iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

Making a load of mess this morning, just getting a feel for how I want to work with Inktense blocks and working on junky paper. Getting a few excellent moments amongst the throwaways though. I really like everything about this one. 🥰

A loose abstract painting using Derwent Inktense blocks. Working on getting a feel for how to balance intensity and open space while setting up a very portable way of working. This was done with making a two simple marks of color and then activating and shaping them later with a water brush.

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

This is the place to go for really stunning bird prints to brighten up your home. Her work is gorgeous.

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 30/03/2025

Whew! March has been pretty busy. Our senior dog’s illness got considerably worse, and he eventually had to be put to sleep. 😢 New puppy is sweet and energetic. 😆 We’ve worked a lot on being respectful about art supplies so I’m actually getting work done. Seriously need a long nap though. 😴😴😴😴

An intuitive abstract drawing - ink over a super loose color layer. Just working on keeping the drawing hand moving and seeing whatever pops out no matter how tired I happen to be.

A cuter than cute Rottweiler puppy enjoying a chew toy while her best stuffed animal friend Mr. Hedgehog keeps her company.

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

So little art, so much puppy time. Also caring for my loyal old dog who is still so weak and ill. stuff’s pretty crazy, but the weather is nice and the company is good. ❤️

A little Rottweiler puppy takes a break from her busy morning to do some artwork. Her main contribution is getting the required amount of dog hair on the picture and she’s doing very well at that.

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

I absolutely love the process of collage. And I love not caring about the outcome. The whole purpose of this for me is to create intuitive connections and then start prowling around up close with my camera to find tasty tidbits to print and draw/paint over. I will probably do a few more layers over

A collage made from pieces of printouts of my old artwork with a bit of torn up art and sketchbook pages thrown in. This is 11 x 14 format with no intention of creating a finished piece - just using it as a process to find lovely small sections to explore.

A close-up view of a small section of the collage that has shapes and lines and forms that inspire me to develop them further with painting and drawing.

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

More progress with my mini set up and short session art time as I spend my days playing doggy nurse. I’m doing way more small format “don’t care” kind of work and redefining success as creating anything that is capable of being photographed close up, printed, and drawn over again. It’s been a

$An abstract drawing with multiple layers of line work and color. This was done by making a little art, taking a close-up picture of part of it, printing it out, painting and drawing over it and then repeating the process. It’s like peeking inside of a fractal and watching as new things appear.$

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

As always, working on finding out what I like. The shape on the lower right is kind of a landmark moment where I was able to leave some wide open spaces, but not have them feel boring. That’s a really good feeling balance of graphite and watercolor to me. Got the dog hair included, of course. 🥰

Graphite and watercolor on waterproof TerraSlate paper. Working small - this was all done on a quarter of an A4 sheet. Trying to get a feel for what types of balance between open space in detail feels the most comfortable when using these tools.

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

Practice with my ultraportable sketch setup. This was done on 1/4 page of A4 waterproof TerraSlate paper with Daniel Smith watercolor sticks, 1.3 mm graphite and 0.5 mm graphite. Working on figuring out my preferred balance of precision and mush - not that there has to be a single preferred style 🥰

Nine small graphite and watercolor drawings on waterproof paper. Practice with figuring out how loose I like to work versus where I want precision. Totally not sure what I actually like at this point.

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

This is going to be the year of the ultra portable art kit for me. I’ve got some watercolor sticks and water brushes in the bag, as well as room for phone and reading glasses. Just need to add a little envelope or something for finished pieces.🥰❤️

A skinny clipboard, mechanical 1.3 mm pencil, quarter sized sheets of TerraSlate paper and a compact carry bag holding a small set of Daniel Smith watercolor sticks and a pair of water brushes. Plenty of room for my phone and reading glasses as well. This is the best version of a grab and go art kit that I’ve put together so far.

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

I will take progress anyway I can get it right now. Surprisingly enough, I actually am making headway in my commercial work, but it’s being supported by really messy recreational art time. Yes, I can get viable starting points even with a big dog in my lap. And that’s good because he’s got a

Using a water brush to slap a bit of watercolor onto a piece of junk paper. Shapes eventually emerge as I apply paint and as I use other areas of the page to squeeze dirty water out of my brush tip. Low standards introduce a nice random quality that will give me interesting things to ink over later on.

