Tuesday, December 22, 2015

The Gift of Zentangle

Good Morning lovely tangle friends. Here I am, before the crack of dawn, with my coffee and finishing up Joey's latest challenge (which was the perfect string to head this post). I tweaked the string a teensy bit but, without further ado...



The 5 names I just pulled out of the ginger jar:

Joey (Ms. "Made by" herself)
Susan (South Africa)
Jean Chaney
Yorkshire Tortoise
1 Art Lady Kate

Many thanks to everyone for your regular visits to my blog and for being such generous and thoughtful commenters. This activity inspires me and constantly excites me as an artist. I love seeing all of the work you guys create and the challenges that continuously push us all out of our comfort zones. This community means so much to me.
So ladies, please send me your snail mail address and I'll get these out to you as soon as I hear from you:         michelewynne1 (at) gmail (dot) com. 



These are the Bijou refrigerator magnets I'm just finishing up. Sorry for the blurry pic. The sun still hasn't quite come up and my camera hates incandescent light and they're laminated so a little reflection doesn't help matters. Yes...more gems.

HaPpY hApPy HoLiDaYs!!!

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Happy Holidays!

tree template/string using patterns
Tipple, Reticulated, Echo, Eyehook & Sanibelle

This was tricky, trying to get all of these patterns within the string. To make it even more challenging I had like, 3 tools with me when I got to the cafe this morning.

This week's Diva challenge is to give the gift of Zentangle.  I'm currently assembling a collection of tiles that I intend to laminate and magnetize for family stocking stuffers, frame some illustrated recipes and finish several handmade pocket sketchbooks. In the midst of all of this I've been involved with two Zentangle inspired swap groups which I wrote about in a recent post. One of the pleasures is opening the mailbox and receiving art. 
These are 5 ATC sized pieces I've created as responses to various challenges over the last few months and I would like to send these off to 5 of you out there. These are all done on my hand painted watercolor backgrounds and I will send you the original ATC. Just leave a comment below and I'll randomly pick 5 on Tuesday December 22. Check back then and I'll post the recipients as well as my email address so I can get your snail mail address.




As ever, thank you so much for visiting my blog. Your thoughtful and generous comments always make my day!

Wishing the happiest of holidays to all of you!







Wednesday, December 9, 2015

String Challenge #122

It's a String Thing #122
String #122
Patterns: Verdigogh, Kuke and 63Y

Here's this week's challenge at "It's a String Thing".
My first challenge was just learning "63Y". I had a hard time wrapping my brain and pen around the step out. I found it very complicated and aggravating because I just couldn't get it to look clean, asking myself  many times "Why?" It's not required to use all of the patterns but that's why they call this a challenge.
I went back and looked at one of Linda Farmer's notes where she uses a zig-zag to assist in creating a more seam-less hexigon. Then it clicked. Once I started on the tile though, "Verdigogh" had other ideas and pretty much took over the whole deal and I had to figure out a way to get "63Y" back into it-"Kuke" was a no brainer so I just added more balls;-) The whole thing is a little over-worked and one of my balls is a bit wonky, but I was home sick today and didn't have much energy to do anything else but nap and watch "Love Actually" 3 times;-)


Thanks for visiting my blog! Your thoughtful and generous comments make my day!




Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Diva Challenge #247 & Made by Joey #90

&

These challenges fit well together. I'm in the midst of making Christmas presents. I've been working on little pocket sketchbooks:
I made the watercolor covers using the same technique I use to make my watercolor ATC's.
This is a scan of one of the finished covers


This was the first one I made a couple of weeks ago. There are 4 sheets of medium weight sketch paper stitched inside for a total of 16 pages.



Julie Beland's tangle: "Beauchamp"

This month over at the Facebook group Zentangle: Tangled & Journaled,Too, they are featuring 25 Days of new tangles from various members. I love Julie Beland's tangle "Beauchamp". It reminds me a little bit of "Borbz" and it's the perfect vehicle for playing with gemstones. I spent way to much time doodling around on this one but it sure was fun.
As ever, many thanks to all of you for visiting my blog. Your thoughtful and generous comments always make my day and I promise to return the gesture.

Wishing you all the happiest of holiday seasons!

Sunday, December 6, 2015

Art into the World...

