Tuesday 31 January 2017

My Struggling-Artist's Attempt at Jo's Dreamy Watercolors


My Struggling-Artist's Attempt at Jo's Dreamy Watercolors


This is gonna be a long and involved post – because wowzas! So much to say about this!

 

First off, Jo Flaherty, what an amazing artist! She’s found her “voice” (that’s what we say in the writing community) in art.  She makes the most beautifully whimsical pieces that are eye-catching and soothing at the same time, as well as completely unique!  Eni Oken featured her as an artist this week in the Shading Zentangle FB group and Jo was kind enough to show us how she does her work.  What a wonderful pair of women to bring us this challenge and share their artsy ways!

 

Like I said, I’ve admired Jo’s pieces for quite a while now. I was so stoked to give this a try.  Sadly, I didn’t have the materials Jo uses, and had no means of getting them. But did that stop me? Heck no.

 

I have distress inks, and I love them, but they are the cubed versions you can see below.  Not ideal for this type of project. Or so I thought.   I wanted so badly to use their color palette that I figured I’d get creative.  First, I needed something to smudge the distress inks on…  I couldn’t get what the kit suggests, or other artists suggest, so I looked around my kitchen, and came up with nothing.  I sat on  Yes the foil that keeps my ciggies fresh in their little packs, and I dug them out and flattened them.  A few tests later and I realized they were perfect for smudging and diluting the distress inks! WIN!
my couch and sighed… then looked over at my cigarette pack (I know, I know, smoking is bad, but let’s focus here). I spotted the tin foil.

 

Then I needed to wash my brush after every color. Yes, my one brush. With the distress inks I only needed a bit of water to clean the brush.  I was not going to walk into the bathroom or kitchen every few minutes… so I looked around.  I drink a lot of bottled water, and with bottled water comes bottle caps.  So bottle caps with a few drops of water became my diluting and cleaning station.

It may be makeshift, but in a pinch, this proves that if you can't get the tools you need, you can work with the tools you have - with a bit of imagination.

 

Alas, here it is. Many hours of work and layering and more layering later, with tin foil palettes, only 4 different distress inks, 1 brush, a bunch of bottle caps, some microns and a gelly roll white pen and I have my finished “dreamy” piece.

 

Thank you Jo and Eni!

And as always,

Be kind – to yourself, to the earth and to others.



Line art which I obviously almost entirely forgot to take a pic of.


Monday 30 January 2017

All things Mak-Rah-Mee!


All things Mak-Rah-Mee!




All things Mak-Rah-Mee! Eni Oken put up Mak-Rah-Mee by Michele Beauchamp (aka Shelly Beauch) as last week’s challenge on her Shading Zentangle fb page.  Loving this tangle! There is so much more I can imagine doing with this tangle, but alas, time to more on to the next.

 

 

This is my summary post of all of the Mak-Rah-Mee experiences I’ve had over the last week or so.  The Mak-Rah-Mee Zentangle pattern's original tangle step-out can be found here.

 
 

A special “Thank you” to Eni Oken who posted this Mak-Rah-Mee challenge on her amazing FB page “Shading Zentangle”.  Be sure to stop by her website and check out her very cool books!

 

 

At the bottom of this page you'll find the 3 pieces I've done with Mak-Rah-Mee.  Click on the link associated with any of the photos to see the full posts and line art etc. for each piece.

 

  

 

Last but not least, here is my video of a nice and basic Mak-Rah-Mee Zentangle design.


Check out the posts associated with each tangle!


First attempt here
Second attempt here
Third attempt here


1st attempt





















2nd attempt











 























3rd attempt






Do you have a blog with a Mak-Rah-Mee Zentangle post on it? Add the link to your Mak-Rah-Mee Zentangle post below so others can view your work!  (please do not link to your main page, just the post with a Mak-Rah-Mee zentangle on it)

Sunday 29 January 2017

3rd Mak-Rah-Mee Zentangle with Diva Challenge


3rd Mak-Rah-Mee Zentangle with Diva Challenge


 

Here’s my 3rd Mah-Rah-Mee zentangle attempt, and I incorporated Diva’s Moebius challenge into the piece.  Or more to the point, I worked the Mak-Rah-Mee into the Moebius challenge.  Either way, the ribbon itself was not an easy task, and I’m not too happy about how it turned out, but at least I gave it a try!

 

Since my video for Mak-Rah-Mee is ready, I figured I’d add it here too if anyone is interested – it’ll also be included in my “All things Mak-Rah-Mee” post soon to come.







Here is the finished Moebius piece:




And here is the line work



Friday 27 January 2017

2nd Attempt at Mak-Rah-Mee

2nd Attempt at Mak-Rah-Mee


Well this piece was fun! Gotta love color! I used prismacolor pencil crayons to get this effect thanks to Eni Oken's amazing book.  You can check out her books here.


Other tools used:


  • tile
  • Copic .03 and .1 microns
  • staedtler hb3 pencil and smudge stick


Here's the final piece:

Mak Rah Mee Zentangle with Colour
Mak Rah Mee Zentangle with Colour

Here's the piece after shading




Here's the line work before shading




Thursday 26 January 2017

1st Attempt at MAK-RAH-MEE

1st Attempt at MAK-RAH-MEE


Eni Oken's challenge this week is Mak-Rah-Mee.  And what a fun tangle it is! It's a blast to shade, and all of those funky ribbons are so versatile, there is nothing that makes this tangle not fun.

