New Floral Tangles

 There are a lot of new floral tangles online right now.

I like tangling gardens - so I thought I'd try a few.

AND

I hadn't done much drawing since my surgeries,

so this turned out as a nice surprise.

It's 5.5" x 8.5".

I drew most of this yesterday and sat down to finish it and shade it this afternoon. Shading just adds so much to your art. I know. I know. It's boring and tedious. Yes. It is. BUT it makes such a difference!
Some of the new tangles I tried are: alcatraz, barbet, orchid, plum lei, biskus,  daidai and anooka. I also added some zinger, beadline, and mooka.
A really fun piece to draw! In case you are new to my blog - anytime you soon pink words, that is a link. Easy to remember. Pink = link. You're welcome.

Playing With Flowers

Working with flowers again. There are so many ways to tangle flowers. I think my favorites here are the ones with curlz and the ones with mooka. What about you?  Which flower tangles do you like to use?
(And I just realized I've never posted the steps for curlz. I need to fix that soon. In the meantime, here are steps for you to get started.)

Lolliz, a New Gel Pen

 Ok, so I will just say it.

I am fascinated with this new tangle narwal.

I keep drawing it over and over and over.

Here I wrapped it into a wreath and added some floral.

 This is my before-I-added-color-and-shading look.

Good crisp lines,

a little narwal mixed with my tangle floral.

 I added some whisps and zingers.

 Then I pulled out some new color.

I don't use gel pens a lot, but they seemed to be

perfect for this piece.

LolliZ, a new gel pen I just got in recently.

And they worked like a champ!

 I really like the packaging on these pens.

There are four trays of pens inside the case.

Some regular gel pens,

some metallic,

some sparkly,

some milky,

and something else I don't recall right now.

(And I'm too lazy to get up and go look.)

They drew and filled in the spaces smoothly and evenly.

 And the colors were great!

I think my favorite was that darker gold.

It is sparkly and shiny, 

though you can't see that too well here.

 You can see some of the shimmer and sparkle here.

 And here.

I love how the printemps centers look!

Finished version pre-shading.

Completed version post-shading. I really like the way this narwal turned wreath turned out and the lolliz pens were better than I had hoped for!
Have you tried narwal yet? It is really fun!

Scrap Tangling

I love my Dylusions Ink Sprays. I use them all the time. I love lots of bright, wonderful, vivid color. Can you tell?

 And I never throw any of it away.

Seriously.

I have scraps that are 1" x 3".

Occasionally I will pick up a scrap 

and start tangling on it.

I try to tangle within the color. Find a patch of color and start there, then just go with whatever direction it takes me in. 

My heart tells me when it is finished. And this piece? Is finished. No up or down, no right way for it to be positioned. Just lots of yummy, colorful, tangled up fun!

Mooka-fill

Awhile back I was playing around with mooka, drawing it in different ways, trying new ideas, and I stumbled onto this open-faced mooka. As I drew them behind each other, and started layering them, the term mooka-fill came to mind. It really makes the shading fun!
I can see lots of possibilities for this open-faced mooka in gardens, in underwater scenes, in mandalas, ha! I think the possibilities might be a lot of fun to explore!
And here in Colorado it is Kali's birthday and she has the day off from work. I think we are going to do a painting class together. Should be a lot of fun!

Working on Snow

 No, it isn't snowing here in Florida.

At least, not that I know of. Hahaha!

That could be a little but of wishful thinking

on my part!

So, I've been playing with snowflake making

for an art journal prompt,

part of a group project I'm involved in for 2015.

I really love how this one turned out,

but then you know I'm all about that color, that color!

Such a fun process and I tried some new technique -  for me, anyway. The beautiful background color was done with Prima's Color Bloom Spray Mists. Yummy color with plenty of oomph and sparkle. The sparkle was a surprise,  I had no idea the sprays were going to do that. I love it! Then I tangled my snowflake over the top of  that yumminess with a Sharpie fine point. I've seen some discussion on Facebook today about using microns over inks and paints. (I used to use a micron all the time - with no problem. I just found I was too heavy handed and wore the nibs out before I ran out of ink. Sandy Bartholomew mentioned the Sharpie fine point somewhere and I've been using them ever since.)  Then I took two Derwent Inktense Watercolor pencils  to add all the shading, with the assistance of an aquash waterbrush.  Love how it turned out! The overall snowflake is about 4" x 5". Time to go order a few more of those wonderful Color Bloom Spray Mists. I see a new favorite product on my countertop!

This post brought to you courtesy of Studio Assistant Aurora.
Have a great weekend!

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.

Relaxing Weekend

It's been a relaxing weekend filled with fun stuff in my studio. Spraying some dylusions ink sprays, rolling out some gelli plate fun, tangling and shading, listening to music, watching Merlin on Netflix, playing with Aurora, and organizing - yet again - art supplies. An overall fun and relaxing weekend. Hope you are having a great one!

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!
So much to be thankful for, so many blessings in my life. So many ways to thank God, so many things I take for granted.
May God richly bless you and yours in this next year, as we all take time to just say Thanks!

The Eyes Have It - Joey's #33 Tangle a Mandala

There's a cool blog that posts a weekly tangle challenge. Made By Joey has something for every level of tangler. I don't always get my artwork posted on Joey's blog but I always try to complete the challenge. This eye mandala was drawn for her 33rd weekly challenge. I got it finished after the next week was already posted and am just now getting around to linking it in.
This is a free-hand mandala that I worked on while I watched Merlin on Netflix. I don't know if that is where the 'eyes' came from or not. Morgana was being her usual creepy-deepy self, so it is entirely possible. Haha!
Also, I haven't shaded the mandala yet because I am hoping to add some spiffy color to it. But of course!
If you would like to check out Joey's weekly challenge just click on the pink link with her name at the start of this post. This week's challenge is to tangle something quilted. I am going to be all over this one!

