Positive v. Negative

 
Positive tangling v. negative tangling. Lights v. darks. Balance and contrast.

Snaylz trayl has always been a bit of a challenge for me. I like how it worked here, though. I was thinking about reverse tangles. Positive v. negative. Like positive space v. negative space. Except in color. And this is what I came up with. And I found that when I thought of snayzl trayl in those terms it was easier to draw. Who knew?

Book Tangling

This was fun to do and it felt a little wrong to do! I received this beautiful new book in the mail. It has a lot of watercolor pages like this - blank of photos, some pretty color washes, and maybe a little texture here and there. I picked out a nice blank-ish page and stated tangling. I really love that tangle gnarly on the left! It is a free-flowing, fun tangle to draw.
My stash of books to draw in has grown to about 15 now.  Hahahahaha! So I must not have felt too badly about it!
You know what would make a great tangling journal??? Any old math textbook you might still have laying around.  Hahahaha!  Spoken like the homeschool mom I used to be!

Tangling in the Round

There is a wonderful tangle artist named Michele Beauchamp. She is also a CZT and I have followed her work online for two years now. Shelly lives in Australia and does the most exquisite linework. (You should go google her right now and look at images.) Recently she tangled a piece in the round and it was so beautiful that I wanted to give it a go myself.

I drew this a couple nights ago while watching reruns of M*A*S*H. (I don't believe I've ever drawn something this big in one night before.) This is the unshaded view. I hate to shade, but I figured this piece deserved a little shading.

So I added some very basic shading in a few areas. What a difference it makes! Can't wait to frame this piece.
Why don't you give tangling in the round a try? You might just fall in love with it. A friend of mine called this piece - stacking on steroids. Yep, pretty much! Hahahaha!
Zentangle has these cool large tiles now. I tangled this circle piece on a 10.5" square official tile called the Opus. I used microns, a Sharpie fine point pen, graphite, and a tort. 

Lucky Cat

 So excited!

This is my first template animal and I really like the way he turned out.

 On Facebook there is a wonderful artist named Ben Kwok. 

Ben administrates a group called Ornation Creation, where he regularly posts templates he has made for us to take and tangle. 

If you are a Facebook aficionado, you should check out Ornation Creation.

Ben gave us the above cat template, which I printed out on cardstock and started tangling.

Next time I will use watercolor paper, I wasn't convinced I could actually 

pull this off this time. Hahahaha!

 Ben also has a Facebook page called BioWorkZ.com where he features his own work.

He is really incredible! Worth taking a look.

I promise!

I just kept filling in tangles. 

The idea I went with was the oriental lucky cat -

typically done in either gold or white with touches of red.

I kept the tangles simple.

The gold was a metallic Pitt Artist Pen,

the reds were a combination of PrismaColor pencil and Uniball Signo pen.

Shading made all the difference.

It usually does. 

And there you go. My first Ben Kwok template tangled and framed in a dark red, wooden 8" x 10" frame. Yay!!!!! Now to decide what to work on next.  He has 94 templates posted on the group page, so there's plenty to pick from!

Twinchie Time

Twinchies are tiny little works of art. Drawn on a 2" square tile of paper, twinchies are shared and traded between artists.
I have a really hard time deciding what to do with a 2" piece of paper, so for this new year I decided to try to draw one twinchie a day.  Above are my twinchies for January 1-7, 2015.

I'm starting to get the hang of this a little more each day.  Here is week two, January 8-14, 2015.
So far, so good. I'm not falling behind although some days I do have to do more than one twinchie because I missed the day before. Minor technical difficulty. It's all good.

Simple Watercolor Flowers

Let me just say this, if I can do it so can you!

A couple weeks ago I was getting ready to go on a road trip. I knew I couldn't take a lot of art supplies, so I decided to prep a watercolor page before I left. What you see above is all the prep I did. I took a decent size paint brush and spread some generic flower shapes onto a piece of watercolor paper using my Grumbacher watercolor pans.  Not a lot of attention to detail. Just got some color slapped onto the page with the focus being a couple flowers and what could pass for a sunny area.

Next I started adding some lines. I drew around the petals and stamin of the main flower, and detailed the stem.

I outlined the petals of the flower bud, and started turning those orange arms into something - maybe some aloe, or cactus arms.

I finished the cactus-aloe-octopus arms, and detailed the green leaves. The flower bud didn't really have any way to anchor it to the rest of the picture, so I added a stem leading up to it.

Did a little more details on that stem and those leaves.

Then I started filling in a sun.  Basic flower design for the sun -  a center and some petals. That makes an awesome and easy sun.

I completed the sun with some loose 'nzeppel tangles,  and some rays in those petals.
And I was done.  Seriously, the drying of the watercolor paint almost took longer than the drawing.
All in all I have probably 15 minutes  worth of work in this drawing. Simple and direct. Sweet and easy. The clock is running. Go!

Merely Meer

It's been a couple days since my last post. I got a message from a friend asking for some artwork, so I've been working on that. Diligently. This afternoon, though, I took a little time out to work on some ATCs that I still owe people in the fall ATC swap.

I may have mentioned that I was having trouble drawing fall-ish ATCs. It's been in the 90's where I am and fall is about the last thing on our mind. So, I decided to just drop the fall theme and go with fall-ish colors. One of the tangles I've been enjoying lately is meer. That's the big flow-y one in the middle. It just kind of takes on a life of its own. I ribboned out the sides and curved the inside spines a bit. I like it better this way! Two more ATCs to go. You will probably get to/have to look at those tomorrow :).