A couple of examples of raggedy paper with splashes of watercolor topped with unfocused inking drawn while a dog is nudging my drawing arm. Every unexpected dog nudge introduces variety and gives me an odd line to build off of.

A lot of of my inking time is being done sitting on the floor making sure that Spiffy does not try to remove his sutures. It’s been a good training experience for him. We still get the dog jostling the pen at inopportune times - but only some of the time now instead of all of the time. I can work with that.

In three weeks, this little Rottweiler puppy will be arriving to keep Spiffy company. Expect to see even more dog hair in my art photos.

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

One week after the spleen removal, Spiffy the Rottweiler is doing very well. Recreational artwork is on hold and professional stuff is moving along slowly. ❤️🍩❤️

A Rottweiler absolutely rocking his stylish post-surgery protective donut 🍩 complete with fancy donut pattern. Oh, the indignity!

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Reposted by Angie Grace

Island Girl, Unapologetically Pro-Choice, Staunch Resister 💙 @bluepolitico.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

Today in Black History: On January 25, 1972, Shirley Chisholm launched her presidential campaign. She called for a “bloodless revolution” at the forthcoming DNC convention. She became the first black and woman to run for her party’s nomination for POTUS. She was “Unbought and Unbossed.”

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Reposted by Angie Grace

Island Girl, Unapologetically Pro-Choice, Staunch Resister 💙 @bluepolitico.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

Today in Black History: On January 25, 1851, abolitionist and women’s rights activist Sojourner Truth delivered her historic “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech at the first Black Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, OH. sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/sojtruth...

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

Life is going to be derailing art for a little while for me. Catch up with you all when we are over the hump. The good news is that our dog is recovering well after major emergency spleen removal surgery he’s going to be priority number one for a bit. ❤️

A very large Rottweiler successfully eats a meal as he recovers from emergency surgery.

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 23/01/2025

Want to see some amazing inspired line work? Follow this guy and be sure to page down and look at all his drawings. I find this to be so much more real than realism. 🥰

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

Don’t you just love how fresh and alive the lined and colors are in Kate’s picture?

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

Photo storage has become so cheap and convenient, and the ability to take a photo is always at my fingertips. A couple of times a week I try to catch up on my artwork pile and take close-ups and accumulate visual stuff to look at on another day. Wonderfully low effort and high reward. 🥰🥰❤️❤️

A close up section of one of my old pieces of artwork with collage, crayon and probably some other stuff in there as well. I don’t even think of whether I like these or why I like these when I catch the close-up picture because someday in the future all of a sudden those colors or those shapes or those textures will become striking and inspiring in some unknown way.

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

get in loser, we’re posting lock screens 🎨

A close-up of a section of an ink and watercolor drawing

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

#OnlyBeautifulThings Mabel the goat in the garden - this time using the correct hashtag to share her important message.

A very intense looking goat, standing in a field of cosmos flowers – telling the viewer to remember to stop and eat the flowers

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

This woman’s photography is really stunning and you should take a look at it. Incredible bird photos and also check out the rest of her feed and buy the book she’s written because that’s great too.

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

I think it’s a really good day for some bright and easy coloring. From Rebalance Easy Mandalas a.co/d/cRkXLbh

A whimsical easy mandala, colored in bright warm shades of red, yellow and green

The cover of my latest book, Rebalance Easy Mandalas which is now available on Amazon

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 19/01/2025

@lettieblue.bsky.social and I have a new book available on Amazon. This is the easy version of our Rebalance mandala book. As well as being a great way to support your friendly neighborhood Bluesky artists it’s also a fantastic way to relax and work through color ideas. amzn.to/4alH4EP

amzn.to

Rebalance Easy Mandalas

Amazon.com: Rebalance Easy Mandalas: 9798303147515: Grace, Angie, Blue, Lettie: Books

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 19/01/2025

It’s disco eyeball man! And he wasn’t even close to the weirdest thing that was on that page. 🤣🤣🤣 And look at that lovely textural graphite with crispy edges and no smudging. That’s a 1.3 mm mechanical pencil lead on TerraSlate paper, which hits all the right sensory notes for me. Loving this! 🥰🥰🥰❤️

A bizarre character-like shape that I can only describe as disco eyeball man. 🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶 He should be dancing, yeah. 🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

For @bjbalas.bsky.social - screenshot examples where a single line work drawing and the same palette of colors are interpreted differently by different colorists. The fourth picture actually had me double checking to make sure that really is the same pattern.

