Too Busy

Too busy. That accurately describes my life but I love it! Lots on my plate art wise, swaps, adminning, looking into book options, helping a friend launch a new book tomorrow. (Stay tuned.) Working my Etsy store again, trying to find some me-time to draw, staring out my window at Maine. I love all of it! Hahaha!
Let's do some links. Etsy store is here. Tangles used above are: airways, cee-a-mosa, and  cross bar - all my patterns.
Also Carole Ohl's inapod,  Katy Abbott's kuke, and  zentangle® original tangle printemps.
It's a beautiful day. I think I'll stare out the window some more.  SaveSave

NEW TANGLE: Knights of the Round Table

 I love introducing new tangle patterns!

Here is one I designed that you will find in our new book

Tangle It! Journal!

 This is a fun tangle that came to me one night

as I was watching Merlin episodes on Netflix.

Lots of ways to vary this pattern.

 As well as plenty of ways to incorporate it into your art.

Shading really makes this tangle stand out.

You can just go crazy mixing it up with other round tangles like I did here.

Or other tangles. They don't need to be round.

Knights of the Round Table is a fun, versatile, 

easy to incorporate tangle

I hope you love it and use it alot!

To pick up your copy of the Tangle It! Journal,

click here or here. 

Floral Step Outs, A New Tangle

Here are step outs to another tangle I've been drawing for a couple years.

I've just named it Floral.

No fancy name. 

Floral is super easy to draw. I've used it many times! Either the full flower as you see it here. Or . . . 

. . . a half flower like you see here.

Using color will change the way it looks.

I imagine it will look like different flowers depending on the colors you use.

I am not really up on my flower nomenclature.

Hehehehehe!

Regardless how you tangle it,

regardless what color you make it, 

Floral looks spring-y and summery! 

Feel free to pin the step outs. 

I would love to see what you draw with Floral!

I just realized those steps in the first drawing are a bit tiny. Hahaha! You can see these better!

Alcohol Ink on Yupo

 
I absolutely love working with these alcohol inks! I keep finding new colors,  and new color combinations. I just can't stop!

Their colors are so vibrant and fresh. I use Yupo paper. It has a plastic coating over it, making it perfect for the alcohol inks. I put the color on first, let it dry completely, then use a Copic Multiliner pen to tangle.

And I end up with this. I love it! This is 5" x 7". I am thinking a black mat and a lime green frame.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms,  all the wish-they-were-moms, all the other-moms, all the soon-to-be moms, and all the dads acting as moms. It's your day to celebrate the joy that only a mom knows. To celebrate family. To celebrate that special love. To celebrate you. Cause you, Mom, are worth it!

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.

Spring Colors With the Steps

I started this piece a few months back

and am just now getting back to it.

Let me walk you through the making of it.

One night I had a short window of time to work with, so I decided to set up a few backgrounds to tangle on later.  I really, really love everything I know about Stillman & Birn. Their sketchbooks are wonderful! Heavyweight pages, smooth surfaces, a sturdy cover, and they come in a range of styles. My favorite is the Zeta Series. 180 lb. paper, smooth surface, natural white. Does well with a lot of water/wet media.

 So I used my Zeta series 6" x 8" sketchbook.

I began by placing paper under the page to

keep any wet/color from bleeding/running

onto the next page.

Good thing, too, because I decided to make the next page hot pink!

I spritzed the whole page with water,

then used two colors of Dylusions Ink Sprays.

I sprayed Vibrant Turquoise and Lemon Zest on top

of water and let the colors start running.

Don't worry about that little curving of the paper.

It settles down flat as the inks dry.

 Then I sprayed more water and tilted the sketchbook

from side to side, and back and forth

to get the colors mixing and covering the page.

One trick I've learned is this: 

where you have little specks of color, little dots that

spray out to the sides of your color shot,

spritz some water onto those blank areas

and you will be surprised how much color is actually

there that you don't really see with the eye.

This will give you some lighter areas of color.

And wherever you have too much color, or the color is too dark, 

or you are starting to get concerned about mud,

blot it with a paper towel and lift some of that color.

I keep a roll on my work table.

Actually I buy the pack of 12 rolls from Wal-Mart when they are on sale.

 This is what I ended up with. 

Remember I just used two colors on this page,

yet I see yellows, blue, turquoise, a darker blue,

pale green, spring green, and darker green -

all from the two colors I started with.

I love Dylusions Ink Sprays!

 An important thing to remember is these colors are not watersafe. If you use wet media on top of this page, the colors may very well start moving and blending again. As long as you remember this, you can work with it. It really isn't that big a problem.

To start building my page, I used two stamps strategically placed.

Hahaha! What was my strategy? 

I had no idea. I just like these two particular stamps.

 Then I set the sketchbook aside for a couple months while I worked on other things. Two nights ago I picked it back up and added these tangles. Just look for pops of colors, sections, blobs, areas, whatever you want to call them and add tangles in those sections. I started with the larger circles - the Frankles calls them balls - and made three sections with those. Fleurette, cruffle, kuke, and my own matahari. Then I added some bubbles, tipple, and printemps around them.

