Diva Challenge #372 and other artsy endeavors

Diva Challenge #372
Inktober Day 18

"Dewd"

The raw page

I did a bit of a Zentangle Inktober mash-up in the Trainwreck Journal this week. I've been watching The Diva's Inktober YouTube videos and they always inspire me because they're so quick and simple. She uses her dip pen and gorgeous selection of inks. I've been using my fountain pen for these last pages in my journal and true to form, I over-complicate by trying to cover a whole page with as many tangles as I could fit😉

The Inktober botanicals continue, though I got really behind, I'm just about caught up.

Inktober Day 16

New ink!

Doodles on a napkin. When I'm watching YouTube videos at the cafe, this is what I do. Then I collage them in my mixed media/junk journals.

I'm still not finished drawing this Nigella that I started for Day 13. It  was sooo cool but it almost did me in.

Inktober Day 11

Inktober Day 12

This is was an Eco-printed triangle sent to me by Annemarie Huijts with a Travelling Tangles swap

Inktober Day 13

a work in progress

Inktober Day 14

Inktober Day 15

Inktober Day 16

Got a few Travelling Tangles done:

These all came from Melody Hampshire

I was experimenting with Inktense pencils.

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

Diva Challenge #371 & Inktober

Diva Challenge #371

"Onion Drops"

&

Inktober Day 10: Flowing

Zendala Monday

Inktober Day 8: the prompt was "Star"

loosely based on a Jupiter Star Hellebore

Other Inktober drawings:

The prompt was "Exhausted"

I was a bit exhausted by the detailed studies

so I went for relaxing

The prompt was "Spell"

how do you spell...

The prompt was "Chicken"

 Inktober fun in my Trainwreck Journal

This was inspired by something I saw on CeeCee's channel

31 Days of Botanicals

The prompt was "Precious" 

this is anything but...

This is a signature I created for another swap for the Facebook Group, "Trashy and Flowish Junk Journals". The task was to make a 2 sheet signature (8 1/2"x 11" folded in half to make an 8 page booklet) using black, white, red, tan & brown.

I'm not a scrapbooker or cardmaker so I don't have the decorative papers or packaged embellishments I see a lot of people using. I art my own and use stuff from my stash of costume and fashion history images, art, travel and museum books, catalogs, postcards, brochures and stuff I just tear out of magazines. 

Last week I shared some pictures of a Flowish Junk Journal I sent for another swap. My partner posted a flip-thru of it on her YouTube channel if you want to see it and here's a video of the one she made for me.

I had a lot of fun with this.

The background is a red paper place mat I stenciled

The two sheets of paper I used were from a book of historical folk patterns

I covered this one with sewing pattern tissue

I've been into making stamps out of fun foam. 

I stamped a bunch out onto some tea/coffee dyed paper.

The corner pockets for this and the one above were from a museum catalog of kimonos

various tags and journaling cards

The backsides of the tags and journaling cards

 and a little booklet for journaling

I have to share a little haul I found at a Ross store the other day. These Faber Castell Gelato sets were
$1.99 each! Crazy. In addition to the 4 sticks they included a brush and a little floral cling stamp or a dauber. There was only 1 of each and I bought them all. 

I've never used these before so I watched a couple of videos and when I got home I made this mixed media piece:

for the Facebook group
Mission Inspiration

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

Diva Challenge #370 and Inktober

Diva Challenge #370

UMT "Mezzanine"

by Heidi Sue Whitney

For the first Monday of the month, it's a "Use My Tangle" challenge where The Diva chooses a pattern submitted by another Zentangle enthusiast. Heidi is one of my Travelling Tangles swap mates so it's always fun when one of my tangle peeps is featured in a challenge. I love patterns like this, sort of free form organics. I knew right away that it would make a good companion page to last weeks challenge. I'm coming close to finishing off my second Trainwreck Journal. It's a handmade journal where I go at it with watercolor and inks to create backgrounds that will inspire future art. I generally make a big ol' mess and just have fun.

Zendala Monday

fun with botanicals

Inktober Day 2

"Tranquil"

Inktober is here. It's a month long challenge to do a drawing a day. This year I've challenged myself to focus on botanicals, both detailed studies and simpler, more whimsical pieces as well. I love drawing flowers and I've always been of the mind (well, what was drilled into me at art school) was that in order to abstract something you have to study the real thing.

Inktober Day 1-"Poisonous"

Hydrangea

 I'm going to try to follow the prompts if I can relate them to botanicals. I had brought some hydrangeas home from work (I sell cheese in a small specialty food market that has gorgeous flowers we get to take home once they've lost their vivacity). I googled poisonous flowers and Hydrangeas were the first on the list. It was an ambitious challenge to start with something so complicated but what the heck.

Inktober Day 3

Waterlily

I had intended this to be "Tranquil", but I got a bit frustrated when it got to drawing the reflection. In the meantime I'd started the Zendala which was proving to be a much more tranquil drawing experience. What was great was that having studied the Hydrangea the day before, the petal shapes inspired the flowers I created on the Zendala;-)

Yesterday, I had the epiphany to use a dried out brush pen to do the reflection and water.

Inktober Day 4

a free-form day 

 The eco-print on this sheet of paper was the two large Eucalypus leaves. The Zinnia was just made up in the moment.  The Hotel Flora stationary was unplanned serendipity;-)

I used  several pieces of hotel stationary I collected from my travels abroad

in my last batch of eco-printing

I encased some flowers and leaves in tea bags.

Held up to the light the detailed veining

is super clear

I mailed off another Flow-ish Journal to a swap partner on Friday. This is the Facebook group I follow. A Flow-ish journal is a collection of papers, cards, images and other bits of ephemera that is used in art journaling and mixed media art. It's a way to exchange bits of our stash with each other. Nothing is permantly bound or glued so that the recipient can easily remove things to use in their own journals and mixed media art.

The cover is made from a colored file folder that had these weird wavy tabs across the top. I glued a bunch of paper scraps all over it, then painted and stenciled it, did some machine stitching and added a button/elastic loop closure to it.

I have a large collection of postcards and images, books and pictoral research from years of being a student of theatre design and then free-lance costume designer.

I also have a ton of stickers I collect from cheese delivery at the market.

 I paint and stencil over them.

Magazine pages stenciled and lined with a gold paint pen

Copies of my original butterfly art

And finally a junk journal for another Facebook group challenge where we were asked to construct a journal from one week's worth of junk mail. I painted, stenciled and then decorated with images from an Open Art Studio directory I picked up at my local library.

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