"Niuroda November"
black gesso on white watercolor paper
black ink, white gel pen, grey watercolor pencil, white Prismacolor pencil
for the ZATC Swap group

Several months ago I embarked on another Zentangle journey. I began participating in the Facebook  Zentangle Artists Trading Card Swap Group and just this month in the Zentangle: Tangled &  Journaled, Too group. For the last 18 months I'd been hoarding my little pieces of art, much of it stashed away and forgotten entirely. It was scary at first, sending my art out into the world, but I quickly became addicted to it.
There are so many layers of satisfaction in this process, from deciding on a theme (based on parameters set by the group administrators) to executing variations several times over, becoming more and more solid in my technique with each piece, then wrapping it all up and finding that perfect card to protect my piece while adding to it's presentation. It's so pleasing to create a piece of "Happy Mail" that will hopefully make opening the mailbox a joyful experience for my swap-mates. Then there's the joy of opening my mailbox to find a hand addressed envelope. I love holding original art in my hands.
It amazes me how my work has developed over these few months. I challenge myself with each swap.
My approach to the black and white set above was inspired by one of the weekly challenges over at I am the Diva where she swiped black gesso over a standard tile. White on black was previously uncharted territory for me so I challenged myself to get comfortable with it. 
The parameters of this particular swap was to use black & white only (with grey shading) and to use only patterns that began with the letter N. White on black was not required. I decided to go with one pattern, Niuroda, and  refine the hell out of it. These came out pretty cool. 




"Humanity"
for the ZATC swap group December swap
watercolor, watercolor pencil, white gel pen, blue Rollerball pen

The announcement of the ZATC December swap coincided with the tragic events in Paris. The theme was to represent support for the city of Paris. The parameters were to use Blue, White, Red and Silver and the use of Parisian themes was optional. I'm not a particularly politically charged person in my art, but I wanted to create something that represented Humanity to me, not solely a focus on Paris, but for all victims of terrorist violence. 
This concluded in pieces that were multi-layered and inter-woven. 
I started with the watercolor washed ATC then using watercolor pencils drew spirals and dots, then outlining them with white gel pen. The top layer is a blue Rollerball pen with watercolor pencil shading then finished with white Prismacolor pencil highlight. I love the way these turned out.


"Blue Renaissance"
watercolor, sepia and brown Micron pens, watercolor pencil and Prismacolor pencil

These 9 ATC's went out a few weeks ago to the Facebook Group Zentangle: Tangled & Journaled, Too. There were no parameters for this swap except the ATC format. I was in the midst of my black and white Niuroda November and was detoured by work I'd been seeing on renaissance tiles with brown tone inks and pencils. More uncharted territory so I made a set of renaissance inspired watercolor ATC's and started some more Niuroda's working in browns and blues.

Thank you so much for visiting my blog. Your thoughtful and generous comments make my day!


Thursday, December 3, 2015

Playing Catch-up

Aquafleur tree
 & 

The week of challenges commenced with the Diva's guest blogger, Dilip Patel's prompt to create a monotangle tree and Joey's "Zinger" monotangle. 
I had many ideas cooking but no time to execute. Then came Adele's string challenge to create an "Aquafleur" tree using Carol Ohl's beauty as an example. I was blown away by the beauty of Carol's tree and began a couple of ill-fated attempts at it. I've never used "Aquafleur" before. I love it but it is extremely labor intensive and requires much, much practice. It wasn't until I was well invested in this one that I realized the tree is lopsided;-)

"Zinger" monotangle

One of my first ideas was to make a "Zinger" tree. My original attempts on tiles and ATC's did not go well, as I kept starting with the tree and getting cramped and badly balanced zinger's in the end. I went back to the drawing board, so-to-speak. I picked up the sketchbook this morning and tried drawing the zinger's first. Much better.

From last week:

Diva Challenge #245
"Hollibaugh"

It's been a super busy month and there's no sign of let-up until after the new year. Cafe time has been bountiful with swap tiles I'll share in a separate post. So here are some challenge pieces I've been trying to catch-up on:
Diva's "Hollibaugh"...got a bit over-shadowed by those dang gemstones that are all the rage over on many of the Zentangle inspired Facebook groups.

"Yuma" monotangle

I couldn't resist a touch of gemstone on this one too.

Explore a new "I" tangle:  "IX" by Zentangle HQ
Artist Focus: Sue Clark's "Cheers"

I did this in my little homemade sketchbook.

One of a series of nine ATC's I made for the Zentangle: Tangled & Journaled, Too Facebook Groups.


As ever, thank you for visiting my blog, Your generous and thoughtful comments always make my day. I'm playing catch-up as well with my visits and comments to your blogs too.

Wishing all of you the Happiest Holiday Season ever!