Manatee Sighted in Maine

Last November, while flying to Maine, there was a beautiful young lady sitting next to me.  She was tired and slept nearly the whole flight. Even leaned on my shoulder for a while as she slept. She awoke as we were landing and leaned across me to see out the window We started talking and a friendship  evolved from there.

Her name is Haven. As we talked we found out she lives in the next little town over from where we live. That's pretty wild considering where we live and how far away the airport is.

We have stayed in touch while Haven was away at school, and now all summer she has been home. Haven serves at a restaurant in her home town and we have seen her there many times.

A couple weeks ago Haven told me she'd be leaving for school soon. She asked if I could draw her a manatee. Hmmmm. 
My friend Ben Kwok has a line of coloring/ tangling books on the market. They have templates that you can tangle, which is exactly what I did here.

I used Ben's outline of a manatee, divided up the sections the way I wanted them, and I filled the sections with tangles. I used Schmincke watercolors to add a little pop and a bit of splatter.

Some white gel pen highlights added sparkle to some of the tangles. If you click once on the image, it should enlarge so you can study it better.

And then I framed it. Goodbye, Haven. I shall miss you, but I will be here when you get back home. Go with God, dear friend! SaveSave
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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!