Daily Twinchies, Week Six

Here is my week six in the daily twinchies quest for 2015. Hahaha!  Not bad, considering there have been eight weeks in 2015 already. This week I seemed to be leaning more towards organic tangles. I tend to be doing that more and more lately.
The real news is - - - I am in Colorado! Visiting Kali, my pastry chef. Up to our eyeballs in snow. Good grief! (And if you read yesterday's post,  you know I am typing these posts out ahead of time. I just know they are buried in snow right now, and it's still snowing.) Hahahaha!

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!

Week 4 of the Daily Twinchies

So, technically I know you shouldn't use contractions, or actual numbers (instead of spelling them out) in blog posts.  But, this is my blog and I'm lazy. I tend to write and type the way I talk. No grammar police here, folks. Hahahaha!
Week 4 of my daily twinchie self-challenge is here. Four days late, but it's here. It's been a whole month and I'm still drawing twinchies at night. Yay me!!!!! Hahahaha!
And on another note -  Happy Superb Owl Sunday! Hehehehehe. Such a rebel.

Brusho Crystal Colors - Product Review

A couple days ago I blogged about making this awesome tree. I had a lot of people contact me through email, through facebook, instagram, and pinterest, to ask me about Brusho Crystal Colors. To those that asked - here you go! Brusho Crystal Colors product review.

Never heard of Brushos? I found out about them on pinterest. Everything you ever needed to know can be found on  Pinterest!  The Brusho® website describes them as:
brilliantly intense paint powder that comes in little pots of magic!
Hahaha! So true! Little plastic pots filled with crystals of beautiful, lush color. My starter set came with 12 pots of color. I began by making a color chart.

Brushos are activated when they hit water.  Literally all I did to make this chart was to put a drop of water on my paper using a mop brush, then I shook/tapped some of the crystals into the wet drop, and waited.
The brusho crystals are a fine powder. The little spots you see in random places on my paper are the fine little bits of color that didn't reach the water. And I was a little stingy on the color, these could have been brighter and more intense, as you will see as you read through this post.

The first project I made was this tree. I used three techniques.
For the tree trunk, I used a paint palette and mixed some dark brown crystals with a wet paint brush. Then I just painted on the trunk and some random limbs.
For the top part of the tree, I used a mop brush and spread a layer of water across the area where I wanted there to be leaves. Then I used purple, lemon, and emerald green crystals - by simply tapping the color straight into the water I had spread on the paper, allowing them to  spread and mix.  Easy peasy. I promise.
I did the same thing under the tree: wet the area, sprinkled some color, then used a wet paintbrush to mix the colors and spread them a bit.
You can dry this with a heat gun if you wish, but my understanding is the heat may mute the color. So I left it to dry while we ate dinner.

 For the next project, I used a sheet of Bristol Smooth Mixed Media paper.

(I will do a detailed post later showing the steps in this project.)

Basically what I did was use a mop brush and plenty of water 

to draw the larger flowers on the paper.

The Brusho crystals were sprinkled into each area and left to mix.

In some areas I used more than one color.

In a few spots I used a small paint brush to push color where I wanted it to go.

The leaves were added the same way the tree trunk was added in the first project.

Once this was completely dry, I added tangling with a Sharpie fine point.

I did not have any trouble drawing on the Brusho at all.

The Brusho dried flat and smooth, and 

accepted the penwork with no problems.

No skips, no pulls on the nib, no dragging lines.

Smooth as could be!

The Brusho colors were consistently bright,

intense and beautiful. I really love the way the purple shows several different colors.

The black does the same, I just haven't used it in a project yet.

Here is the completed drawing. This paper is 9" x 12", and the colors really are this bright and beautiful in person! Super simple to make.

Here is a smaller piece, made on smooth watercolor paper. I made closely spaced blobs of water with a paint brush, then sprinkled the color into the water drops. I used a small paint brush to fill in the areas, and make it look like the flowers were overlapping.
I did have a bit of an issue when I got one wet color too close to another wet color. They wanted to bleed into each other. I found that a paper towel to blot up the excess and create a barrier between the colors worked very well.
To make the background, I mixed water and crystals in a paint palette. I made a well of lemon, one of lime green, and one of yellow. I used lots of water to create washes, which I spread onto the paper with a wide, flat brush. (Sorry, I'm not all that familiar with the brush names.) This piece came together really well once I figured out how to deal with the bleedover in the wet colors.

Up to this point I used paper made for water. I wanted to experiment on some of the other papers that I routinely draw on. Here I used a Zentangle® Bijou® twinchie. A little two inch bit of paper. 
I made this a little backwards from the first projects. I sprinkled color onto the dry paper,  using purple, turquoise (love this color!), and lemon. (I prefer the lemon over the yellow. I would have thought they would be similar, but the yellow has a lot of orange in it. I am not a fan of orange.) Once I felt I had enough crystals on the tile, I hit it with one spritz of water from my spray bottle. Then I left it to sit, this is how it turned out. Awesome! Paper didn't curl, it stayed flat, and dried nice and smooth.

