I absolutely love working with these alcohol inks!
I keep finding new colors,
and new color combinations.
I just can't stop!
Their colors are so vibrant and fresh.
I use Yupo paper. It has a plastic coating over it,
making it perfect for the alcohol inks.
I put the color on first,
let it dry completely,
then use a Copic Multiliner pen to tangle.
And I end up with this.
I love it!
This is 5" x 7".
I am thinking a black mat and a lime green frame.
Way back when I first started mixing color with zentangle -
about 2 years ago -
the only watercolors I had were in our home school supplies.
Basic little watercolor pans from the school row at WalMart.
And though I've since advanced to some pretty nifty watercolors
from big name art suppliers,
I still like to go back on occasion
and try my hand with those basic little home school supplies.
Such is the case here.
I covered the paper with a good layer of water first,
then I used two colors- blue and purple.
If you have enough water on the paper,
the colors go down as a good wash.
That's how I did the blue.
I was a little more controlled with the purple,
just drizzling it here and there.
Tangling was added after the color dried well.
You see, even though I now have nicer -
more sophisticated -
supplies, I can still get a nice attractive
artwork even with the more basic art supplies.
It is always good to go back and remember your roots.
No matter what you're doing.
I've been playing with this shape a lot lately.
(I'm so cold I'm having trouble typing.
Back space, correct, go forward, repeat.)
Playing with different ways to fill this shape -
that totally looks like a bulb of garlic to me,
for some reason.
That background is a 5" x 7" pull from a gelli plate.
Joey's Challenge this week was called
The Polka Dot Tangle.
Randomly drawn circles,
each filled with a different tangle.
It's really good practice for quick tangles.
For this 5" x 7" piece, I used my new
Prima Color Bloom Spray Mists.
I've used them before and my pens worked great over the color, but for some reason this time
my pens did not work so great.
I used a sharpie fine point and had
trouble filling in the dark areas.
I tried shading, but the color wouldn't hold
the graphite. So. Here it is.
Unshaded but that's ok.
To participate in Joey's Challenge,
just go here and check it out.
So far behind in posting.
Hopefully things will get back to normal soon.
Kali and I spent the past few days in Orlando
visiting Disney World and
the new Harry Potter attraction at Universal Studios.
Photos coming soon :). Yay!!!
It has been quite some time since I've taken one of Laura's Diva Challenges! I got too bogged down in swaps and they were taking up too much of my time. So for now I am holding off on swaps and trying to reconnect. This was Laura's 174th challenge, wow! that's hard to believe! The challenge was to superimpose one string on top of another. To do that, I went to Linda Farmer's string page on Tangle Patterns.
I started with string 089, lightly marking those circles with pencil in the corners. I filled those in with some Diva Dance Rock 'n Roll.
Next, I took string 094 and lightly marked those lines onto the same tile. I used those basic lines as an additional string - and added a couple more - then ran them like hollibaugh, and tangled cheesecloth in the middle sections.
Add some shading and it's all done! This was a fun challenge presented to us by Aimee Belair, CZT. You can head on over to I Am the Diva's page and check out all the superimposed string renderings and perhaps post one of your own!
My foot is coming along. Finally. That old achilles tendon is finally starting to feel a bit better. Of course I've been sitting for a week and a half now. Reading, playing my gameboy, checking facebook, and drawing a little here and there.
About 40 heated foot soaks, 40+ ice packs, and one can of BioFreeze and I can tell some difference. Getting up in the morning and putting that foot on the floor is still a challenge. Talk about pain!
But I'm getting there. I go back to the doctor this Thursday to see where we go from here. She is looking for a 50% improvement. I think we have that much. Praying we have that much.
And in the meantime, I draw. And for the first time in quite awhile, I am linking this up to the Artist's Play Room where Jenn lets us post whatever art floats our boat this week. This is what has kept me afloat as I sit here on my chaise lounge with yet another ice pack. You can check out the Artist's Play Room here at Just Add Water, Silly! (I love Jenn!)
It's amazing how large these post. This is actually drawn on a 4" x 6" postcard. In keeping with the rule of three - tangles that is - I went with a version of hollibaugh, tipple, and a flowy thing that I think is mooka, but not entirely certain on that. Hahaha! Just having fun! Color once again brought to you by Derwent Graphitint Pencils, cause that's all I brought on this road trip with me.
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.
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!
One Zentangle a Day, so far I am getting the work done. Posting it on the same day might be an issue, though.
On day three we practiced pokeroot, festune, and hollibaugh. For our tile we were to use any of those, or any of the tangles we worked on during day the first two days. For my tile, I traced one onto the next page in my Hand Bound Journal from Dick Blick Arts. I don't always lay down the four corner dots, as you can see here. I just put down a simple string.
Then I started filling in tangles. Pokeroot has always been one of my absolute favorites! That and poke leaf. My intentions with this tile were to stick with the day three tangles, putting a little festune grouping in there somewhere . . .
. . . but I just realized looking at this sketchbook drawing - - - I forgot!
I pulled in knight's bridge and tipple from days one and two instead. This one was interesting for me. I decided to do hollibaugh not as filled as I usually do, and I liked blacking in some sections, while filling out others with tipple. So, that was day three. I have day four almost completed, which is good since it is now February 5th.
Kali and I are headed out the door in a few minutes. Back to the doctor's office for me, then on to Panama City to see the Broadway show Beauty and the Beast tonight. Yay!!!!! Keep calm and get your tangle on :).
This particular Diva Challenge involved looping your border on all four sides. I tried and tried and tried to overlap my loops, but my hand just did not understand what my brain was telling it to do. I finally gave up trying to overlap and settled for a loop on each side of my string. This was an interesting challenge, although I doubt I'll ever try this again. Ha! definitely worth trying once :).
Tangle Patterns gave us Margaret Bremner's string this week for our 20th challenge! Shaped like the number four - I had a bit of a mental block with this tangle. I kept wanting to do things in sets of four. What I ended up with was a little bit of Indyrella, some Msst, hollibaugh, and crescent moon. Getting back to the basics. Here's what we started with.
Why don't you head on over to Tangle Patterns, grab the string, and post a tile of your own!
Judy from Creative Doodling offered us a challenge - a celtic knot challenge! A freestyle celtic knot challenge. You can see the link to her instructions here.
Step One was to draw your string - draw one at random, with no specific directions other than to have it connect together at the two ends of the string.
Step Two was to draw the contours inside the shapes created by your string.
Step Three was to aura the outside of the entire shape. Apparently I forgot to take a photo of the next step. Step Four was to connect the lines at the gaps, creating over and under sections. (I opted to round some of the corners to smooth out some less than perfect lines.)
Step Five was to rub out your pencil line and tangle/doodle in the sections. This was the fun part! I tried some new patterns and some old.
Next I started adding some onamato in the string.
Completed the onamato with a row of perfs around the outside.
Then I shaded. I was happy with my celtic knot at this point. But, you know how I am. Everything is better with color - even if only a little pop of color!
And so I added a little color with my copics. This was a really fun - and easy - challenge to complete. Judy has just posted challenge number 2! If you want to participate this week, click here to get the instructions. I am going to go check it out now and get an earlier start this week!
