Squid Jiggin'

Wow! Squid Jiggin' Ground.

An old song from my childhood days,

suddenly taking on some meaning in my life once again.

In just a few weeks, Mark and I will be heading to Newfoundland for ten days.

Ten days to relive my childhood, visit the Navy base where I grew up, see my school, go to my old church, try to find the first house we lived in in a little fishing village called Placentia.

I sit and remember.

Remember days when the snow was so high we had trouble getting to school.

They didn't do snow days, so you got there any way you could.

I remember walking - delicately and deliberately - through snow as high as my waist and sometimes higher, trying to pick the safest routes, the safest steps, taking an extra set of clothes to change into once you got to school because every stitch you had on would be soaked.

I remember fishing with my dad on the northside pier. His jacket zipped up tight, cap on his head, fishing for cod, throwing back blowfish which used to scare me when I was little - they are some ugly fish, just sayin'! - trying not to get blown off the dock because the winds were that strong.

I remember going to the commissary one day, and Daddy telling me to hold on to the car door when I opened it. I did, but the wind was so strong it pulled me right out of the car and dumped me on the ground.

I remember hours spent playing on the hill of rock behind our home. Coloring on rocks with crayons, daydreaming for hours, singing, playing make-believe until I'd hear the van as Dad came looking for me for supper. 

And I remember the music.

Standing in the Navy Exchange testing a harmonica they just got in, playing the Canadian National Anthem, and the civilian employees stopping, standing still with a hand over their heart as I played.

I loved living there!

I can't wait to go home in a few weeks.

I know very few buildings remain on the base.

Our two different homes on the base itself are totally gone and trees stand in their places.

I know it's going to be sad,

but it's going to be happy, too,

and I just can't wait!

I'm sorry my new style squid drawing pulled me into the backstory.

Squid Jiggin' Ground is a good old Newfie song

and it just reminded me. 

Now, where did I leave those kleenexes?

(Might I just add this note on May 3rd, my readers are the best! Thank you for the comments you post and send to me - whether here or on facebook. I'm glad you shared some of your memories with me :). You made my day, too!)

Tangling the Opus

Recently the Zentangle® company released a 10 1/2" tangling tile called the Opus.

I've drawn on a couple with great results.

This time I thought I'd combine the Opus with my

first tangling/journaling love - Dylusions Ink Sprays.

 Typically I wouldn't leave the curled edges in the photo,

I would crop them out before I posted.

I thought it was worth showing you the little amount of curl I got 

for a whole lot of wet media.

 I began by using a mop brush and slopping a whole lot of water 

across the entire page.

Then I used lemon zest, fresh lime, and calypso teal

and sprayed on some beautiful color.

I spritzed a little more water just to be sure.

You see those circular places?

Those are super easy to make.

Wherever you have a good puddle of water,

point your heat gun straight down into the puddle

and watch it push the color out to the sides.

Let it dry that way and you have instant cool circles.

 I use those circle areas to make designs like this one.

I just follow the lines.

And while I'm thinking about it let me say this -

the slight curling you saw in that second photo from all the wet media -

once the opus dried it flattened itself back out.

Completely.

 I just kept tangling, following the lines of color.

 Building section by section.

 I saw someone else drawing their squid tangles in a similar manner. 

I liked it so much I tried it out. 

This is how mine turned out. 

I tried to make it look like they were swimming.

And here is my completed Opus tile. I love the way it turned out!
Just follow the flow of the color. Go on, you know you want to try it!