One pattern drawing, identical color palette used in each, and very different interpretations by the individual colorists.

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

Now in the accumulating piles of doodads stage. 🤣 Happily focused on manipulating shapes and oblivious to outcome. Switched to the fast synthetic paper where the pencil feels like it’s skating on ice – which is appropriate for the upcoming weather.🤣🤣🥰❄️❄️🥶

Graphite pencil drawing on TerraSlate paper, which is a smooth and fast synthetic waterproof paper that still has a really nice micro fine graphite grabbing tooth. Wheeeeeeeeee goes the pencil! It works better teaching the pencil skate rather than trying to force it into control.

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

Even though these are all interesting and fun to color, they don’t work as a direct feed into my coloring book art. Any one of the motifs would be worth developing into a mandala, but I think books constructed out of the same shapes over and over and over again would be boring and tedious to color

A drawing page with iterations based on two simple shapes.

A drawing page based on iterations of simple shapes and then it gets really weird, lol. 🤣🤣

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

Today I feel like I banked enough shape starts recently to feed into my commercial drawings, so it’s a good time to explore a different path with my recreational stuff. I’m curious what range of art constructs could come out of new morphings and arrangements from my shape harvests. This is kind of

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

Fun with process. This is 5.6 mm graphite drawn through puddles of wet watercolor on waterproof paper. It was very tactile and immersive even if the line work and color are quite raw. I consider this kind of thing a 100% win as a start and there are a lot of things that can happen next. I could…

An abstract drawing showing fluid 5.6 mm graphite, lines, drawn through puddles of wet watercolor on waterproof paper

Line work with some kind of wavy stuff going on and other sections that look like folds

A weird little motif of overlapping keychain-like objects that I quite like. I like the way that drawing the graphite on the wet waterproof paper makes it a process of applying dense graphite while lifting previous layers. Feels like there’s a lot to explore here if I don’t get heavy-handed and try to shape it to my will.

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

Preparing for the “ruin it” stage. 🤣 I absolutely know that my pencil hand and focus will have a disconnect between the way it was moving last night and the way it will move this morning. I don’t even attempt to fight stuff like that anymore and just enjoy veering off in a new direction each day. 🥰❤️

A very pretty atmospheric abstract graphite drawing with granulating watercolor wash topped with additional graphite shading in places. The photo captures the stopping point in drawing at the end of last evening and I expect my drawing and shading hand will perform very differently this morning. There’s a lot of life in drawings that seem partially finished and I don’t really feel the need to steer the next step towards some unified and harmonious appearance. Better to switch directions and react to the new creative ideas this stage of the picture is sparking, even if the end product becomes a total mess.

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 12/01/2025

😵‍💫😵‍💫🤣 90% of my tortured artist struggle is due to obstinately drawing what I want to draw knowing that it has no readable meaning to others. The other 90% of the struggle is the endless search for new leading lines to follow. And yes, I know that makes 180% tortured artist to struggle, lol. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤪🤪🤪🥰❤️

The tortured artist sketchbook where I continue to try to find ways to stick my lines and shapes together in ways that I haven’t done ever before. This gets ever tougher after more than 60 years of this and imposing the added constraints that the resulting lines be colorable, not based on anybody else’s drawings, non-representational, simplified and that they are appealing to my sense of balance. It’s also tough knowing that most of the people who see my lines will never clock the fact that these lines, shapes and arrangements are unique – even in comparison to everything else I have put down onto paper over the years. The drive to see something new emerge out of the end of my pencil has been insatiable for a lifetime.

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 12/01/2025

A slightly different twist on graphite over watercolor on waterproof paper today. The light watercolor wash included Daniel Smith’s hematite genuine shade, which has magnetic pigments. Some of the texture was formed by waving a magnet over the paint floating in water. 🥰🧲🥰

An abstract graphite drawing over a light wash of watercolor

Details showing the textures formed by magnetic pigments. Also some regular graphite lines here.

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

Ah, that’s better. A few art material changes and a big snowstorm tipped me toward trying to control things more than playing follow the leader – and I just don’t like my art as much when my lines or colors look like they are being pushed. This one had some good moments and led itself. 🥰 😁❤️🥰

An abstract graphite drawing over watercolor. I really like the way the various line widths of graphite interact with themselves and the underlying color.

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

Trying very hard to use a little restraint today and not use all of my colors all at once. It’s working so far, but I know it’s not going to last much longer. 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Small abstract watercolor paintings using a somewhat limited watercolor palette and even a hint of white space.

