Still Working on This

My blogging has been erratic lately and  I should explain why. l went to the ophthalmologist back in July. I was told then that I had cataracts starting and to come back if I noticed a change in vision. 
I was fine for a while. Then I starting noticing that I was having trouble drawing. I bought different reading glasses, thinking that would help. It did not.
I started having trouble driving at night. Approaching car headlights made huge halos of light. Sometimes the halos covered both lanes of traffic.  I was in Denver a couple weeks ago and needed to drive at night. There are literally thousands of lights in downtown Denver. Add to that all the headlights and taillights  of hundreds of cars. Everything was one massive halo. I had to park the car and get someone else  to get me home. 
As soon as I got back to Maine I went to the doctor and told him about the changes in my vision. They did what is called a glare test and determined that my cataracts were severely worse and that I needed to have them removed as soon as possible.
In Maine "as soon as possible" means January. In the meantime my drawing/tangling is significantly decreased. That would be why you are seeing more "color" posts from me.
My left eye is 20/70, my right is 20/40. I have a pair of distance glasses that correct  my vision to 20/20 but they are only for distance. So I can drive in the daylight.  And I'm at the point where I'm not real comfortable with that now either.
So please be patient while I wait to get my eyes fixed and I can get back to tangling.
This photo above is actually a small block  of a larger piece I've been working on off and on for the past year. I love the colors. I am using an 005 micron to make tiny delicate lines. Can't do too much of that right now, so it is on my To-Do list for when I can see again.
What are you working on? Is it inspired by the season? The holidays? I'd love to know!

A Little Airport Tangling

If you have followed my blog for any length of time, you already know how much I love color. Bright color. In your face bold color. I love it!

You will also know that we recently moved way north. Thankfully it doesn't reach 100-105° F here - hallelujah - but it does require me to make a monthly trip down south to take care of my mother. Which means a lot of airport time. I knew that my last trip would include a two hour layover at Reagan International and I wanted to  stay busy. I pulled out my Peerless Watercolor swatches  and a Stillman & Birn sketchbook and got busy.

I used a water brush and touched it to the swatches - seriously that's all you do - and laid down splotches of beautiful color until the page was filled. At the airport, I found a table at the food court  and pulled out a Sharpie Fine Point and got busy. 

If you look at each section of color, you will easily be able to see what I did. One tangle in one section of color. There are a couple places where I carried the crescent moon tangle over into another section, but mostly it was one tangle per. For this piece of art I used: diva dance rock 'n roll,  crescent moon, tipple and printemps, and that's it.  Easy piece to create even if it does look a little harder than it really was to make. I have a product review on peerless watercolors here.  Bright, bold, and portable. Just exactly what I need them to be! SaveSave

The Blog is Staying Here!!!

Hallelujah! We are staying here! With some help from a wonderful man named Grayson, with iMark Interactive, we were able to fix the blog simply by removing the counter. This problem has been plaguing my blog for a long time. Cindy and I have deleted so many features, and it was the counter provided as a widget here through blogger. Not cool, but at least it's fixed.
To celebrate, Cindy changed my background to this colorful, crazy mashup that I love so much! There should never be any doubt whose blog you are visiting.  Hahahaha!
And for today's post - here is what I am calling Crazy Betweed! I love the way this turned out, just by curving the ends of the betweed layers. And those open-faced crescent moons is  something I saw on pinterest and  fell in love with!
Thanks for stopping by! Please let me know what you think about the new blog look. Is all the color mind-blowing? Or is it just right?

String #15 and Diva #243 Combined

Welcome to Thursday String Idea #15.

 Yes, I still owe you a step out for ringz, but first

here is Thursday String Idea #15,

also posing as The Diva's challenge #243 - Just a Tiny Taste.

A simple string on the surface.

Deciding where to go with those sections is another thing.

If you would like to print the string out at the 3.5" square size, 

click here and print.

Then just pick a section and start tangling.

For me, when I looked at this string I had

crescent moon screaming out my name. 

I draw my crescent moon a little different than most,

but this is what consistently works for me. 

The Diva's Challenge was to consider white space. 

More specifically to leave a majority of the tile blank.

I didn't quite hit the mark on the "majority"

but this is still a major step for me. 

Like the Diva - I tend to tangle everything in site,

every bit of the paper is filled when I am done.

So this was a bit of a challenge for me,

and isn't that what the Diva Challenge is all about anyway?

Stretching us to be better tanglers.

If you would like to see all the artwork posting this Diva Challenge, click here.

If you would like to print the string out, click here. 

I would love to see what you do.

AND if you are new to my blog,

wherever you see pink in the post, that means it is a link, because

Pink = Link.

4Mom, Jane Eileen's New Tangle

 Here is a pretty cool new tangle my friend and fellow CZT Jane Eileen created for Mother's Day!

Jane was playing around with this new tangle. As she drew it out, this is what she saw on row two and the name right away became 4Mom.

Jane has a pretty fantastic blog called  See Jane Run  where you can see her beautiful renditions of 4Mom,  as well as a host of other goodies!

