Thursday, May 31, 2018

Weekly Challenges and Travelling Tangles


"Puf" Monotangle

Another for the DIY journal. I do like this pattern a lot, but I never use it and my creativity was eluding me in ways to vary it. I saw a version of this string idea somewhere in one of my Facebook groups and that was that.

Duo-challenge Joey #218 & IAST#245
featuring: Dicso, Strircles, Tattle and C-bun

 Adele celebrates National Donut Day with her donut string. This was a tricky one and as usual I had a few of those moments where I was ready to chuck the whole she-bang, but I pushed through. I really liked the Dicso part and my favorite part is the C-bun donut, everything after that was a bit of a slog;-) but I liked the way it turned out in the end. These are progressing into a really nice pattern reference.

I'm moving right along with the Travelling Tangles I've received over the last month. I've been quite inspired and out of the 11 swaps I initiated, I've received 8 and finished 7;-) I now have to start thinking about how I'm going to archive all of these. I want to do some kind of multi media journal so I can include all of the cards and envelopes. Stay tuned;-)

My finishes..


...to these starters from Linda Brown Levin

My finish...

...to another of Linda's starters


My finishes...

...to these starters by Jill Clements


I love this toothy little calf
another Cheese Camp baby


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






Thursday, May 24, 2018

Diva Challenge #364 and Travelling Tangles

"Remake of a Classic"

I love this challenge! We were asked to remake one of our old favorites and I've been meaning to go back a do this one for awhile. Although the point was to compare your growth, I didn't approach this as a finished piece or an improvement from the original. 
I wanted to include this in my DIY journal as a study for the future development of a finished piece.

originally submitted to "Square One: Purely Zentangle"
pattern focus: "BB"
Blog post: January 19, 2015

I didn't get a chance to finish this weeks Joey/IAST duo-challenge. My schedule has been and will be a bit crazy this week so I'm hoping I can share it next week.

Here are a few of the Travelling Tangle swaps I finished last week:

My finishes...


...to these two starters by Lucretia Horton

These were super fun and I knew the pink one would be a great art journal piece in the end;-)

My finish...

...to another of Lucretia's starts

My finish...

...to another of Lucretia's starts
I had started drawing that zig-zag at the bottom 
before I remembered to take a before pic

I'm so happily over-whelmed by the abundance of  pieces I've been receiving from each of my swap mates so far. I will finish each and every piece!

This is a closer pic of  the leaf pic above

My finishes...




...to these 3 starters by Jules Mack

I finished all three of these while watching the Royal Wedding;-) before heading off to...

...Cheese Camp on Sunday. Over the next 3 days we visited several farms and creameries in Marin County. What an amazing trip, traveling with a group of cheese professionals (curd nerds). I made new friends, learned so much, ate a lot of cheese and enjoyed the beauty of this place. I'm a city girl so getting out into the country is a rare and beautiful thing.
We stayed in a gorgeous farmhouse where goats were kidding in the barn next door. I watched a goat being born!

This little guy was only hours old when I took this pic
once the mama cleans him up, he's taking his first steps within minutes
Incredible!

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






Wednesday, May 16, 2018

Diva Challenge #363, a Duo-challenge and other artsy endeavors

"Laura's Aura's"

Who doesn't love auras?

My Monday morning cafe set up

This page in my DIY journal seemed like a good candidate for the task at hand. Instead of actually aura-ing sections, I chose some patterns built by aura. I was watching some YouTube this morning and caught this video. I love how she was drawing "Pepper" and decided this could be considered an aura pattern. That's my story and I'm sticking to it;-) Then of course, one of my mac 'n cheese patterns, Sandswirl and then Pixioze.

Then I moved on to this

The Weekly Duo-Challenge

Now and again, I'll tweak Joey's front & center placement slightly to give myself the option to carry it over to the other side later if I want..
Adele's challenge was to do a Zen Button. I've seen so many of these all over the internet and I love them but I've never made one. Adele linked to this great tutorial from Marguerite Samama. I chose not to do the white charcoal pencil highlight thinking it might throw off the balance of the two sides. I know it's the key to getting the 3-D effect and I may go back and do it later. maybe. I can see some 3D potential in the Joey side, but frankly, I'm wiped out. I've been home sick with a cold for a couple of days. It hit me quick and hard, so I've been home drinking turmeric almond milk tea for two days and arting between naps.
I'm headed off to Cheese Camp Sunday thru Tuesday and I can not be sick! I won't be able to go if I'm still sick. Even if I'm mobile and feeling ok, it's a sanitation thing because we're actually going to be touring several cheese making farms and the production rooms so I can't be coughing and hacking all over the place. The cough is what always lingers when I'm recovering from a cold. So, fingers crossed. 

