Thursday String Idea #19

 Welcome to another

Thursday String Idea,

and yes, I know it's already Monday.

Hahahaha! 

If you saw my last post then you already know 

the crazy, busy week I had week.

Publishing three books in one week is an 

awesome kind of crazy week to have!

And even though it is almost here again,

here is the string for last week.

A little different this time.

Instead of using my string, do what I did.

I picked up a couple items that were laying on my desk

and traced them onto my tile.

That became my string.

 This would be a prilosec bottle and a sharpie

that I traced.

 Then I just started putting in some tangles.

 I am thinking this is a strange combination of

tangles, which I can explain by saying I am sick.

My little Frankles had a cold when I stayed with her

Friday, now I have it. Ugh.

Here if my completed string #19.

Whimsical, Dr. Seussical, that could be Cat in the Hat's hat!

Those tangles would be printemps, diva dance rock n' roll,

and two of my own - skinz and Tennison.

So, grab a couple items from your desktop and trace them,

then tangle on and have fun!

Thursday String Idea #5

Welcome to Week 5 of the

Thursday String Idea!

Please feel free to print 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 this post.

I liked the curvy nature of this string, and opted to add some curvy lines in the 4 sides.
Tangles I used: diva dance - waltz and rock 'n roll.
If you would like to print this string, just click this link.
I would love to see what you create with this string!

Feather Stacking

 You keep hearing me talk about stacking tangles.

Right now I am working on feather stacks.

You see, each of those little v-shaped sections

is a separate stack.

Let me walk you through how I made this.

I love me some bright, beautiful, vibrant color!

To get this color effect I wanted, I used some Brushos Crystal Colours.

Brushos are powders that activate and swirl and mix when hit with water.

I began by using a mop brush and just slopping water all over the top 

of my 140 lb. mixed media paper.

Then I used three shades of Brushos crystals and just 

tapped the color into the water.

After the color spread and mixed, I realized it still needed a bit more green, 

so I added more of the pigment where I thought it would work best. 

If you are interested in reading more about Brushos,

I did an in-depth product review here. 

Once my paper was completely dry,

I lay in a faint outline of a feather and filled in the vein.

I haven't done a successful feather before,

so I thought the pencil line might help me with parameters.

I began by dividing some sections and etching in  feathered lines for segments.

Then I tangled the areas. 

I wasn't really happy with the way my feather looked at this point.

So I added some frills. 

A little fescu, some more whispy lines,

and that white gel pen for some popping highlights.

I think I like this feather stacking.

Definitely going to give it another try.

Hahaha! Why don't you join me?

Chain of Roses

I apologize yet again for the infrequent blog posts. Facebook has taken over my life. Hahahahah! Seriously, I am trying to get back to a normal routine. Here's a little punzel with some rock 'n roll roses. Love these two tangles together!

Stacking Circles

 Lately it's been all about the stacks.

Stacks of tangles. 

In this case, it's a stack of tangled circles.

Now you know I love me some gorgeous colors,

but I did not make this background myself.

It came from this book. (I was going to tell you what page,  but this awesome book doesn't have page numbers. So that's not going to happen.)
I purchased three of Mindy Lacefield's books and they are all beautiful! They are copies of her personal art journals with lots of open spaces where a tangler could have some fun. And I love the results!
Why don't you grab a book you haven't enjoyed in awhile,  or a book from a second-hand shop, and tangle a little today? You'll be glad you did.

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!

Trying to Get Back in the Routine

Wow! It's been twelve days since I posted. And, yes, I realize my blog looks weird. Having a bit of an issue with photobucket, hopefully Cindy will be able to figure it out soon.
I had a wonderful trip to Colorado, and the great news is I did not have an issue with the altitude. The medicine the doctor put me on worked! Hallelujah! I was pretty groggy the first several days, but eventually I was able to do a little tangling. This is the biggest project I worked on. A little flux, rock n'roll, rain, beadlines, cruffle, TootsieMoon and blox. A fun piece to draw!
I'm working in the studio - re-organizing - again. One of the CZTs started a facebook group for studios and it has started a desire to re-organize. Stay tuned in a couple weeks for new studio shots.

