Monday, April 28, 2014

What a Difference a Shade Makes

I started this drawing quite some time ago, but didn't like the way it was going. I put it away and decided last night to bring it back out and work on it again. In the past, I would have left it unshaded, but recently I've been working on my shading.
Even though I like the drawing unshaded, it looks so much more complete by just adding a bit here and there. 
It's as simple as laying down a line with the flat edge of a pencil and smudging it with a tortillion in the areas you want shading. Since this is zentangle, and there is no right or wrong, forget light sources. Shade the edges you want to be darker. You will notice in a couple spots I used a white gelly roll to add some highlights. There weren't many places to do this since I used a white sheet of paper as my base, but I used some highlights where I could and it really makes a difference in the overall appearance. Shading really does make a difference. 

The Creator's Leaf

Saturday, April 26, 2014

It's a Fanta-Sea World

Wow! It's really hard to blogpost from the iPad. This type looks huge. If it seems like I'm screaming at you - - - sorry. I don't mean to. 

I finally finished the underwater drawing we started in Melbourne, in Meredith Yuhas' class. Twinkling H2Os, some sea salt, microns, graphite, white charcoal, and a gelly roll pen. That's all it took to make this beautiful, underwater fantasy world. So much fun! 
The Creator's Leaf

Thursday, April 17, 2014

Mandalas With Margaret Bremner

Last week I attended a wonderful, fun-filled couple of days in Paradise! Paradise Beach in Florida that is, at the Retreat to Paradise. A fast-packed three days learning new techniques with some fellow tanglers - what an awesome time we had! This was the retreat's second year being held, and I'm fortunate to say it was my second year being there. 

We had some real heavy-hitters for instructors! Margaret Bremner has long been my go-to artist when I look at mandalas and whoot! whoot! Margaret was one of our instructors! I can't even begin to tell you how excited I was to be in her class and learn from her. Over the next couple posts I will be able to show you a bit more of what I learned, but for today I wanted to share our first project. This one was a bit more structured than the other mandalas Margaret taught. As a retired homeschool mom I fully understand that different people learn in different ways. One of the things I enjoyed about Margaret's teaching was that she taught to different learning perspectives. She walked us through this project step by step. Draw this, do this, make this happen here. As I post the other two projects, you will see that the teaching direction took different forms, allowing us to take what we learned in making this mandala and make the other two with less direction. Pretty awesome stuff! 

In building the above mandala, I learned a new tangle. One I don't think I've ever seen before. It's called crossview and it comprises that center focal point. Crossview was designed by Daniele O'Brien, CZT, and it was a lot of fun to draw! I love how dimensional the shading makes it! You should go to Daniele's blog link in pink just right up there and give it a go yourself! Now to finish up those other mandalas and get them posted!


The Creator's Leaf

Monday, April 14, 2014

Shading Makes the Difference

I actually drew this garden about a year ago and posted it then. I pretty much hated to shade anything and rarely ever made the effort. Last week I went to a class taught by Meredith Yuhas, one of our CZTs, and Meredith taught us a quick way of shading that I really locked on to. Last night I pulled this picture back out and tried out some of the new things we learned.
You know that old saying what a difference a day makes? Well, I can pretty much attest to that! In fact, Meredith taught us how to shade and highlight this whole thing and it took me about 5 minutes tops.  In fact, I was so impressed with the difference that I photoshopped a collage of the two - - -
- - - for comparison purposes. So, when in doubt, think about this little experiment of mine and pull out those graphites, and white pens, and get busy. Thanks, Meredith! You are the bomb! For sure.
The Creator's Leaf

Saturday, April 12, 2014

Cheerios and Blueberries

It has been a busy winter, and I've even had a busy start to my spring. The Florida pollen is in full force and my time spent outside is at a minimum. Can you say allergies and gesundheit? (I totally had to google how to spell that!) One positive side to the pollen is that I get to stay inside and draw more! Yay!!!! And I am back on the diet. Not yay!!!!!! (But I am down 7 pounds. Yay!!!)
As I mentioned recently, I am busy making art for book submissions. Currently I am working on submissions for seven different books. I started this drawing late last night. It needs much more done to it but it's at least a start. Most of the book deals state that I can not share the art online beforehand, but one did not have any such lingo in the paperwork. So I can show you step-by-step what I develop. So. Stay tuned :). And while you're at it why don't you go make some art? You'll be glad you did!
The Creator's Leaf