How to Draw All Boxed Up in a Wonky Style

My original tangle

All Boxed Up.

Have fun!

Betweed Tangle Pattern Video

I Have a New Friend! #happymail #mailart

 Let me just tell you -

I am not the least bit bashful!

Hahaha!

I saw in one of my Facebook groups

that someone had received some lovely

mail art! I loved it! And commented

that I wanted to receive some lovely mail art, too!

The artist asked me to send her my address.

And I did!

Then this came in the mail today!

 Now I have a wonderful new friend on Facebook

and

she is an amazing artist!

She sent me this card she tangled and

colored herself.

I love that little hummingbird!

We have been watching them here for the 

past month or so. 

The card was inside this awesome envelope

that Pam also made!

Isn't it amazing?????

I love it!

I wish I could have seen the mail person's face.

I doubt this is the normal post in our northern

section of Maine!

I absolutely love it!!!

Thank you so much, dear new friend!!!

You totally made my day!

How to Draw Tangle Blooming Butter

On to the Next Thing

What a lot of fun tangle art I have for you today!

All these pieces were created for a book that

never happened.

So you get to be the joyful (I hope) recipient

of this awesomeness today.

Free. 

You don't even have to buy a book!

Hahaha!

The above tile uses the tangle patterns

windfleur and class-EE.

 This was a fun tile with all the curves!

Tangles include Lisbon, tweety by Sandra Strait 

and wormhole spiral.

I was really disappointed this book never got

completed,

mostly because it let down a bunch of friends

who had hoped to have their art in the new book.

Circumstances out of my hands and I couldn't

do a thing about it even though I tried.

 Tangles here are Calvin and All Boxed Up. 

 This tile uses the tangles Meer, spiral obsession

and sailin'.

 This was a great string!

Tangles are Cee-a-Mosa and diagonal2.

 Gingham and zaz leaf.

Love this one!

Tangles are Paris, TootsieMoon and 

caught from CZT Christine Reyes.

Sorry to just be 

"here are the pictures and here are the tangle names" 

but that's what it is today. 

I just want to have the art posted some place

and I figured you may find some inspiration in

here somewhere.

Have a great week! 

Tangling an Opus

This one was fun!

Zentangle® HQ makes a 10.5" tile they call the Opus.

This is it. 

The other side is blank and is the side most people

choose to tangle on. Not me, I opted for the back

side with the Zentangle logo and Maria's beautiful

hand lettering around the outer edge.

To begin, I used two colors of Dylusions Ink Sprays - 

Bubblegum Pink and London Blue. 

Once that was good and dry,

I started tangling. Mostly I used a Sakura Micron 005

and a 0.1 Copic Multiliner. 

When I completely finished, I went back and used

some basic dimestore colored pencils and

added shading and color pops for interest. 

I think I will go back with a white gel pen and add

some highlights on the black areas. 

But you guys are special and you get this version instead <3.

What are you tangling up today?

What a Cool Project!

I made a tile this week for a really cool project

that is happening in Ontario.

My friend Brenda Shaver-Shahin is a

Certified Zentangle Teacher like me. She 

is opening a new shop in Ontario soon and is

busily getting it ready.

Brenda has asked her CZT family from around 

the globe to send her tiles that she will 
display in her new store.

She is calling the project 

A World of Tangles

 - or something similar.

I didn't want to be left out so yesterday

I mailed this tile to Brenda.

I hope she likes it!

supplies - official Zentangle® tile, gold gel pen,

black sharpie fine liner, white gel pen,

graphite and tort for shading. 

Art This Week

 Did you read that post title?

Art This Week?

Like I had a banner week or something.

Hahahahaha!

My son was here for the week,

we did a lot of 4-wheeling and visiting

and eating apparently.

I gained 1 1/2 pounds.

Not cool Danielle's cinnamon rolls!

You aren't supposed to fight back.

I did get the chance to frame this piece I finished

for the Frankles' bedroom in their new house, though.