Here's my first attempt at Mak-Rah-Mee finished

Mak-Rah-Mee zentangle
Mak-Rah-Mee zentangle



And here is the line work:
(pardon the photo, it was taken with my tablet)






Monday 23 January 2017

Hands On!

Hands On!



So I'm way late in getting this out there - this was the challenge for ZEN N ZIA's FB page, the Palm Zentangle challenge from January 9th. (See, told you I was way late). 

As you can probably see from the pics, this was a large piece and took a very long time to do - but wow, was it ever fun!

I got to play with all sorts of fun toys - here's a brief list of the items I used:

  • distress inks
  • watercolor pencils
  • copic skin color markers
  • copic greys
  • white gelly roll pen
  • Paint brushes, sponges, tinfoil, water bottle caps and lions and tigers and bears oh my!

Bit did I ever get to try out a bunch of new techniques.  If you have any questions about how I did a certain section please feel free to ask, I'm all about sharing :)


And now, on to the pics!



Before color/shading



Close ups:








Girls Night In

Girls Night In


I've been dabbling with this piece for a while.  I wanted to do something girly, something that reminded me of sleepover parties.  Even as adults out girls night in would involve unprecedented calorie consumption, and make overs or spa treatments.

I may try to turn it into a colouring page at some point...


Here is the finished piece whole.  Scroll down for close up pics.











Saturday 21 January 2017

All things DraWings!


All things DraWings!


 

“All things DraWings!” It rhymes – look at me go being all poetic and schtuff.   How awesome is it that the Diva Challenge this week was Eni Oken’s challenge last week!  There was already a DraWings tangle snuck into in my Orb-La-Dee contribution to the Diva Challenge last week – so this times out perfectly for my "All Things DraWings" Post! YAY ME!

 

This is my summary post of all of the DraWings experiences I’ve had over the last week or so.  The DraWings Zentangle pattern was created by By Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas the original tangle step-out can be found here.

 

A special “Thank you” to Eni Oken who posted this DraWings challenge on her amazing FB page “Shading Zentangle”.  Be sure to stop by her website and check out her very cool books!


At the bottom of this page you'll find the 3 pieces I've done with DraWings.  Click on the link beside any of the photos to see the full posts and line art etc. for each piece.

  

Last but not least, here is my video of a nice and basic DraWings Zentangle design.



Here is the full post for my first DraWings attempt




















Here is the full post for my 2nd DraWings attempt













Here is the full post of my 3rd DraWings attempt











Do you have a blog with a DraWings Zentangle post on it? Add the link to your DraWings Zentangle post below so others can view your work!  (please do not link to your main page, just the post with a DraWings zentangle on it)



Thursday 19 January 2017

3rd Attempt at DraWings Zentangle


 

 3rd Attempt at DraWings Zentangle


 

Bring on the watercolours! I decided to play with me watercolour pencils on this one. The DraWings tangle just screams for colourful shading!  It’s one of the perks of a tangle with so much “white space”.  I learned a few things with this piece, one of them being what my watercolours would like blended together, and another being that I’m not a fan of faber-castell watercolours.  To each their own I suppose.  My new watercolours are en route from amazon and should arrive soonish… I hope.

 

Here’s the piece!

DraWings Zentangle with Watercolours
DraWings Zentangle with Watercolours

Wednesday 18 January 2017

2nd Attempt at the DraWings Zentangle

 

2nd Attempt at the DraWings Zentangle

 
Not only is this my 2nd attempt at DraWings, I merged it with the Diva Challenge for Orbs-la-dee. Double the challenge, double the fun! 
 
I started off by using distress inks on the tile – sorry there are no before pics.  I’m realizing that before pictures completely slip my mind when I’m doing the DraWings tangle.
 
So here’s how it turned out!

DraWings Zentangle and Orb-la-dee
DraWings Zentangle and Orb-la-dee


Tuesday 17 January 2017

First Attempt at DraWings Zentangle

First Attempt at DraWings Zentangle

 
Ironically, I was binge-watching the show Lucifer while first attempting this tangle.  Wings, wings, everywhere! 
 
This is a very basic piece.  I simply used a tile, a micron pen, an HB3 pencil for shading and a shading stump. 
 
More DraWings pieces to come!

Totally forgot the before pics...

DraWings Zentangle
DraWings Zentangle


Monday 16 January 2017

All Things Stella Zentangle




All Things Stella!



This is my summary post of all of the Stella experiences I’ve had over the last week or so.  The Stella Zentangle pattern was created by Jana Pharmer (formerly Rogers) the original tangle walk-through can be found here.
 
A special “Thank you” to Eni Oken who posted this Stella challenge on her amazing FB page “Shading Zentangle”.  Be sure to stop by her website and check out her very cool books!
At the bottom of this page you'll find the 5 pieces I've done with Stella.  Click on the link beside any of the photos to see the full posts and line art etc. for each piece.
  
Last but not least, here is my video of a nice and basic Stella Zentangle design.













For the full post about this piece click here








For the full post about this piece click here








For the full post about this piece click here








For the full post about this piece click here






For the full post about this piece click here

Do you have a blog with a Stella Zentangle post on it? Add the link to your Stella Zentangle post below so others can view your work!  (please do not link to your main page, just the post with a Stella zentangle on it)