Here is a little two inch Bijou tile I drew,  stacking Copada with 4Mom.  A lot of punch in a little tile!

This is another 2" Bijou tile, stacking 4Mom with flux.
My tile at the very top of this post stacks 4Mom with crescent moon and my own tangle TootsieMoon.

 4Mom is a versatile tangle, with lots of tangleation possibilities.

We'd don't you join us and give 4Mom a try this week!  

Test Driving My Wall Book

 My friend Jane gave our art journal group the challenge of stacking.

Stacking tangles,

stacking text,

stacking text and tangles,

stacking colors with any of the above.

Jane showed some examples of stacking,

and in a couple pictures she showed drawings she had made in her wall book.

I thought, I have a wall book that I rarely use.

So I pulled it out and tangled the stacks you see above

 in the page on the right.

It started out as a blank brick wall. 

(This is an actual two-page spread in the book.)

 I started at the bottom and worked my way up.

I love the way it turned out.

Looks like that art could be real graffiti.

(Fourth tangle up from the bottom,

is one I made up for this page.

I'm calling it Box It Up.

I'll post step-outs for it in tomorrow's post.)

In case you wondered, and even if you didn't, hahaha!

from the bottom up, the tangles are:

shattuck, copada, curlz (one I came up with at CZT training,) 

box it up, variation of crescent moon, flying geese, rain, 

curvy variation of shattuck, twing, laced, and footlites.

Here is the wall book, which I have been calling by the 

wrong name for the past couple weeks! 

I got mine at Amazon,

(I mean, really, is there any where else?)

Walls Notebook by Sherwood Forlee.

 I enjoyed that stacking stuff so much I decided to do a second page. 

I decided to go with graffiti circles and tangles that draw the eye to that post rising from top to bottom of the page.

And here is the completed page. 
Tangles from bottom to top: shattuck (yes, I love this one,) puf, shattuck  (see what I mean?), rain, box it up, and flying geese again.
And remember, anywhere you see pink words, that means it's a link.  Click on it and you will be taken to step-outs for that tangle. Cause pink = link. In every picture I draw, I include my chop. My signature. At least I try to. You see it just under this post. My initials with the leaf - for The Creator's Leaf. I don't always date the drawing - on the drawing itself - it's usually on the back. For this page, though, I included it on the front. Can you find it? And my chop? (It's kind of obvious.)
P.S. ~ time for you to try out this whole stacking thing. No rules, except you pile it up. Words, tangles, colors, elements. Whatever media you want to use. It's stacking time!

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. 

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!

I Can Draw That With My Eyes Shut Tight!

Draw with your eyes shut? Strange question? Perhaps, but that is exactly what the Diva asked us to do this week in her The Diva Challenge. I always love this challenge. I've gotten away from using a string when I tangle. I like the freeness that comes from not using a string. But sometimes we just need to go back to our roots. Back to where it all began and start over. That is what Laura asked us to do in this week's Diva Challenge. 
I took a 3 1/2" zentangle tile and used a pencil to lay down a dot in each corner, then connected the dots with lines forming a box. With my eyes open :).
Then I closed my eyes, kept one hand on the tile so I would know where it was, and I drew a string. I like loopy-di-loops, so it kind of went in that direction.
Then I opened my eyes and went whoa! not such a great string! But I had decided beforehand that I would go wherever my blind string took me . . .

. . . and this is what I drew. I am forcing myself to leave some white space (negative space) in my tangling lately.  And also lately - I am having trouble remembering what tangles I actually know. I have 4 or 5 basic ones that I use all the time. Talk about being stuck in a rut. So, I have started working on something that I learned from Cherryl Moote that I will share with you soon.  An ongoing work in progress. Coming soon.
For now, head on over to the Diva's page here and check out all the blind string offerings. You could even close your eyes and try your hand at a blind string.  I'd love to see how it turns out!

TootsieMoon, APR #111

You might be thinking, "hmmmm, that's a strange name for a post!" Or perhaps you didn't even read the post title, but you just looked at it after reading that first sentence. Hahaha! Last night I posted the above picture on my facebook page The Creator's Leaf and said that I was working on something new.

I continued working on this piece as the night got later and later. Working in my 7" square Stillman & Birn Zeta Series sketchbook always makes me happy! Perfect paper for tangling on! (And for adding a little color later on!) 
As I continued drawing, this is what came out of my pen. Circle upon circle upon circle. And I just kept adding little bumps here and there, and auraing them, and moving on. I know this is similar to other tangles, but I haven't seen it drawn quite like this. As I looked at the piece, it kept reminding me of one particular thing. Hence, the first part of the name. (Could you tell I was hungry?) 
Then I started auraing the sections within the primary circle, like you would with crescent moon. And when you combine the two things - you get tootsiemoon - and that would be where the post title came from! Step-outs to follow soon, along with some more examples. 
For now though, I want to link up to Artist's Play Room for their weekly artsy challenge. Click on Jenn's link and go check out what everyone is doing this week. You can even link up to your own art so the rest of us can enjoy what you're learning!  