More Underwater Twinchies, APR #95

Under the Sea (continued from yesterday) ~ The Little Mermaid ~
Down here all the fish is happy as off through the waves they roll. The fish on the land ain't happy, they sad 'cause they in their bowl. But fish in the bowl is lucky, they in for a worser fate. One day when the boss get hungry guess who's gon' be on the plate.
Under the sea, under the sea, nobody beat us, fry us or eat us in fricassee. We what the land folks loves to cook. Under the sea we off the hook. We got no troubles, life is the bubbles, under the sea. Since life is sweet here, we got it beat here, naturally. Even the sturgeon an' the ray they get the urge 'n' start to play. We got the spirit, you got to hear it, under the sea!
(Kind of long, but here's the rest.)
The newt play the flute, the carp play the harp, the plaice play the bass, and they soundin' sharp. The bass play the brass, the chub play the tub, the fluke is the duke of soul. (Yeah) The ray he can play the lings on the strings. The trout rockin' out, the blackfish she sings. The smelt and the sprat they know where it's at, an' oh that blowfish blow.
Under the sea, under the sea, when the sardine begin the beguine, it's music to me. What do they got? A lot of sand, we got a hot crustacean band. Each little clam here know how to jam here under the sea. Each little snail here know how to wail here. That's why it's hotter under the water. Ya we in luck here, down in the muck here under the sea.
Going to add this post to the weekly Artist's Play Room challenge. Jenn encourages us to 'art' and share it in the play room. Why don't you head on over here and check it out.
*  *  *  *  *  *
Twinchies are tiny pieces of art that are two inches square. A whole bunch of artists on facebook are currently involved in a twinchie swap. I can not wait to start receiving beautiful pieces of art from all over the world - literally! These are just a few of the twinchies I will be sending out. More tomorrow.
These twinchies were made on watercolor Bristol smooth from Strathmore, color comes from Dylusions Ink Sprays, and sparklies are courtesy of Wink of Stella Glitter Markers and At You Spica Pens. Click on photo to see a larger view.

Accent on the Pink

I love the accents made with the pinks! I could be all about the pink! Or teal, or purple, depending on what day of the week it is.

I am getting ready for another ATC swap. The theme for this one is black with one accent color. Of course, I chose pink to be my accent color.

Once again, I drew this on a sheet of 11" x 14" Bristol smooth surface paper from Strathmore. For the pink accents, I used At You Spica Pens (2 shades of pink), a pink copic marker, and some pink watercolor.

I really love the colors! Lower left you see the tangle Sindoo by Sharon Robinson, England. That strip on the lower right is Ragz from CZT Christina Vandervlist. That long skinny one with the openings is Beanpodz from Neil Burley. I love the spiral in the middle - that's my favorite part!

Sliding across from lower left to upper right is Liberty 100 from ~ once again ~ Neil Burley. Mix in a little Kuke from Katy Abbott, some zander, some bunzo,  a variation of tagh, and something I totally made up - those circle thingies. 

I love finery! It is one of the 'official' zentangle® patterns. 

At the top right is Stella, I don't think the step-outs of that one's been released yet. Then I tried a little Undling (yes! it worked), which is Susie Achter's new tangle. In the middle are those cute little circles I made up, along with Sandy Hunter's Cruffle. I think the two work pretty well together!

Yes, I really do like these two together! Anyway, these are some closeups of the detail work! I cut this sheet down into 16 ATCs that I will mail out to sixteen different people in the new swap that starts on the 1st!

I am really having a ball drawing large scale this way! Next up? A 53-deck of card ATCs for a swap amongst the CZTs. I can not wait!

An Under the Sea Posting

This one definitely fits the "no more than three tangles" rule. Squid, sedglings, and indy-rella. Favorites when it comes to underwater drawing. Swimming across a card of blue variations. Already swimming its way to its new home. I hope you enjoy it!

Black Water

Really just playing around with some of my favorite tangles. There are two of them that I don't even know the names of, but I use them often. So, I should probably figure that out!

And once again, I realized that I forgot to shade. Shading really does make an incredible difference, adding depth and dimension. Some of the shading is done with a pencil and tortillion. Other parts are shaded with a light grey colored Pitt artist pen. At this point I probably couldn't tell you which is which. You should get your pen and tile out and draw something. You'll be glad you did!

Divas and Strings

Week number 88 with the Diva's Challenge - welcome to IX. My CZT class was the 9th one, roman numeral IX, hence the name IX. This pattern was introduced at our class and I have to say I don't like this pattern one bit. I just don't get it. I keep trying, but it is not my friend. You can see IX in the upper right section of my tile.

It is also time for string #19 at Tangle Patterns. The string was given by Linda Selymes. Above is my tile I drew to go with this string. This tile is posting for both the Diva's Challenge and Linda's string challenge at Tangle Patterns. Go check it out and while you're there, why don't you post some tiles of your own :).

Break Free! Diva #86

This week's Diva Challenge (#86! unbelieveable!) is Break Free! Break out of our borders, expand our boundaries, so to speak. 

