Art on a Shoe String! - Spirography©

 Spirography©!

My new word for this artstyle and I'm 

putting a © on it! Hahaha!

Actually spirography is a real word that has

to do with breathing measurement and

breathing capacity.

I believe it correlates to the zentangle art form

due to the relaxation and calming effect

your breathing and tangling can give. 

Hence, spirography! 

Here is where the  Art on a Shoe String  part comes in!
To get started - grab your old spirograph  from the attic, or basement, or eBay,  or the local Good Will, or thrift shop,  or dollar store, or the nearest kid!  Seriously, there are so many places to find a spirograph for next to no money - or free! Then just have fun and go for it!

 I used my regular tangling pen -

an 0.1 micron.

(Some people use colored pens,

colored pencils, gel pens, 

anything with a narrow tip.)

For paper, I just used card stock.

Nothing pricey in this art project at all!

Not as easy as I remember it being as a kid.

Or maybe we just kept right on drawing

over those slipped lines and 

loved it anyway.

Hahaha!

I had the hardest time.

The inner ring that I had my pen in

kept slipping above the top edge of the

boundaries ring.

 I was getting really discouraged at this point.

But I am no quitter. Hahaha!

So I kept trying.

And trying. Ugh.  Actually, 'ugh' was the word for the day.

I looked through what I had and found one red loopy line that wasn't too bad. Then I added some tangles. Nothing too fancy to get started.
In the photo just above, the red line is the spirograph part. The black lines are the tangling I added. You can see that the tangling takes your eye away from the boo-boos. Spirography!

 Today I pulled my extras sheets out of the

trashcan, seriously, and tried again.

This one wasn't too bad.

I lifted my pen too soon and moved the ring.

Then I realized I hadn't completed the line

but it was too late to figure out how to fix it.

 I'm going to show you step by step

how I tangled this.

I started with some simple perfs (little circles)

around the spiro-ed section,

and made two pencil circles around the whole piece.

A couple simple lines divided this into 

more sections.

 Then I started joining the lines together

with triangles. Easy peasy.

 I turned the triangled boxes into a

somewhat version of knightsbridge.

 I thought about leaving the piece at that point,

but it didn't seem finished.

So, I added another circle around the 

outside and a little flying geese.

I liked how the piece looked at that point, so I called it complete and shaded it. I love shading - although I hate to do it. Spirography! I will keep working on this art style. Because it is so much fun! And so affordable!
Art on a Shoe String comes from the idea that art doesn't have to be expensive to be fun and enjoyable! I hope this series of posts help you realize that you can make beautiful art without it being costly.

String 23 - Zentangle All Around

 Some of you may not know that I host a Facebook Zentangle group called

Zentangle All Around.

I recently started a year long challenge in the group.

I provide strings - a week at a  time - and the challenge is to tangle a string for every day of the year.

At the end of 2016 each participant will have 366 pieces of artwork that they created themselves.

A treasure trove and beauty, of learning, of advancement and progress.

This is today's string.

As a prompt this morning I challenged each member to tangle today's string using at least one tangle they had never tried before.

Here is what I tangled up. I actually tried three tangles I hadn't drawn before. From upper left to lower right you have: OO Africa (new,) flying geese, gryst (new,) and fracas (new.) I enjoyed trying some new linework,  I think I'll be using that gryst a lot in my circular art. I love to do circles! Haha! 
If you are interested in expanding your tangle abilities,  or if you are just looking for a way to stay busy,  head on over to Facebook and search for Zentangle All Around. Send me a join request and I'll accept you right in. There is still time to get involved.

Quick Stacks

My life is consumed with books. Literally.  It is rare for me to sit and tangle just for myself. This piece was just for me. In a little journal I made, I intentionally did not shade this piece,  so the graphite wouldn't ruin the adjacent page. 
From top to bottom: flying geese, bits of TootsieMoon here and there, florz, All Boxed Up, netz, and curlz.
Here's hoping you have a great weekend,  and that you make some time for yourself!

Thursday String Idea #9

 Welcome to Thursday String Idea!

We are already on string #9, 

that is really hard to believe!

Today we have a straight line string.

Have fun!

You can download today's string here to print it.

The string is sized to fit onto a 3.5" tile.

Lately I have been focused on tangling in the round.  Even though this is a straight line string, you can still tangle in the round as you can see from the tile I made. Tangling in the round is as simple as using some element of roundness, whether it be round tangles, round tiles, or a round substrate. If you'd like to get involved in tangling in the round, check out my Facebook group called Zentangle All Around. To print out this week's string,  just click here and it will take you to a place to print. You can share your string #9 on Zentangle All Around!