 My art buddy Genevieve is putting a new book 

together of beautiful backgrounds she has made.

She sent me one of them to try out.

The color is her beautiful work,

the tangling is mine.

Hopefully it is beautiful, too. Hehehehe!

You can check out Genevieve's store here. 

 This is the cool 10.5" Opus tile from Zentangle®.

I am working on the back side, cause I'm weird like that.

I sprayed some Fireworks! ink sprays into the wet

surface and let them spread around.

Lots of shimmer and sparkle happening here.

And I am slowly tangling it.

A little one day, some the next, whenever I can fit 

in a couple minutes. 

In Zentangle All Around this week, my tangle friend

Christine Koncurat Reyes shared a new tangle of

hers called SO. I used it right down the center of this

piece, and filled it with my tangle ripped screen,

and bordered the whole piece with floral waves

from Nicole Dreyer..

Super fun piece to work on!

And that was my week.

Did you get a chance to be arty?

Chiyogami Tile Folder, Yay!!!

In early May I had opportunity to be in Toronto, Ontario, and with the help of fellow artist Cherryl Moote I was able to visit the Japanese Paper Place. Taken from their website, their mission is to encourage artists and creative people everywhere to learn about the unique qualities of traditional Japanese papers. We spent a couple hours looking at, and touching, and studying, and asking questions about hundreds of different pieces of paper. And I was fortunate enough to be able to come home with some beautiful works of art in the form of chiyogami Japanese paper. 

Here it is almost two months later and I have just gotten up enough nerve to actually cut into one - or two - of these beautiful papers! Cherryl is a book and paper artist, and she has authored several wonderful books, including All Tangled Up. In this book she details ways to organize and display zentangle tiles and art. I used her directions to make the Tile Folder you see in the first photo. And I used pieces of two of the papers from the Japanese Paper Place that you see above.

These imported Japanese papers are truly beautiful. They are hand-silkscreened and the colors and patterns are wonderful! This is the outside of the tile folder just prior to completion.

Here is a shot of the inside.

Then I used a bit of the second paper to cover the spine  . . . 

. . . and to line the interior. I can fit tiles into both sides. Cherryl also details the steps for making an ATC folder. Cherryl has written several books about bookbinding, paper folding, and tangling. You can visit Moote Points here. Look for All Tangled Up.

Here are a few of my favorite papers I brought home.

Aren't they wonderful? Now I just need to decide what to work on next. Hmmmm, Cherryl?

Zendala Dare #94 - Happy

While Erin was taking some much needed time off, we were missing the Zendala Dare each week. Well, the wait is over - Erin is back and the dare this week included the theme of happy. Erin left the interpretation of that theme up to us. Yay!!!!!

This is the zendala template she provided us with. With the theme in mind, the first thing I thought of when I saw the template was . . .  minions!!! Cause they make me very happy!

So I started laying down lines within the template, which I traced onto a blank zendala. I knew those little round orbs around the outside were the shape I needed for little minion heads and I just took off running from there.

Admittedly, at this point my little guys were looking a lot like Homer Simpson heads, but they just don't make me happy. (Homer Simpson wearing a gas mask!)

More lines, and the minions started taking shape.

Once I got everything drawn, I pulled out the copics and started filling in some colors. And singing . . .
It might seem crazy what I'm about to say Sunshine she's here, you can take a break I'm a hot air balloon that could go to space With the air, like I don't care, baby, by the way
Because I'm happy Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof Because I'm happy Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth Because I'm happy Clap along if you know what happiness is to you Because I'm happy Clap along if you feel like that's what you wanna do.

Well, you get the idea, but just in case you don't - I am also including the youtube video of Pharrell Williams singing Happy, featuring the Minions - which makes me incredibly happy!
If you want to see how everyone else interpreted the theme Happy, click the link here and visit The Bright Owl. Because I'm happy . . . 

 

Falling Behind

It has been a slow week as far as postable artwork. I am working on art for another book. It's been a busy time for that kind of thing with a lot of new books coming out between now and Christmas.

