Resting my Creative Mind with Simple Florals

Hello ART community! I've never posted here before, I usually post directly to my blog, but for this article I wanted to try to post to a community instead.

In my last article (on my blog) I briefly mentioned that I 'started something new' in my art journey.

Today I'd like to show you how I have been giving my creative mind a well needed rest while still making art. You see, recently I bought a book. It's a book going through how to draw 'inky wonderlands', filled with flowers, leaves, shells, corals, mushrooms, ect. Simple little things that, when put together, turn into a complexity of shapes and objects, overlapping one another and weaving a ink lined tapestry of curiosity and intrigue.

I picked up this book right after my mental burn out, and honestly I'm glad that I did. I've done small bit of 'zentangle' before in the past, but what this book showed me was much more.

My first drawing using zentangle methods combined with florals and plants from the 'inky wonderland' book

The book broke down all these flowers and plants into simple shapes, and showed how I could combine different elements to make entirely new things. Petal shapes, size, the numbers of petals, different leaves, curling vines, flowers of all shapes and sizes. So many different things I could do just by rearranging a few small elements for each part.

Second drawing, this time without restricting myself to 'borders' of any kind

Once I learned more about how to draw each flower, or each object, each piece, I learned how I could connect them. Dots, circles, shapes made of negative space. This also applied for adding details to make each flower more 'unique'. Maybe add a center line to the petals, or instead of a solid line, how about dots? Circles? Small curved lines following the edge of the petals.

I drew the flowers in marker first, then went back over and added the ink lines afterwards

Not all of my images ended up just 'black and white'. I experimented with colors, drew specific arrangements based on color themes. Scanned some of my ink drawings in to color them digitally.

An arrangement created specifically with that color palette in mind. The two bluish purple tones made me think of a wildflower I've seen but don't know the name of, while I tried to keep the center flowers ones that would look good in the rich warm tones of the palette

Some of the arrangements looked better than the others, but all of them have a unique charm.

A piece using a more limited pastel color palette. I struggled a bit trying to get the colors to fit it right, since I didn't keep the palette in mind as much while drawing

These works have been my way to unwind and relax my mind. They are simple yet creative, getting lost in the process instead of getting bogged down by 'precision' and 'perfection'. They're not perfect in any way, but that's part of their charm. The petals end up uneven, or loopsided, or my line work isn't consistent. And that's ok. Because of how simple they are, and how flowers in nature aren't symmetrical or even themselves, these imperfections breath life into each piece.

For now I will continue letting my mind rest and heal with these cute little flowers! And I'm really interested to see how this period of intuitive floral doodles affects my art in the long run.

I hope you all enjoyed my works presented in this article. These are by no means all of the pieces I've made in this style, and is just a sampling! I post all of my art over on my Instagram, so if you like what you see be sure to give me a follow!
https://www.instagram.com/kittehfaye/
I'm also semi active on Twitter
https://twitter.com/KittehFaye

Thanks for reading, and I'll see you next time!