A selection of Daniel Smith watercolor sticks at the ready. They are all calling my name and telling me that they want to be used now! They’re also telling me that color harmony is totally overrated and a wild chaotic mess can be fun. 🤣🥰🥰

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

Close-up areas from some fun color work yesterday. At the moment, I’m not really caring about anything beyond colorful details. I think it’s going to be a tiny pieces over pictures kind of day. 🥰

A close up look at abstract brush work with granulating and pearlescent pigments

A close-up look at color and brush work made with granulating watercolor pigments on synthetic paper.

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 07/01/2025

Lots of moving pieces in my practice today – color and line doing their thing and not always sure how they want to play together yet. Each of these pictures is like a doorway toward some interesting exploration and I’m not sure yet which ones I’ll like, but I’m very curious. 🥰🥰❤️

A very small format abstract painting using 3 shades of Daniel Smith watercolor sticks on TerraSlate paper.

Abstract using watercolor sticks on synthetic paper. This one is heavy in summer garden forms and it reminds me of weeding my garden.

Sketchbook drawing starting with some intuitive line work and then harvesting and expanding a few of them more interesting crinkle lines.

More watercolor sticks on TerraSlate paper. Working a bit on layering without removing under layers in the process.

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 06/01/2025

This is basically a swatch sheet. The full page has 16 different watercolor shades (often on top of each other) and then soft pencil to play with the underlying shapes. It’s going to be messy, but it’s enjoyable. 🥰

A multicolored abstract watercolor background with the implied shapes outlined in 2B pencil

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 05/01/2025

Fun with neutrals today. 🥰 This is the Daniel Smith lunar black and sodalite genuine over graphite on waterproof paper. The colors go well with our pre-snowstorm cloud colors outside this morning - except there’s a lot more variety in my neutrals than in real life at the moment. 🤣

An abstract graphite and watercolor drawing in pale shades of off gray.

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 04/01/2025

Simple shapes and pretty colors. I am totally loving the combination of graphite, Daniel Smith watercolor sticks and TerraSlate waterproof paper. With a small brush and a thimbleful of water it’s such a grab and go kit. And to change out rinse water, there is so little that I can just wipe it out…

Organically inspired abstract shapes in watercolor and graphite

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

Art material stuff is often an endless cycle of revisiting various media after a new addition to the paper stash opens up another million possible combinations of ways to do things. Finding just the right pencil to use on this waterproof paper to balance smoothest drawing with lowest smudge risk. 🤔🥰

Loose pencil drawing with a 5.6 mm 2B pencil lead in a nice heavy lead holder on a cream colored waterproof paper by Terraslate.

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 01/01/2025

I really love these two colors together - Daniel Smith’s cobalt teal blue and nickel azo yellow. And this utilitarian paper I’m using this morning doesn’t even begin to show the range they can achieve to their best advantage. 🥰🥰🥰❤️

A page of color swatches made from combinations of two watercolor shades – cobalt teal blue and nickel azo yellow.

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 30/12/2024

Fun with making watercolor textures today

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 29/12/2024

Playing with some new water colors today and everything is turning into accidental landscapes featuring tractors by the side of the pond. These tractors are just magically appearing out of nowhere. 🤣🤣🤣

An abstract landscape that looks like an old tractor by the side of an Appalachian pond during the non-snowy part of winter. The storm is coming in on the horizon and it’s blowing the grasses.

An abstract Appalachian winter pond scene. The sky is your basic winter white gray and the ground is snowless but the plants are dormant. There’s an old tractor along the side of the pond as well, and a touch of fading fog still in the air.

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Angie Grace @angiegracecoloring.bsky.social · 28/12/2024

The fast pencil and watercolor on the glossy paper again and this time it ended up looking like two brides fighting over a bouquet, with a third one laying on the floor unconscious. The bride on the right apparently has her foot on the 3d to hold her down. Crazy lines with a mind of their own. 🥰🥰❤️

Loose pencil lines over layered flowing watercolor lines. The abstract forms in the picture look like two brides fighting over a bouquet, with a third bride laying passed out on the floor. The bride on the right is holding the third bride down with her foot. These were all undirected lines that were just reacting to previous lines and motions with no attempt to identify objects or actions in the picture until after it was finished – much like interpreting cloud pictures. 🥰

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