Diva Challenge #346 and other stuff...

Diva Challenge #346

Duo-Tangle: Phicops & Huggins

Yaaaay! The Diva is back and to start a new year of new challenges, Laura gave us...uhmnnn...me quite a challenge. Very Yin/Yang because Phicops is one of those patterns I've managed to avoid, whereas I can't get enough Huggins.

It's taking me a while to make friends with Phicops and I'm still not quite there yet. I had many ideas going on and frustratingly pursued several clumsy attempts at it in my sketchbook and finally started this first tile as more of a warm up, casually executed on a 4" x 4" scrap of card stock I rescued from the recycle bin at work.

Duotangle #2

Cosmic Garden

I like how this one turned out. I knew these two patterns would be a nice fit in the Cosmic Garden series, even though I thought I was done with that. I guess not. 

I spent some time looking at Phicops from the Diva's archive challenges and there were some real beauties. I was inspired to play some more with it in my Trainwreck journal. I'll share that next week.

Other stuff:

During the Diva's holiday hiatus, I challenged myself with daily drawings inspired by many different sources. I've mentioned that I do spend waaay too much time noodling around the internet and watching YouTube videos. One of my creative goals is to strive for more balance. I tend to bombard myself with images and ideas and then step back and see what sticks. From time to time I'll share the stuff that sticks.

During my recent organizing binge, I found an old, large, spiral bound sketchbook and re-purposed the remaining pages into a smaller hand-made sketchbook using a watercolor practice sheet for the cover. I call this the sketchbook of "Everything Else", inspired by an Alphonso Dunn video where he talks about looking at student sketchbooks of one polished/pretty/finished page after another and asking "Where's everything else?"

The paper is not conducive to any wet media including many of my ink pens so I decided to use it for colored pencils...mostly.

 I was breaking in the cheap Daiso watercolor set and practicing layering.

One of my early sources of inspiration, long before I ever heard of Zentangle is "They Draw and Cook". It's a collection of illustrated recipes curated by artists Salli Swindell and her brother Nate Padivick. I follow Salli on Instagram and I love her whimsical and seemingly simplistic style. It's the antithesis of mine. I tend to get caught up in too much realistic (and labor intensive) detail whenever I draw "real life" and though I enjoy that and get a lot of satisfaction from it when I have the time, one of my creative goals this year is to achieve a simpler balance to that.

Playing with my Prismacolor pencils sallistyle

9 x 12 ZIA

mixed media

I was doing some cleaning and organizing of my art closet last week and found this work-in-progress ZIA I had forgotten about under a stack of watercolor pads. The line work was done on the water-colored background, so I spent the rest of the day finishing it with the shading, highlight and colored pencil. I can't remember when I started this, but I was clearly influenced and inspired by the work of Sharla Hicks. I love her organics.

A few pages from finishing the Trainwreck journal

dip pen and ink

Aimee takes a break to let me draw

She's usually trying to sit on top of whatever I'm doing

It's always a bit precarious when the pen and ink are out

Thanks so much for stopping by. Your thoughtful and generous comments delight and inspire me!