String Challenge 056

Here is another string :). Hahaha! Just 21 more until I am caught up >.< ugh, it might take awhile! But I am trying. This is what string 056 looked like before I started working on it:

I turned it on its side, so you could get the right perspective. This string was courtesy of Jill Dobis. You can check out the weekly string challenge on Linda Farmer's page - Tangle Patterns. They are a lot of fun and really handy when you are having trouble deciding on a string to use.

Fractal Trees Completed

I started work on this project a little over a week ago while I was at Kali's.

This was the first picture I posted. Those trees are a design by Marie Browning, they are called fractal trees. She talks about them in her book Time to Tangle With Colors.

A couple days ago I posted this picture. I took my layout and filled in the layers with various tangles. 

Next I started laying in some color with my Tombow markers. They are a fairly new product for me. Mark gave me a complete set for Christmas,  but I am just now getting around to learning how to use them.

A little more color. Leaning towards a sunset of colors behind those fractal trees.

There you go, there's a closer view.

This will give you a little better idea of what I was working with. This is on Canson, 98 lb, mixed media paper. And, yes, I used every single one of those tombow markers you see laying on the desktop.

Getting close to being finished. Just a little more detail work.

Can you see what I added? Marie calls it haloing. I added a halo around the trees, and around several of the sections down below. At this point I believe this to be complete. Easy enough to do, why don't you give it a try and send me a picture? I'll post it here on my blog :). And if you get a chance, try out Marie Browning's book Time to Tangle With Colors. I carry it in my Etsy store, or you can pick it up online. 
I am linking this post to Jenn's Artist's Play Room over at Just Add Water, Silly. The challenge this week was to do whatever type of art project we wanted to. What perfect timing :). Here you go, Jenn, fractal trees.

Fractal Trees

A couple weeks ago while I was out of town, I posted the beginning of this homework assignment. Pretty much all I had then was the row of reflective trees across the top and some dividing lines drawn down the length of the page. It didn't take me long to fill in the rest of the page with tangles. Now that I am back home, I  need to fill this with color. Once that's done, I will come back and post the finished project for you to see. I'm taking Marie Browning's online class Time To Tangle in Color. I'm learning a lot and loving it! Thanks, Marie!

There Be Dragons

Recently I pulled out the tangle called dragonair and started working on it. Norma Burnell is the Queen of Dragons and Fairies and she designed this tangle. I have admired it for quite awhile, but have had some difficulty getting it to look right. I decided I was going to stick with it till I figured it out. I've been out of town the past two weeks helping my daughter move almost 800 miles away for school. During the day we set up her apartment and ran errands. At night I had time to draw a bit. I drew this on Strathmore Grey. Sporting a small amount of battle armor, I really like the way he turned out. I'm not going to be giving Norma a run for her money, but I have finally figured out the dragonair pattern, and for that I am happy!

One More Day

We are on a countdown here. Kali has one more day before she flies to her new home up north. Moving in to her new apartment. Starting a new job. Starting a new school. A whole lot of firsts coming up for her. And for me. One more day. What does that have to do with this ATC? Not a single thing. Sorry. I just needed to vent a bit. 

Happy Valentine's Day

It's Valentine's Day. It is! Valentine's Day is celebrated as a day for showing love and appreciation. I started the day off with cards and chocolate for my husband and tonight we are going to eat at our local Italian restaurant - my favorite place :). Yay for Al at Mama Mia's! 
Before I get too involved in my day, though, I wanted to say thank you! to you who read my blog faithfully. Thank you to those who have been praying for me to get well recently. I am much improved, but still have a ways to go. Thank you to those who faithfully follow my facebook page The Creator's Leaf. Thank you to Cindy Garner of Cottage Remnant for making my blog and my Etsy Store, TheCreatorsLeaf, look so incredible! You are one awesome friend! Thanks to Jennifer McLean for hosting the Artist's Play Room each week. (This valentine is my entry this week.) Thank you to each of you. Without you as readers, my blog would be pointless. So, a great big thanks! May God bless you today and all year long. And from me to you - Happy Valentine's Day!

New Years Eve, 2012

The year 2012 is almost complete. It is almost history, done, over, out of there, kaput. You get the picture. Much has happened this past year. As far as my blog goes - it's quite obvious that photography has taken a back seat as I focus on artwork and make strides to learn some new skills. I began my art journey in April - by studying/stalking pinterest boards dedicated to art journaling. One thing led to another and before I knew it I was flying to Rhode Island to train and get certified to teach Zentangle®. I still click a photo here and there, but these days the pics are typically taken with my cell phone.

Our family continues to grow as Jason and Bobbie will be welcoming a daughter into the world in about four months. Nicole and Dale have expanded their family to a total of six children between them - two boys, four girls - yay for girls! Kali is now in a courting relationship with Joshua (scroll down to post titled The Perfect Christmas Gift). She is making plans to head to Maryland in May to attend L'Academie de Cuisine and gain certification as a professional pastry chef. Mark and I are still trudging along - paying bills and making it day by day. Thankful is what we are! Thankful for our wonderful family and thankful for another year. Thankful for God's blessings and thankful for each other. As we ring in 2013, let's remember all the little things that add up to one great big blessing. And be thankful.