Joey's Weekly Tangle Challenge #13

Recently I came across a new tangle challenge - from Joey. She is a serious creator and crafter, and now she is offering a zentangle challenge each Monday. This week's challenge is: tangling in a circle. I expect most tanglers are going to work on mandalas, I chose not to go that route. We were allowed to use one circle - I decided to make that circle my string. I used a portion of crescent moon. Unless there is another tangle that looks like an uncompleted crescent moon - then I used that tangle :).  Throw in a little fescu (I'm just now seeing that no tangles are supposed to go outside the circle, sorry, pretend those outer fescus aren't there) and a little diva dance rock 'n roll. And there you have it. My first Joey challenge piece done. I didn't shade this piece because I might go back and watercolor it. Then, I will shade with color. If you want to get involved - you know you do! - check out Joey's page right here.

(Now I just need to go back and check out challenges 1-12. Joey leaves them open-ended so we can go back at any time and post to those link-ups as well!)

Let Me Show You The Steps

People laugh when I tell them I can't draw, but seriously - I can't! What I can do is take something one step at a time, and keep adding and building on it until I am finished. Let me show you what I mean.

Let's draw this tile. This is my completed project and is was easy peasy to do. (Is that how you spell that? I always think about English peas in a can and just add a 'y' to it, but that doesn't mean it's right.)

Anyway, let's draw! I began with a 3 1/2" square piece of paper. In the tangle/zentangle world we call this a tile. (And I am going to go ahead and apologize for the angle of these pictures. I took these on a night when I was once again having achilles tendonitis issues and was sitting on a chaise lounge icing my ankle. Thus the angle. Sorry.)
So. Take your tile and a pen (I use a Sharpie fine point) and draw a random squiggly line across a good portion of the tile. This is the line you will build your drawing from. 

Then start at one end of the line and draw a running zig-zag line from one end to the other, crossing back and forth over your original line. This tangle - or pattern - is called rain. It is one of the official zentangle patterns. Your zig-zag does not need to be evenly sized, so don't worry about that!

Now use your pen to fill in all those lovely little triangles with ink. You will have a curvy rope of blackened triangles when you are done.

(One little trick to remember - and it will make a world of difference - is to turn your tile as you draw. If it is easier to draw with the tile turned in a particular direction - turn it. I find myself rotating mine all the time to make it easier.) Next I want you to mimic the triangles with a running line that lightly borders it. This is called an aura - which is defined as  an emanation surrounding something. I try to do mine about 1/4" from whatever I am auraing. (Say that 20 times fast - auraing, auraing, auraing, auraing, I can't even type it fast!) Draw your aura along one side of the triangles, then turn your tile and draw an aura along the opposite side of the triangles.

Now I want you to aura the whole thing. One looping aura on each side of the rain line and zig-zags. Then I went back inside the four inner loops and made another little aura in those. You may or may not have these loops - depending on how big you drew your line originally. 

Inside those four loops, I drew a tangle I designed and named matahari. There is a bit more to it, but I just used part of it for this drawing. Start at the top of one of the loops, make a rounded v-shape down into the loop, and add a little tiny tear drop - like water dripping off - under it. 

Next, thicken up those outside lines. You can either do this with a wider pen/marker - or you can draw another line close to your outer auras and fill it in with black. Whatever is easiest with the pens you have. I just loped it across the top and under the bottom. I think this is called thickening your lines, but I'm not absolutely positive. (This is my blog, so I guess I can call it anything I want to. Right? Hehehehe!)

Along the outer edge of those thickened black lines, add a line of little black humps - try to space them somewhat evenly. This is beginning of another official tangle called crescent moon.

The next step in crescent moon involves more auraing - yay!!! you should have that auraing thing down by now. So, I want you to aura two lines around those crescent moon shapes along both sides of your drawing. Remember - turn your tile as often as you need to. (And can you believe it? You are almost done!)

Next, I took a white gelly roll pen and made a little tiny circle in the center of every one of those crescent moon hump shapes. It just adds a nice highlight. If you don't have a gelly roll pen, a white pencil may also work. (Or you could leave that part out and come back to it after you make a trip to Michael's to buy a white gelly roll pen. Hahaha! I know you want to!)

I have a clear glittery gelly roll pen that I used to fill in the outer auras. This is not a necessary step, but one I enjoy using a lot!

Your drawing is now complete. To give it some depth, some 3-D'ness if you will, take a pencil and light shade a line along the inside of those large auras. I just use the side of a regular pencil - along with a light touch! Then you can smudge that line with the tip of your pinkie finger. This little bit of shading will make a world of difference in your finished drawing. It makes those curves recede and gives more dimension to your art. You now have a finished piece of art that you can be proud of! (And if anyone cares - we used three tangle patterns in total.)
There are lots of tangle patterns! I mean loads and loads! There are a couple places you can find them if you want to try your hand at some more drawing. I have a bunch of pinterest boards here that show the steps to hundreds of tangle patterns, as well as boards showing completed tangle art. You can also find patterns online at Tangle Patterns here.  New ones show up there all the time. Now, go have some fun! You'll be glad you did! And congratulations on that awesome piece of art you created!