In the middle of drawing, and tangling, and coloring, my Etsy store has finally gotten a little busy again. Thank you, Jesus, cause rent is coming due Sunday. Ugh, hahaha! Thanks to Etsy sales I had need to spray some color on a whole bunch of watercolor paper and make cool little ATCs. So, while I was doing that I pulled out these two 11" x 14"" canvases. First I used a mop brush and slopped a whole lot of water onto the canvas itself, then I sprayed some Dylusions Ink Sprays into the puddles. Let the colors run and mix, apply a little heat gun magic pushing colors and drips around, and voila! instant beautiful artwork for your wall! Going straight into the Etsy store. Have a great rest of your week!

Underwater Steampunk?

Underwater steampunk? That was my husband's comment when he saw this piece in progress - that it looked like underwater steampunk. How did I come to this end result? So glad you asked.

I must apologize because I totally forgot to take a photo of the before page. Recently I came across an excellent sale on Twinkling H2Os and had to order several colors I didn't already have. Cause you know you have to do that when there is such an awesome sale! It's one of those unwritten art journaling rules. Anyhoo, when I unpacked my order, I pulled out my favorite Strathmore Watercolor Journal and tried out all the new colors.

Just in case you've not used H2Os before - let me give you a tip. Consider it a bonus in this post. About 10-15 minutes before you want to use the colors (or even longer if you can be patient) take the tops off the jars and spritz in some water. I use a pipette and put 3-4 drops of water into each pot. Then I have this lovely little bottle of Ox Gall liquid (don't even ask) from Holbein. I add 1-2 drops of ox gall into each pot. Then let them sit. The mica and the pigments have to have time to hydrate, otherwise you will only pick up color from the top of the pot. It will not have all those lovely little bits of mica which is really the part that makes the H2Os twinkle. The ox gall speeds along the process, enhances the flow of the H2Os, and just makes your painting all around more awesome!

Once my lovely little pots of bold, shiny color were hydrated I used a paintbrush to stir them up. When you have a wonderful thick syrupy goo the H2Os are good to go. I used a watercolor page to test the colors. This is what I used for the base to build my drawing on. As you can see I really had no design in mind, I just started laying in bits and pieces of tangles to flow with the colors. See how those coral pipes flow along the lines of the pink and red? And the printemps (clams?) fill in blocks of pink and yellow?

I truly had no end goal in mind. I just kept adding cool tangles until I felt like the drawing was finished. Someone commented recently that they struggled with leaving white space, with feeling like they had to fill in the entire area with design. Sometimes I do that like in this post (OK, disregard that statement, I haven't posted that picture yet. Oops!) and sometimes I just stop when it feels right.

Then I struggled with the same dilemma I always struggle with - do I shade and highlight? I genuinely liked the way the whole thing looked and think it would have been fine left as it was. I didn't know how shading and highlighting would work on the H2Os. They tend to give you a slick feel which makes surface grabbing kind of tough. I started with a graphite pencil for shading, but quickly gave that up for a pale grey Pitt pen. I used my white General Chalk pencil for some highlights, but when I smudged with my white tortillion the highlights all but wiped away. So most of the highlighting you see came from a white gelly roll pen. I do like the difference the shading and highlighting made - even though it was a stretch to make it work. 
* * * One important last note about the H2Os - and this is critical - don't put the lids back on until every bit of that lovely little paint is absolutely dry! If you put the lid on wet paint it will dry shut and you won't be able to open this jar again without breaking the lid. Not cool! I have this on good authority - not based on experience. * * *
Hahaha! Thank you for reading to the end of this crazy post. I loved making this piece of art! You know me - - - bright, vivid, and colorful are my middle names! Have I shown you my hair recently? Just re-blued last week - thank you, Brittany!!!

I am also going to use this for my Artist's Play Room post once Jenn sets up this week's link. Click below to see some amazing art!

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.