I was happy with the way the twinchie performed, so I moved on to Zentangle® ATCs. I began by tangling with a Sharpie Fine Point. Then I liberally sprayed them all with water (and said a thank you prayer that the pen didn't smear.) I sprinkled a color on each ATC. 
Up to this point I had let the color stay as brilliant as it developed.  I wondered what would happen if I blotted up a good bit of the color. So as I sprayed and colored these, I completely blotted them - removing a decent amount of color. Then I added more color, sometimes a second color, and blotted again. This is how they turned out. A little muted, but still quite beautiful.

Moving on, I took a large sheet of mixed media paper  and a mop brush and slopped tons of water all across the page. I mean lots of water! Then I sprinkled on all the colors I like best - leaf green, purple, ultramarine, and turquoise.
I tilted the page and spread color all across the surface, then covered the whole thing with a piece of kitchen plastic wrap. When you use the plastic wrap, feel free to push it gently with your fingertips so it causes these little creases.

I left the paper intact with the plastic wrap right where it sat, and let it dry overnight.
The next morning, the first thing I noticed was the plastic wrap had moved and flattened out on the paper. The little texture creases weren't there anymore. I was really disappointed. Until I removed the wrap. Even though the creases didn't show in the wrap, they still showed on the paper. This is how it looked dry. And quite frankly - I love it! Reminds me of rich, beautiful batiks!

I took the same steps with this one, except before placing the plastic wrap down -  I dropped a lot of sea salt into the wet puddles. Then I added the wrap, scrunched it up into texture creases, and left it to dry overnight.

This is my favorite piece so far! I removed the plastic wrap, smoothed off the remaining salt crystals with the flat edge of an old Disney World hotel room key (think credit card), and this is how it turned out!
This was a 9" x 12" sheet of Bristol smooth. The colors are wonderful and the texture worked better with the salt!

I am really happy with the way the Brushos have reacted  in the several projects I did. The colors are bright and intense (you know how I am about my color!), they lay down smooth and flat, and they are a dream to draw on. The papers I chose to use worked well, there was no pilling, and very minimum warping. I like the results so much in fact - that I went online and ordered the other twelve colors they come in so I will have them all!
Next project? Brushos meet the gelli plate. Stay tuned.

Daily Twinchies, Week Three

Week three was completed on time, I just didn't get it posted till now. I'm getting this down to a bit of a routine. Late at night I draw a twinchie, drink my Sobe Life Water, and watch either Merlin or Once Upon a Time.
For me the hardest part is figuring out what to draw on something so small. Hopefully this will become second nature before long.

My studio assistant had to give up her cart. Previously I had all these different types of paints and inks stored in boxes. I've noticed I'm doing more color recently - I know that's hard to believe, hehehe - so this cart will make it easier to grab what I'm looking for. And it's on wheels so I can hide relocate it when the Frankles comes over. I'm such a mean Grammy.
(For anyone interested - the cart came from IKEA. The brand is Raskog, it's called a utility cart. $49.99, unless you catch it on sale.)

Twinchie Time

Twinchies are tiny little works of art. Drawn on a 2" square tile of paper, twinchies are shared and traded between artists.
I have a really hard time deciding what to do with a 2" piece of paper, so for this new year I decided to try to draw one twinchie a day.  Above are my twinchies for January 1-7, 2015.

I'm starting to get the hang of this a little more each day.  Here is week two, January 8-14, 2015.
So far, so good. I'm not falling behind although some days I do have to do more than one twinchie because I missed the day before. Minor technical difficulty. It's all good.

More of Those Cute Little Twinchies

At least I think they are cute little twinchies! Two inch squares of awesomeness. Oh! And some beautiful color also!
My eyes are doing better today. We think I was having problems with allergies. Who knew there was pollen when half the country is getting ready to face snow? Yep! Pine pollen in sunny Florida. Yet another reason not to live in Florida. That and the killer hot summers! Did I mention I love snow?

Journal Around the World, #3

Exciting news!!! I finally got my spread in the third Journal Around the World completed!

It's a virtual explosion of crazy color, fun tangles, and you even get a little introduction to Bijou! (Zentangle's ® new twinchie tile.)

So much fun! From here the Journal travels to Springtown, Texas, for Donna Hornsby to add a little artistic beauty! Whoot! Whoot!

Pink is Where It's At

I had a good week in Maryland. Kali and I went to see the movie Divergent on her night off. I recently read the trilogy and the movie was excellent! Stayed very true to the book. Can not wait for the next installment - in one year. Also, I've been working on book submissions. Kind of hard to do when all my cool supplies are at home, but I'm giving it a shot. And of course I have been readying all 53 of my little twinchies to go out in the mail. Just have to get to the post office and buy a bunch of postage. These were so much fun to make and I just used scraps of color that came from previous projects. (And apparently I make a lot of pink projects.) I hope to show you a few more tomorrow.

Confused About Twinchies?