Last night I kept adding in those sections of primtemps, bubbles, and tipple, connecting them to the three sections of balls, tieing all those sections together. I even added a free-floating section over the butterfly. Did a little shading and I'm done. Super easy piece to make, the colors are awesome, and I'm happy with it! A nice mixed media looking piece created with ink spray and a Sharpie fine point. Just those two things. Nice spring colors make me smile! And you can so totally do this yourself!

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. 

Christmas in Florida

Yes. You did read that title right. Christmas in Florida.

It's a rough life, but someone's got to live it. These are two cell phone pictures I took in Orlando, at the Walt Disney World resort complex. Swimsuits, beach balls, music, laughter, joyfulness. And that is normal for this time of year in Florida.

Here is another tile I drew while I was there. On a 3 1/2" tile, sprayed with Lindy's Stamp Gang's Flat Fabio sprays. Love those sprays! Then I had some fun with cruffles, jetties, and kuke.
Sorry about those sunny pool shots! But seriously, someone has to live here! And I am up for the challenge. Hehehehehe!

Last Scrap

Let's see. By this time, I should have already been in the pool a couple times, Mark should have already had the boat in the water and caught a bunch of fish. He will also be sunburnt - - - cause that's the way it works. And I expect either Mike or Phil or both will have been here, or they will be on their way to fish! And I will be sitting in the room - or on the balcony in the swing - and I will be drawing and watercoloring. Yay!!!! I can not wait!!! (I totally wrote all this at home on Saturday and scheduled the post to pop up now :D ).

Sunset Colors

I have been crazy busy lately. I'm trying to finish up some edits on senior photos for friends, I just wrapped up artwork for another book submission, and I recently found a wonderful group on Facebook dedicated to the navy base in Argentia, Newfoundland where I grew up. I have been having a blast looking at old yearbooks, posting an old yearbook - literally, searching the house for photos and mementos, reading everyone's posts and looking at pictures. So much fun! And now I seriously want to go visit the place where I grew up. But until then . . . still working on art for books. What you see above is a cut off/trash portion of one of the pieces. I can not post the work I submitted, but I can show you the trash/leftovers. Ta-da!!! I never throw anything away, I will finish this section up and post a completed version soon. Carolyn Boettner described my color preferences as sunset colors. I guess she's right :).

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.

A Nighttime's Drawing, APR #97

I'm back in Maryland spending some time with Kali. I drew this after supper a few nights ago, in my Stillman & Birn Zeta Series sketchbook. The color comes from bubblegum pink and lemon zest  Dylusions Ink Sprays with some spritzed water. Lots of liquid. How did the Zeta Series hold up? Fantastic! No warping at all, just lots of gorgeous, brilliant color! Add a little sharpie in black and you have a fun piece of art. I'm linking this up to the Artist's Play Room post for the week. You can check it out by clicking on the APR box.

Cue the Warthogs

Cue the warthogs and meerkats. Ready the lions, zebras, and giraffes. Prep the elephants and wildebeest, cause it's the circle of life. Hehehehehehe!
Circle of Life lyrics by Tim Rice

From the day we arrive on the planet
And blinking, step into the sun,
There's more to see than can ever be seen
More to do than can ever be done.

There's far too much to take in here,
More to find than can ever be found,
But the sun rolling high
Through the sapphire sky
Keeps great and small on the endless round.

It's the Circle of Life
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope,
Through faith and love,
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the Circle,
The Circle of Life.

It's the Circle of Life
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope,
Through faith and love,
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding,
In the Circle,
The Circle of Life.

A little more twinchie fun today, this time in circles. 

I used watercolor paper - Bristol Smooth from Stathmore - 

and Dylusions Ink Spray, Wink of Stella Glitter Pens,

and At You Spica Pens.

Time to Create

It has been a crazy few weeks. Due to an injured achilles tendon, I have been spending a lot of time sitting with my foot propped up on an ice pack. Trying to draw when I could , but finding it hard to keep my concentration and focus due to pain. Then Kali had some issues which necessitated a trip to the hospital for her and a plane flight for me. I took a rough spill in a dark movie theatre and smashed a knee, shoulder, and hip, and twisted the bad foot - setting me back to ground zero on the healing achilles problem. I spent two weeks there and just returned home last night. I am sooooo tired!!!

I still have ATCs to complete for the CZT Deck Swap, but I am closing in on being finished :). Here are a couple closeups of one of the larger sheets I am working on. It will eventually be cut down into 16 ATCs.
As a side note, now that I am back home I hope to start doing some massive overhauls on the blog, my Pinterest boards, my Etsy store, and setting up a Facebook group to make things more cohesive and easier to access. I believe I need a focus for the facebook group. There are many zentangle/tangle pages already out there. And in all truthfulness I am more of a Zentangle Inspired Art person than a Zentangle person. Do you have any suggestions for a focus in a facebook group? Something that isn't already being done to death? I have some ideas, but I'd like to hear what some of you might suggest. Thanks :)