In other art:
My most recent hand bound watercolor journal

I followed this SeaLemon coptic stitch bookbinding tutorial.

a page inspired by this video at CeeCee Creations

another CeeCee inspired water color page

a page of watercolored and brush pen butterflies
inspired by Maremi Small Art

I liked the idea of adding butterflies to my art journal pages and wanted to make my own. I've been working on this page for a couple of weeks. I printed a layout of butterflies from the internet and traced the silhouettes onto watercolor paper. Then using a wet on wet technique, I wet within the silhouette with clean water, picked up a bit of paint on the the tip of the brush and  dripped the pigment into the wet shape and let it spread and feather. When the paint was all dry I used a black brush pen to do all the line work, using a variety of images from the internet to inspire the different details.
I color copied them and did a couple of reductions as well. I'll cut them out and use them in my art journals and perhaps some envelope art.

Travelling Tangles I completed this past week:

My finish...

...to Heidi Whitney's gorgeous start

My finish...

...to this cool start by Angie Lorandos

another finish...

...to Angies start

My finishes...


to these gorgeous starts by Megan White
travelling from Kentucky

I'm happily overwhelmed by the generous starts I've been receiving in the mail. Some of my swap buddies are sending me 4, 5 or 6 pieces. I'm having a lot of fun with them 'cuz  now I start seeing the art journal potential with so many of them, especially those that are not traditional Zentangle.
I always work through all of the pieces in the order that I receive them rather than pick and choose what speaks to me.  It's so much more fun (the more out of my comfort zone the better) but mostly out of respect to the senders that were quick with their part of the exchange. What's that saying? "You can't wait for inspiration, you have to chase it down with a stick".

She's ready for her close up
and she looks so wise doesn't she?



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









Thursday, May 10, 2018

Weekly Challenges and other artsy stuff

Use My Tangle Monday: "Somnee"

This weeks UMT pattern "Somnee" is by The Diva herself, created from some doodling during a bout of insomnia;-) I LOVE this pattern and it is seriously Zen.
I'm back in the DIY journal and as luck would have it, I actually had my Staedtler Triplus Fineliners out as I was pondering my first return Travelling Tangle tile. I was flipping through my journal and this watercolor page stopped me in my tracks. Circles were down in a matter of seconds. I only meant to contain Somnee to the upper left corner but I was having so much fun with it, I kept on going;-)

Before shading and misting

I like the way the Staedtler's are water soluble so I like to get them wet when I'm done, hence the bit of blur on the finished piece. That's  just my thang;-)

The start
Duo Challenge


This is where I took my first break
I loved the IAST side but had no idea where to go next

This was a challenge and it took me awhile to get back to it. In the interim, I finished some Travelling Tangles from Heidi Whitney. She sent me a bunch of cool stuff.

Heidi's start...


I've been noodling around with "Soul star" in my sketchbook

Heidi's cute little Bijou start


I totally swiped the rosebuds from something I saw on Today's Tangles
because I love flowers;-)


Heidi sent me a blank Metaphorist tile
I LOVE these!


 Happy mail is so awesome! I've never heard of these before. I don't know if you can see the texture of the surface but it's like linen. I saw something on Today's Tangles that inspired the design and I had so much fun drawing this. I used a black Staedtler Triplus Fineliner (a recommendation from another swap pal) and I really have to refrain from misting some water on this because I didn't even want to shade it. The black fineliner bleeds out a cool shade of brown that I love...another time perhaps;-)

It's been a while since I've done the Travelling Tangles, but if anyone is not familiar with it you should check out The Travelling Tangles Project on Facebook. We swap partially started tiles and finish them off. It's such great inspiration for getting out of your comfort zone and learning something new and it makes a trip to the mailbox a lot more fun too;-)
Once I've built up a stash of them, I want to start a new mixed media journal using the cards and envelopes as the base to showcase each finished tile. Stay tuned!

More flowers...

In the DIY art journal

This was a page I'd started weeks ago. I was cleaning off one of my watercolor palettes and dropped down some murky circles that I eventually used for flower practice and then left it at that. Yesterday, I felt compelled to add some colored pencil to brighten up the colors, then I deepened some shadows with a Tombow brushpen...then...what the heck, let's do a background. I love what came out of a page that was essentially a throwaway.

"I'm trying to bathe here!"



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