There are still several sets of twinchies I want to share with you. Fifty-four of us are swapping these little two-inch pieces of art and - as you can well imagine - it is hard to make a little two inch piece of paper become spectacular. You don't have a whole lot of room to work with in two inches. (There are a whole world of people who make inchies - I couldn't even imagine. Haha! Good for them, I say!)

So. Where did I start? 
Where do I many times start? 
I can hear Nancy Wigley chiming in here - I start with Dylusions Ink Sprays.   Yes, I do know there is other product on the market but why go there when I get these bright, luscious, beautiful colors with Dylusions? Seriously. 
When I am working on projects I save any scraps of paper in a ziploc bag and add to it as I go. There is always a scrap bag on my work table. (It's usually buried, but it's there.) Twinchies are a great way to use up some of that scrap. Some of the pieces I used already had color on them. (I don't waste scraps with pretty color on them. I horde, uh, save them.) For the ones that didn't - I spritzed water onto the pieces, followed by spritzes of a couple different colors of dylusions. Then you just let it all sit for about 10-15 seconds and watch those colors blend. A paper towel blotted to the paper surface will stop that mixing/blending action. Remember - if your color is too dark when it is dry or almost dry - you can lighten it up with another spritz of water. Dylusions are not color fast. They will start reacting again when you add 'wet' product - be that water or another color. 
You will notice some of the tiles above have designs on them. Take your dry colored tile, lay a stencil over the top, hold it in place, and spritz water over the top of the stencil. Let it sit for 5-10 seconds, then carefully lift the stencil and watch the color lifting start to work. After about 15 more seconds, blot the tile with a paper towel - and continue to watch that color lift leaving behind the design of whatever stencil you used. Remember - dylusions inks are not water fast, they react with wet product. So take advantage of that and make it work to your benefit.

Since I am a tangler - I went back and added various tangle patterns to the tiles. Some are more elaborate than others. This wasn't one of them :). I loved the little fish and how well he turned out. (He came from a stencil.) I went simpler and just added tangle bubbles to his water, leaving the fish to be the focus of this twinchie. There are so many things you can do! So - save your scraps (or hack up a big sheet and have fun!) and get to making some twinchie awesomeness! Cause it's fun!

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.

More Underwater Twinchies, APR #95

Under the Sea (continued from yesterday) ~ The Little Mermaid ~
Down here all the fish is happy as off through the waves they roll. The fish on the land ain't happy, they sad 'cause they in their bowl. But fish in the bowl is lucky, they in for a worser fate. One day when the boss get hungry guess who's gon' be on the plate.
Under the sea, under the sea, nobody beat us, fry us or eat us in fricassee. We what the land folks loves to cook. Under the sea we off the hook. We got no troubles, life is the bubbles, under the sea. Since life is sweet here, we got it beat here, naturally. Even the sturgeon an' the ray they get the urge 'n' start to play. We got the spirit, you got to hear it, under the sea!
(Kind of long, but here's the rest.)
The newt play the flute, the carp play the harp, the plaice play the bass, and they soundin' sharp. The bass play the brass, the chub play the tub, the fluke is the duke of soul. (Yeah) The ray he can play the lings on the strings. The trout rockin' out, the blackfish she sings. The smelt and the sprat they know where it's at, an' oh that blowfish blow.
Under the sea, under the sea, when the sardine begin the beguine, it's music to me. What do they got? A lot of sand, we got a hot crustacean band. Each little clam here know how to jam here under the sea. Each little snail here know how to wail here. That's why it's hotter under the water. Ya we in luck here, down in the muck here under the sea.
Going to add this post to the weekly Artist's Play Room challenge. Jenn encourages us to 'art' and share it in the play room. Why don't you head on over here and check it out.
*  *  *  *  *  *
Twinchies are tiny pieces of art that are two inches square. A whole bunch of artists on facebook are currently involved in a twinchie swap. I can not wait to start receiving beautiful pieces of art from all over the world - literally! These are just a few of the twinchies I will be sending out. More tomorrow.
These twinchies were made on watercolor Bristol smooth from Strathmore, color comes from Dylusions Ink Sprays, and sparklies are courtesy of Wink of Stella Glitter Markers and At You Spica Pens. Click on photo to see a larger view.

Twinchies Under the Sea

Under the Sea ~ The Little Mermaid ~
The seaweed is always greener in somebody else's lake. You dream about going up there, but that is a big mistake. Just look at the world around you, right here on the ocean floor. Such wonderful things surround you. What more is you lookin' for?
Under the sea, Under the sea, Darling, it's better down where it's wetter, take it from me. Up on the shore they work all day. Out in the sun they slave away, while we devotin' full time to floatin' under the sea.
Twinchies are tiny pieces of art that are two inches square. A whole bunch of artists on facebook are currently involved in a twinchie swap. I can not wait to start receiving beautiful pieces of art from all over the world - literally! These are just a few of the twinchies I will be sending out. More tomorrow.
These twinchies were made on watercolor Bristol smooth from Strathmore, color comes from Dylusions Ink Sprays, and sparklies are courtesy of Wink of Stella Glitter Markers and At You Spica Pens. Click on photo to see a larger view.