Oooooh Shiny!
Guest blogger Amy Broady's challenge was to add some shine, gleam or glint to your piece this week. Specifically: metallic. hmnnnn...I was not quite sure what to do about this. My toolbox does not contain ready-made metallic or glitz or glimmer. I suppose I could have attempted to dig up a sequin or rhinestone, but I really don't like gluing stuff on my tiles. I dunno...I'm weird that way. I couldn't help but think about my art school days when my teachers would insist we learn to paint metallic with highlight and shadow. I have a background in theatrical costume design and painted a lot of glitz back in the day. That was then...
...this is now: I created another "Gem" piece. The attempt was to achieve shiny within the gem and convey the illusion of a burnished/antique-y metallic setting. I had already set out to draw in the museum cafe and had a limited amount of tools with me. I yam what I yam;-)
String: roman numeral II
patterns: Japonica. Hi C's & Flux
This was a fun challenge. I'm sticking to a theme of using brown ink on my hand painted "Renaissance" ATC's...hoping for a fun little series for the 15 weeks of roman numeral strings.
Square One: Purely Zentangle
featured pattern: Zonked
Zonked is another one of those patterns I have a love/hate relationship with. I love how it looks when done by more capable hands but I have the hardest time getting the rounding clean and seamless. For such a simple pattern it's quite the beast. This one came out better than any other attempts I've made at it once I really focused.
The key is 100% Purely Zentangle. This works so much better when using a tile, rather than a sketchbook (which I use mostly for the Square One pieces), so you can easily turn the tile as you sloowwwly and Zen-fully work. I had to tear the page out and cut it down to tile size so I could work this one a little easier.
I'm also trying to document these pieces before shading so I can submit to Eni Oken's Shading Zentangle page. For anyone who's not familiar with this group, I encourage you to check it out. It's a great learning tool.
Anyhoo, thanks so much for visiting my blog. Your thoughtful and generous comments delight and inspire me.
I love your gleaming gems and your Renaissance tile. But I really do think your Zonked tile is spectacular - great movement and excellent shading. I agree that the Shading group is very helpful and inspiring. Axxx
ReplyDeleteI do like those shiny gems!!
ReplyDeleteI like your hand-painted Renaissance tile. It fits well with series of roman numeral strings. And the gleaming gems looks like really antique.
ReplyDeleteLovely work ,here, Michele and such very subtle use of colour.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful Gems! Really like the settings too.
ReplyDeleteSomeone told me that life is too short to use cheep paper. I took it to heart and started using my "real" Zentangle tiles and have found that I do better work when I can turn my tile and work in a comfortable space with perfect paper. I think your gems are truly sparkly and your Zonked looks great. I found that it is a bit of a challenge to make it look "good" too.
ReplyDeleteAs soon as your page loaded, I thought, WOW, shiny! I love the color and how you use it....especially that subtle background!
ReplyDeleteLove your Roman numeral for Joey. You certainly achieved shiny and I think a glint of metallic on your Diva tile. Zonked is really difficult I found too. Great work this week.
ReplyDeleteAll three tiles are so wonderful. Your gems look "ohhh so shiny"! And it is always good to stay in the ones own comfort zone, that makes the artwork even more shiny! I love it!
ReplyDeleteWonderful tiles again! Your variation of Japonica in Joeys tile is fantastic!
ReplyDeleteLovely work.
ReplyDeleteLove to look at your creativity! :-)
ReplyDeleteThe Diva gems are so pretty, and your Japonica looks great too. I have a love/ hate relationship with Zonked too - yours is looking very good!
Lovely tiles!
ReplyDeleteAll three are wonderful! Especially I like the second one!
ReplyDeleteYour gems came out really well! I love the graphite / white charcoal combo on your Joey tile. I totally agree about the official tiles being so much easier to work with, and, I would add that I'm starting to notice how much easier they are on my aging eyes. Not too dark, not to bright. Just right ;)
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