To Shade a Dragon

 So I've been working on this

steampunk dragon

for quite some time.

A little here, a little there.

As the ideas hit me.

This is what he looked like this morning.

I realized I had never shaded him.

Shading is not my favorite.

I really dislike shading,

but it makes such a difference.

As you have heard me say time and again.

Shade.

Because this is what happens when you shade.

So much depth and dimension.

I tried out a steampunk name generator

on google.

It came up with the name Bramhall.

Sounds like a good dragon name to me.

Bramhall.

To shade or not to shade?

Shade. 

You Never Know Where You'll End Up

Many times I sit down to tangle,

to draw,

and I have no idea where I'm going.

I just draw lines.

And sometimes it ends up looking like this

when I am finished. 

Hahaha!

Like one crazy mixed up line critter.

 So let me show you how I arrived.

I began by laying down a bunch of curving,

rambling swervy lines and

joined the tails back to some touchpoint

in the drawing. 

Nothing is left open-ended on the outer edge.

(This idea came about from something 

I saw on Pinterest.)

 I just picked a couple sections and

began filling the little worm shapes in

with curving lines.

Some curve under, some curve over.

 And I just kept going until all the worm shapes

were filled with lines.

 Some of those little 'tails' formed shapes which

I could blacken in with a white highlight . . .

 . . . and I noticed they were looking a bit like

eyes, so I connected some more lines

and made some more little eye shapes.

Some of those white spaces began to fill up

with more line work.

 And then it was complete.

Except two of those spaces called for gem stones.

With drop highlights underneath.

And my little crazy critter cried out for  shading to bring him to life.

Comparison for you. To shade or not to shade. This was drawn in a beige colored sketchbook as part of my Getting Sketchy weekly series in Facebook group  Zentangle All Around. Shade? Definitely! And because you just never know where you'll end up, I now have one cute little crazy critter!
What can you do with this line idea? I would love to see what you come up with!

Zentangle Challenge

 I admin a group on Facebook called

Zentangle All Around.

We focus on tangles that have some element

of roundness in them - 

a curve or oval or circle - anything round at all.

And we are currently doing a year long focus

on strings. The thought being that at the

end of 2016 we will have 366 pieces of

zentangle art with some element

of roundness to them.

Yesterday I offered the challenge to try  Caren Mlot's tangle navaho  with my tangle All Boxed Up. So this is what I did with them. I worked on a square about 4 inches across. The top tile shows my work unshaded. Across the top is Julie Beland's beauchamp mixed with my baubles, then All Boxed Up to the right. Across the middle is my tangle semaphore. Then in the lower right corner you see Caren's navaho. (Sorry, I haven't posted step outs for semaphore yet.)
The second tile shows the piece totally shaded. I don't do heavy shading like some pieces of art you see online, I go for the lighter touch. But even in the lighter touch, you can see the difference shading makes in your art. Caren's navaho stands out a lot more, the beauchamp baubles are more 3D-ish, and All Boxed Up looks like a completely different tangle.

Challenge for you today? Try these two tangles and let me see what you do. You can post them directly on our Facebook wall - Zentangle All Around.
In case you are new to my blog ~ anywhere you see pink, click there. It is a link because . . .  pink = link. SaveSave

Relaxing With Narwal

We are finally all settled in and my office/studio is looking pretty good. And workable. Now if I can just keep it clean. As if. Hahahahahaha!
I've spent the past few days in Bar Harbor, Maine, working on some art but mostly relaxing. And eating. Photos will come soon.
This is a piece I started some time ago, but saved the shading. I dislike shading intensely but it makes such a difference in your  finished work. Perservere and do it. It really is worth the effort. (And I love drawing narwal, so that was an added bonus.)
That background wall is my tangle called blox. Here is a link to the steps. Hoping to be a bit more regular with posting now that we are all unpacked. Thank you for being so patient. You're the best!

Week 5 of the Daily Twinchies

I knew when I started this 

'one-twinchie-a-day' thing,

that I would eventually fall behind.

There is just so many other things I could

be doing with my life

Yet, I think it's important to stick with

trying to draw one twinchie a day when I can,

because it keeps my hand in the game.

It keeps my brain engaged in the tangle world.

So many times I would rather play with color

and inks

and paints

and pastels

and watercolors -

well, you get the idea.

Making myself tangle black on white is something

I have to intentionally make myself do.

Sorry.

I know as a Certified Zentangle Teacher

I should probably spend more time in 

the traditional tangling method

and this one twinchie a day thing is how

I am accomplishing that.

So.

Week Five and just a week or so behind schedule.

Not bad for me, actually.

Then I had that whole shade-or-not-shade

conversation. So I am showing you both versions.

I just titled this jpg 'compare'. Pretty much covers it. Until next week. Hopefully.
And Happy Valentine's Day!

