out some of my postcards recently, I came across one I really love, which features a stamp with an image of a colourful round-bottomed flask demonstrating Isaac Newton's theories on the reflection, refraction and colour of light.

I thought it would be a fun challenge to try to recreate this image myself using coloured pencils, so here's how it went! I was mostly intrigued by the colours, so I decided to leave the writing off my version.

I started by drawing round a small dish with a pencil to form the main circular body of the flask, and added the top of the flask using lines drawn with a ruler.

After this I drew it freehand, starting off gently adding colour, then making it more intense.

 And here's how it looked when it was finished!

Create your own doodle colouring designs

There are so many colouring-in books for grown-ups these days, because people have started to realise what a great form of stress relief it is. In fact, there are so many that it's hard to choose one! Another great form of stress relieving art is doodling. So I decided to combine the two and create my own doodles that I could then colour in.

But then I realised that a blank sheet of white paper can be intimidating! It's fine when you are doodling with no goal, but I wanted my doodles to look more polished! Here's what I did.

1. Start by breaking up the large expanse of white paper into smaller areas. I did this by using a circle stencil to draw lots of different sizes of circles, but you could use any shape, or draw a grid onto the page.

2. Look around you for inspiration. I looked at the patterns on items near me, and at the shapes of plants and other items.

3. Start by filling in some small shapes, to get confident.

4. Break up larger shapes by drawing lines to divide them into smaller shapes.

5. Think of the doodles that you drew as a child, or those you draw now, and use these to fill in some of the shapes. I used some of the doodle designs I've drawn all my life, like stars, wavy lines that become more and more distorted, spirals, and a crystal lattice of points joined together. I combined these with more recent doodles like hillsides divided into stripes.

6. Think of small elements that you could repeat to form a design, for example I drew buttons, mathematical symbols, hearts, and even grains of rice!

7. Once you've finished doodling, colour in your design with pens or pencils.

You can download the image below if you'd like to try colouring it in yourself!