Poured Out, and APR #119

It has been a bit of a rough week for me. (You know, I think yesterday's post started with almost identical words. Sorry. I do know more. Honest.) So. A bit rough. I won't go into it here. Suffice it to say the week took a lot out of me. 
You ever have a week where you just don't want to get out of bed? For any reason at all. That's still me. No motivation. At all. So I am making myself go through the routine. Making myself stay busy. 
I started this drawing a week or so ago. I don't really even remember where I was. Maybe at Kali's. Anyway, I pulled it out last night and shaded parts of it. This morning as I look at it - on this day of worship - I immediately saw a basket at the lower left corner. So not planned. A basket with lots of lovely, fun, hopeful things bursting forth from it. Joy, frivolity (is that spelled right? no little red, sguiggly line so it must be), happiness, playfulness. And I think - why not? This week will be what I make it. 
So. I decide right now to make this week a better one than last week. I decide right now to be happy, to be satisfied with my life as it is. But I also decide to strive towards what God has planned for me - and I know that He wants me to be fulfilled and to be serving (cause that's who I am. I am fulfilled when I am serving.) 
How will you live your week? How do you decide - right now - to make this coming week even better than this past one?
(I am linking up to the Artist's Play Room this week. Check it out here.)

Star Unraveled

 This is what I've been playing with lately. Not an idea that I came up with, but based on a piece of artwork created by my friend and fellow CZT - artist Sharon Payne . . .

. . . that I saw and loved! Sharon calls this piece Dreaming at Sunset. You can see this - and more of Sharon's beautiful art - on her blog Jazztangled. I was really drawn to the leaf shapes and the little pieces dangling and swirling out the ends of them. 

So I picked up a pen and a sheet of 9" x 12" bristol smooth surface and started drawing. I sat in my chair and drew for two hours. That is pretty intense for me. I can play with paints and inks for two hours, but drawing for two hours is a completely different story. I toyed with the idea of the almond shapes with the tendrils flowing out the ends. And somehow they ended up in a star-ish shape - I think someone else may have drawn them in this shape first, but I couldn't remember who. (So, sorry if I miss giving credit to someone for the idea.) I love all the loops, and swirls, and curls, and furls. Kind of like a star just unraveling and spilling everything right out there.

Then I moved on to a smaller version. I had some scraps leftover from a book project - with dylusions ink spray colors already on them - and I used one of those. This piece is about 4" squared. There are a couple background pieces on the right that you haven't seen yet. I'm still working on those.

And of course I had to play around some with the settings on my iPad when I took this picture. This filter is called process. Apparently some rocket scientist named the filters. Who knew. 

Anyhoo, here she is - Star Unraveled - in all her beautiful, bright, wild and crazy unedited color! Keep in mind she's about 4 inches across and compare that with the size you see on your computer screen and you'll know about how big this piece truly is. And please go check out Sharon's blog here. You'll love visiting her! (And just read her posts with a soft, southern drawl and y'all will feel right at home.) (And I can say that cause I'm from the south, too!)

New in my studio? A brand new product from Zentangle.com that we will be releasing to the public in a couple weeks. Until then I get to play with it all by myself - bwahahahaha! 

Floral Color

Recently, I posted the black and white version of this tile as part of a weekly challenge. You can see the post here.

This is what I started with. Some fescu, some mooka,  some sunz, some printemps, some tipple, and some flora. All tangle patterns with a bunch of aura-ing. Then today I added color with Grumbacher transparent watercolor pans and some Derwent Inktense watercolor pencils. Highlights came from a white gelly roll pen. 

Lots of fun and super easy to draw! Soon I will provide a step-out for flora. Hopefully :). Have a great week!

Floral Challenge #14 at Joey's Place

Last night on facebook I posted the above picture at The Creator's Leaf. I was just starting on the new weekly challenge that Joey runs over at MadeByJoey's. This week's task was to tangle some flowers, or use patterns that resemble flower parts, or use a flower shaped string. I decided to go floral - they are some of my favorite things to draw! And literally everything you see in this picture is a tangle pattern, several with auras. (Auras are those black areas that surround and mimic/aura the tangle itself.)

I used my Stillman & Birn 7" square Zeta Series sketchbook and a Sharpie fine point pen. For patterns I used printemps, flux, tipple, mooka, sunz, fescu, and flora. Lots of loopy, swirly, yummy garden fun!
Check it out at Joey's place -  and join in on the tangletivity! 
Next up - I am going to use some yummy Grumbacher's watercolors and add some spunk to these flowers!

Frankie Time

 We are going to be spending some time with our little Frankie Bear this week. Mom and Dad are working long hours, so she's staying with us! Yay!!!  Started our visit with a trip to Wal-mart for a few things we forgot and then a stop at Sonny's for some mashed potatoes and french fries!

This was actually while we were waiting on our food to arrive. Frankie talked, threw toys on the floor, ate lots of snacks, actually grabbed one of the servers by the hand as she walked by, and made friends with people sitting at the two tables closest to us. And now she is actually sleeping in her new little pack-n-play, holding her sock monkey in her arms.

I expect this will be the only post for today, so here is a piece of random art. No idea what I was going for here, other than lots of roundness :) that seems to be the mode of the day lately when I'm drawing.