Punzeled Arukas Part Deux

Yesterday I posted a tile with the unshaded version of the drawing you see here.
I drew this on an 8" x8" sheet of stonehenge paper. I love stonehenge! Smooth, takes the pen well. And it takes shading well, too. Like a dream!
What a difference a shade makes!

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!  

Aquafleur

Aquafleur was never my friend. I tried this tangle several times and basically gave up on it. Then, last month I attended a training/workshop where an instructor taught us her way to draw aquafleur. And it just clicked. It made sense. Aquafleur is now comfortable for me. At least in a flower shape. Hmmmm. Perhaps I should try it out with random shapes??? Let me get back to you on that one. 
Note to self: random shapes, aquafleur, check it out, post it tomorrow if it doesn't stink. And mayhaps even if it does. 

What a Difference a Shade Makes

I started this drawing quite some time ago, but didn't like the way it was going. I put it away and decided last night to bring it back out and work on it again. In the past, I would have left it unshaded, but recently I've been working on my shading.

Even though I like the drawing unshaded, it looks so much more complete by just adding a bit here and there. 

It's as simple as laying down a line with the flat edge of a pencil and smudging it with a tortillion in the areas you want shading. Since this is zentangle, and there is no right or wrong, forget light sources. Shade the edges you want to be darker. You will notice in a couple spots I used a white gelly roll to add some highlights. There weren't many places to do this since I used a white sheet of paper as my base, but I used some highlights where I could and it really makes a difference in the overall appearance. Shading really does make a difference. 

Mandalas With Margaret Bremner

Last week I attended a wonderful, fun-filled couple of days in Paradise! Paradise Beach in Florida that is, at the Retreat to Paradise. A fast-packed three days learning new techniques with some fellow tanglers - what an awesome time we had! This was the retreat's second year being held, and I'm fortunate to say it was my second year being there. 
We had some real heavy-hitters for instructors! Margaret Bremner has long been my go-to artist when I look at mandalas and whoot! whoot! Margaret was one of our instructors! I can't even begin to tell you how excited I was to be in her class and learn from her. Over the next couple posts I will be able to show you a bit more of what I learned, but for today I wanted to share our first project. This one was a bit more structured than the other mandalas Margaret taught. As a retired homeschool mom I fully understand that different people learn in different ways. One of the things I enjoyed about Margaret's teaching was that she taught to different learning perspectives. She walked us through this project step by step. Draw this, do this, make this happen here. As I post the other two projects, you will see that the teaching direction took different forms, allowing us to take what we learned in making this mandala and make the other two with less direction. Pretty awesome stuff! 
In building the above mandala, I learned a new tangle. One I don't think I've ever seen before. It's called crossview and it comprises that center focal point. Crossview was designed by Daniele O'Brien, CZT, and it was a lot of fun to draw! I love how dimensional the shading makes it! You should go to Daniele's blog link in pink just right up there and give it a go yourself! Now to finish up those other mandalas and get them posted!

Shading Makes the Difference

I actually drew this garden about a year ago and posted it then. I pretty much hated to shade anything and rarely ever made the effort. Last week I went to a class taught by Meredith Yuhas, one of our CZTs, and Meredith taught us a quick way of shading that I really locked on to. Last night I pulled this picture back out and tried out some of the new things we learned.

You know that old saying what a difference a day makes? Well, I can pretty much attest to that! In fact, Meredith taught us how to shade and highlight this whole thing and it took me about 5 minutes tops.  In fact, I was so impressed with the difference that I photoshopped a collage of the two - - -

- - - for comparison purposes. So, when in doubt, think about this little experiment of mine and pull out those graphites, and white pens, and get busy. Thanks, Meredith! You are the bomb! For sure.

To Shade or Not to Shade

Tangle Patterns has given us another string to work with. This week's string comes from Jill Dobis. Last week's string and this week's are different in that they have several round shapes and aren't just a swooping string slashed across the tile a couple times. This one makes you think.

I thought I'd talk about shading today. I'm still learning about shading, so don't think I am an expert at it, but I am starting to understand it a little better. Above is the tile I drew following Jill's string. Pretty much just as it was rendered. AND I didn't really clean this tile up in photoshop like I usually do. So it looks a little rougher than normal. Absolutely no shading. I think it looks alright as it is and sometimes I leave my tiles with no shading, but look what a difference shading can make. 

Same tile with shading. And I just thought of an idea - hold on for a minute while I jump over to photoshop . . . 

 . . . I don't know if this helps or not. Can you tell the difference in the two tile when they are side by side? I hope so. Cleaned up and shaded - tile # two is my favorite! I tried to shade anywhere a section tucks underneath another section, along seamlines, and to the right-hand side as if the light was shining on the tile from the left-upper area. Hope that makes sense. If it doesn't - send me a comment and I'll try to explain it better :).

This was part of Tangle Patterns' string 016 challenge. You can check it out here, and tangle up a string of your own!