Here's my tile. Now, most of the CZT's strictly adhere to the black pen on white tile concept. Not me. Typically I add color, which specifically makes my art become zentangle-inspired-art, but whatever. It's what I like. So, to step beyond my borders would be to go "black pen on white tile." But you notice I had to throw in that colored scrapbook paper in the background! Hahahaha! And yes, I did expand some of my designs so they meld right off the side of the tile. AND - - - I'm getting this posted before the challenge is over :D! Head on over to the Diva's page here to check out how everyone else breaks out of their borders. Perhaps you have some borders of your own that need breaking out of!

String 017 Challenge

I think I am finally caught up (yay!!!) with the string challenges at TanglePatterns. It's week number 17 and the string was provided by Joyce Bruns. After being so far behind on everything - I am determined to get caught up - at least on a couple challenges. I tried something different in that bottom right corner. I alternated tangled sections of hurry and betweed - two of my fall-back-on patterns. I think they work well together. And that has to be the biggest purk I've ever done o.O This was a fun string to play with. Here is the string before I started:

And you are going to have to trust me on this one - in your mind, turn the string upside down and it will match up to my tile above. Haha! And it took me awhile to figure that out! If you are interested in joining in on the weekly string fun, go here and see what it's all about.

Under the Sea

I got some new stencils in the mail yesterday - from Dream Weaver. I figured I'd play around with them for awhile. I took a watercolor notebook and slapped around some paint in greens, purples, and blues. They had a bit of metallic in them - cause I like shiny!

Then I took four of the stencils and traced them on top of the dry paint. Totally sacrificed a pen doing this.

Next, I tangled a few patterns into the stenciled areas. Then I added some seaweed, flowing plants, and amoeba-stuff. So "sea" like :). When I uploaded this above picture onto the computer, I noticed what looks like a shark in the upper left corner. Totally unplanned. The only thing I intentionally added was the small black line to designate a mouth.

So much fun! I tried out some new patterns. I always think featherfall looks sloppy, but that's pretty much the way it is detailed out in the drawing steps. I also used: finery, hybrid, heron, fescu, shattuck, tearse, waves, squid, and beadlines. 


I may come back to this tomorrow and add some bubbles - something I meant to do. I've been following the national championship speech and debate breaks today - in the NCFCA, a Christian homeschool league that my daughter competed in for several years. I got so tied up with breaks to semi-finals. I worked on this in between checking the computer for the hundredth time!!! and forgot the bubbles. Tomorrow!

String 005 - it's far out!

Each week Linda at Tangle Patterns gives us a string to tangle. I actually made two tiles today with string 005. Outer space is what I was thinking as I drew this first tile. And it's the first time I've drawn one of the little bean guys! I love it! I used patterns from Zentangle For Kids! (cootie, bean, botto, squid, jetties)

This is the string Linda gave us to use. 

I also drew this second tile. I just went with the line separation provided by the string and filled the spaces. (organza, beaded, hurly burly, betweed, some auras, and sunz (my tangle)

This string was fun to use! I may pull it out again :). All color came from Derwent Inktense Pencils and some water :). If you want to join in on the string fun, visit Linda's page here!

Under the Sea

I've always been fascinated by the sea. I grew up in Newfoundland, Canada, right on the ocean. My dad would take me with him to the docks where he would fish, sometimes for hours. I remember the library on the navy base where we lived had a great book about the ocean. It was huge, and every page was printed in full beautiful bright color. A sentence on each page would identify the fish, plantlife, coral, whatever was depicted. I checked that book out every time it was available and would only return it when I had to. These days I would simply buy the book on amazon so I would always have it.

I started drawing this ocean life yesterday. I like all the patterns. The spiral shell idea came from a zentangle pattern from Michele Beauchamp called spiral. I saw the pattern and wanted to do something with it - it's a really pretty design! My picture just kind of took life from there.


I used the patterns: squid, popsicles, spiral, fescu, an unknown pattern - I can't find its name - the top flower with the pink in it, and added some tall reeds (perhaps a variation of mooka.) The color comes from Faber-Castell Pitt artist pens and Faber-Castell watercolor pencils which I used dry. It was incredibly satisfying to complete this project - good memories all the way :).