Thursday String Idea #3

Welcome to Week 3 of the Thursday String Idea! Please feel free to print out the string and tangle your own work of art with it.  The string is sized to fit a 3.5" tile. You can print it from this link OR  there will be another link at the bottom of the post. 

This is a nice geometric sting that you could interpret in many ways. Here is my take on String #3. (Hahaha! I'm just noticing that it also stacked.) From left to right, I used: ta-da, frost flower, fiore, and flying geese.
If you would like to print out String #3, just click this link.

Tangling With Mickey

One of our recent stack and tangle prompts was to use found papers.  To find a paper that you could tangle on and turn into a piece of art. 
It just so happens I checked into a Disney World resort that day and had a packet of information available to me.  I found this sheet of paper,  a bit water-rimmed and stained from someone before me's drink. Shame on you, housekeeping, for leaving me someone else's coaster as part of my introduction to Disney World. Anyway, I liked this sheet of stained paper because of the photo that was on it - Mickey and some awesome cast members. The rest of the page had information about staff and safety tips. 
I divided my drawing area into segments,  then started filling them in with tangles. I did a little shading - which didn't work well on this slick paper -  and called it done.
Tangling with Mickey. Apropos title, I think. 

Stack Your Stripes

Here is a new stacking challenge for you -

stacking stripes.

Basically this means one tangle per stripe, all stacked on top of each other or next to each other. Stacked stripes can be horizontal or vertical. And one tangle per stripe. This is a great way to learn some new tangles, and to practice the ones you've been working on. These two I'm showing you are very different in appearance. I did not plan it that way, but that is the way they turned out. Why don't you give stacking stripes a try today?

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. 

Test Driving My Wall Book

 My friend Jane gave our art journal group the challenge of stacking.

Stacking tangles,

stacking text,

stacking text and tangles,

stacking colors with any of the above.

Jane showed some examples of stacking,

and in a couple pictures she showed drawings she had made in her wall book.

I thought, I have a wall book that I rarely use.

So I pulled it out and tangled the stacks you see above

 in the page on the right.

It started out as a blank brick wall. 

(This is an actual two-page spread in the book.)

 I started at the bottom and worked my way up.

I love the way it turned out.

Looks like that art could be real graffiti.

(Fourth tangle up from the bottom,

is one I made up for this page.

I'm calling it Box It Up.

I'll post step-outs for it in tomorrow's post.)

In case you wondered, and even if you didn't, hahaha!

from the bottom up, the tangles are:

shattuck, copada, curlz (one I came up with at CZT training,) 

box it up, variation of crescent moon, flying geese, rain, 

curvy variation of shattuck, twing, laced, and footlites.

Here is the wall book, which I have been calling by the 

wrong name for the past couple weeks! 

I got mine at Amazon,

(I mean, really, is there any where else?)

Walls Notebook by Sherwood Forlee.

 I enjoyed that stacking stuff so much I decided to do a second page. 

I decided to go with graffiti circles and tangles that draw the eye to that post rising from top to bottom of the page.

And here is the completed page. 
Tangles from bottom to top: shattuck (yes, I love this one,) puf, shattuck  (see what I mean?), rain, box it up, and flying geese again.
And remember, anywhere you see pink words, that means it's a link.  Click on it and you will be taken to step-outs for that tangle. Cause pink = link. In every picture I draw, I include my chop. My signature. At least I try to. You see it just under this post. My initials with the leaf - for The Creator's Leaf. I don't always date the drawing - on the drawing itself - it's usually on the back. For this page, though, I included it on the front. Can you find it? And my chop? (It's kind of obvious.)
P.S. ~ time for you to try out this whole stacking thing. No rules, except you pile it up. Words, tangles, colors, elements. Whatever media you want to use. It's stacking time!

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!

Flying Geese

I sat up a long time last night working on this tile. I wanted to use the simple Z shaped string that Zentangle uses and see if I could still make it work. I love that whole little squadron of flying geese there in the blue section. This tile was looking pretty good until I painted on some cheap watercolor paint from the kids row at the grocery store - cause that's what I have here 800 miles from home. I didn't do it any favors by trying to go over lines with a pen, but I thought I'd post it anyway. Sometimes you just have to take the chance and post your no-so-fabulous work, too. It helps keep you humble :) haha!