Using Up the Scraps

I think this is the last post I am going to pre-blog. I will be back home on the 9th, and will get busy online once again.
This piece was a bit of leftover from a larger project I worked on. A small piece of scrap, about 5" x 7", which I filled with random tangles. Background color is - of course - Dylusions Ink Sprays. My favorite product of all time! Today the high is expected to be 39˚ and the low tonight is expected to be 16˚. The high at home should be around 73˚. Sounds warm and nice.

Garlic and Joey

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. 

Tibetan Teal Starburst

This was a fun tile. Primarily I made this one to see how the ink spray would turn out. I used Lindy's Stamp Gang Starburst spray. The color is Tibetan Poppy Teal. These starburst sprays are so much fun -  you get the main color, and you also get a hint of another. Here you have the teal, with a hint of blush. Tangles are rock n' roll, a partial TootsieMoon,  and cheesecloth. I really love cheesecloth.
It's been a busy day here -  organizing, re-arranging. Pretty soon I won't be able to find anything. Except Aurora. She will be hiding right here:

I told Mark we could turn this into a kitty condo. Lower level - litter box. Middle level - bed. Upper level - food and water.  Hahahaha! I love my kitty, but this is so going to be full of paint come tomorrow!

Opus #2

Over the past couple weeks I have posted bits and pieces of this artwork on facebook and instagram with the promise of a blog post to follow. Well, here it is.

Zentangle recently came out with some new tiles they call the Opus. It is a 10.5" square tile of 100% cotton, fine artists paper. I enjoyed drawing on the larger tile, but won't be carrying them in my store for two reasons:

1. At $22.00 for five tiles, I don't feel they are cost effective, and
2. I haven't figured out any easy way to ship them, while keeping the shipping cost low, and have them packaged safely to prevent bends and creases. 

However, I did purchase some to play with. I posted the first Opus tile I made here. Well, shoot. Apparently I haven't blogged that yet. Well, here it is anyway. Shoot! I can't even find a picture of it. I guess I'll have to blog that another time. I have too much going on in my life. I'd like to be bored for awhile.

Moving right along. The first Opus tile I did - the one I can't show you right now - was done with microns alone. For this second tile I wanted to see how the tile held up to wet media. I used my peerless watercolors and a water brush. In case you aren't familiar with peerless, they are sheets of paper with concentrated color on one side. You dip your water brush onto the paper and it picks up the color that you then paint with. So, ultimately not a lot of wet on your paper and they are easily portable.

While the color looks amazing - peerless are bright and wonderful - the tile itself didn't hold up all that well. I had a lot of pilling and abrasion on the paper, even though there wasn't a lot of water. I just kept filling in bits of color till the entire tile was covered.

When the tile was totally dry, I gently brushed as much of the pilling off with my fingertips as I could and . . . 

. . . began to tangle. I filled in large spaces of colors with a couple different tangles.

Then I went back in the open areas and started filling in with a new pattern called Arukas.

Interesting story. Arukas is easy and fun, but I was really concentrating hard filling in those areas. Making them carry over under tangles and connect on the other sides. I concentrated so hard that I had a blood vessel in my left eye hemorrhage and cause lots of pain and ugliness. At that point I decided to call this tile completed. Ta-da! Opus #2 done. 

My eye is better. All healed up now. It did look quite nasty for about a week. Still doing eye drops for it, but the white part of the eye is no longer the color of that hidden Mickey up there anymore. 

So there you go. Blogpost done and hitting 'publish.' Happy New Year, everyone!

So Far Behind

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!!! 

TootsieMoon and Color

 Last week I posted the step-out for my tangle TootsieMoon and gave some examples of it in use. Below is the tile in straight black and white. I have since come back and added color by way of Prismacolor Pencils. And I added that cute little snail. He (or she) is fresh from CZT training in Rhode Island and will begin popping up all over the zentangle pages you follow very soon. Meet Bijou.

As much as I love the color - it's hard to beat the plain ol' black and white version.

If you haven't tried out TootsieMoon yet, here is a link to the step out. Have fun!

The Diva Challenge, #174

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!