A Little More Color

Last night I posted a sneak peek of a project I was working on. Here is the finished art. As a reminder, the colors were washed on first - using a simple watercolor pans kit from the toy aisle at Wal-Mart. You can get some really pretty colors. Then I used a Pitt Artist Pen for the linework. I hadn't used girdy or hibred in awhile. I also used two of my patterns - pipez and crete. You can find the step outs for those two in "My Patterns" at the top of this page. I love Margaret Bremner's copada tangle and use it frequently. 
After I posted last night, someone asked me about crete. That pattern was based on cinder blocks/concrete blocks. There was a time when my children were breaking concrete blocks with a hammer fist in karate, so we have several of them sitting around the yard. Crete looks a lot like those blocks. Why don't you give it a try and see what you come up with?

String 023

This week's string challenge at Tangle Patterns comes from Barbara Finwall. Here is my response. This is what we were given:

This one was a lot of fun and gave the possibility of many tangles. If you would like to participate, you can pick up the template here.

String 022

This week's string challenge was a lot of fun! I tangled two tile - this was my second. I am getting behind on homework in an online class, but I wanted to get something posted today. 

This was the pattern Linda gave us at Tangle Patterns. (Imagine my tile upside-down.) The string originated from Margaret Bremner.  I tried something a little different with the shading this week. Still trying to decide if I like it or not. 

Good news is I was released from jury duty which leaves more time for art this week! Yay!!! Not that I mind sitting on a jury. (Not sure what a defendant would think about a retired cop being one of the jurists deciding their fate.) It's just more fun being able to stay home and paint and draw and organize and read and . . . well, you get the idea. (Wow!!! Did I say organize?)

Oh, Canada - APR #16

Jenn at Just Add Water, Silly, is hosting the Artist's Play Room again this week! Jenn is Canadian and in honor of Canada's birthday - this week's theme is All Things Canadian. Those of us here in the USofA could do a USA theme if we wanted to. I grew up in Newfoundland, and for many years had dual citizenship. I decided to go Canadian for this challenge. My drawing is above. Here's a break-down.

Depending on where you live, Canada has huge deer, caribou, moose -  I went with the deer. I never saw any caribou in the part of the country I lived in, but I saw lots of moose and deer. 

To represent the Butchart Gardens in British Columbia, I added a totem pole, some flower fields, and some water. Drawing these two pages and picking just the right tangles to fill the areas was a challenge all by itself.

Then I used Pitt Artist's Markers and my Derwent Inktense Pencils and watercolored my picture. I love the way this looks like a snowy, wintery dawn.

Butchart Gardens - ta-da!

Tangles used: feagle, pais, sproing, papyrus, fractal tree, buttercup, flutter, sag, angel fish, keeko, pokeleaf, hibred, florz, rags, and printemps.

You can check out everyone's contribution here. You still have time to join us!

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!

Whale! Swim with me, Whale! We will swim far into the sea.
Lyrics from Whale, by Yellow Ostrich.


I was working on this tangle a couple nights ago when my daughter walked past my desk and commented, "nice whale." At that point, I had the string drawn and was working on the pattern hibred that you see filling in the head of the whale. There was one circle on the right-hand side of the drawing and that was it. So, I added a second 'eye' and shaded the lower corner to make a body. Ta-da! Whale! 


This past fall, Kali traveled with a team of ten teens teaching debate and speech skills to students across the United States. They traveled and taught for five months - representing the Institute For Cultural Communicators. One of the songs the team listened to as they traveled was Whale! 


So, today - enjoy my little whale and if you get a minute, check out Whale by Yellow Ostrich. It's different! (And the opening line of the song is Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! - hence, the title of this post.)