Off to Peg's Birthday Party

Coaster,  Cubine, Warble, Bales,  Ixora,  Paizel, Sand Swirl, Striping

Footlites

The Butterfly Project

Paizel, Meatballs/Spaghetti, Strircles, Gingham, Crescent Moon, Adeline, Hibred, Fengle, Auraknot, Seljuk

This is done on good quality drawing paper 90# and is about 10 x 10" in size.  The Hawthorne Fine Arts group is sponsoring a Butterfly Project to add to the many that are being collected by the Houston Holocaust Museum.  When we have finished them we will mail them off by May !.  

Zentangle® on a Canvas Bag

Zentangle Tote Bag

Khirkee, Sand Swirl, Striping, Jalousie, Bloom, Socc, Paradox, Zinger, Coaster

I've been doing a lot of reading about different ways to "organize" patterns and information I've collected over the last 6 months.  Making Zentangle portable is one issue.  Keeping the "directions" to making different tangle patterns is another issue.  I've come up with different plans for both of these (for another post sometime.)  

These little plain white canvas bags are from WalMart.  (I know it's not popular to shop at Walmart at this moment but this was months ago.)  

So in an effort to think of some ways of making Zentangle more portable having a few different bags for different options seems a good idea.  

Almost all the tangles on this bag are fairly new ones to me and a good chance to try some of them out.  Striping and paradox are old familiar ones but the others are all newly discovered.  These are done, of course, with Sharpie Ultra Fine pens.  

Incidentally I have finally purchased some Fabriano Tiepolo Print paper which is the paper most recommended by the CZTs for tile work.  It is quite lovely to work on but I have to say that the Canson Montval 140# WC paper I've been using is just as nice and half the price!  

Drawing Class with Frank Zampardi

Watching images emerge out of the paper....

Contour drawing

Every drawing class I have ever taken has been a joy.  and it reminds me that I should be drawing every day.  This was Frank Zampardi's drawing class held at the Center for the Arts in Leesburg, FL. yesterday from 9-4.   Frank teaches up in The Villages at the College for Learning.  

Frank is an excellent teacher and the workshop came with a notebook FULL of excellent hand outs.  We worked mostly in graphite and a little charcoal (charcoal is NOT my favorite). 

Something Possessed Me!!! Uh oh.

I do NOT know what possessed me this afternoon.  After a bit of "studio cleaning" I was moving things around and this painting got set up in the corner where I could look at it from a bit more distance.

This little rounded spot just seemed to say "something should be in this special spot".  But what?
For some odd reason crows have a habit of showing up in many artist's work.  I am not sure why.

But I thought of having a "black" colored bird in this spot might be effective and would immediate make this painting have a right side up, of course.  Big step.  Oh well, I am into risk taking.   

So after I sketched him in I decided to start with a light wash of Antwerp Blue watercolor.  Well, of course, with the yellow behind him...duh..now he's a yellow green.  It will be easy to make him black at some point.  But I decided to stop for awhile and see what my blog readers think.  

Should he be a black black bird?  Or should he be more subtle and the viewer just happen to be surprised by the bird who sort of blends into the back ground?  No rush.  Time to think.    

ZIA Splat (Zentangle® Inspired Art)

Auraknot, Hypnotic, Featherfall, Hollibaugh, Paradox, Dyon, BTL Joos, Flutter Pie, Knightsbridge, Footlites, Gingham, Coaster, Black Pearl, Earth Rising, Striping, Tipple, Cincfleur

This is several days puttering. Done on top of a watercolor (Arches 140# cold press) where I was experimenting with blowing through a straw.  This is actually upside down from how I worked on it, but I like this view better.  I had tried to kind of work the two spots in the "splat" where white showed through by making them sort of "see through" in the illusion.

I almost called this "Fantasy Continent" as it almost looked like a strange land form map.  I just laid a mat on tops so it's not tight down or anything...just to have a look-see at the composition and what might need to happen next if anything. 

We are having wonderful autumn days in FL now which means temps in low 80s and cool nights in the 60s.  Perfect.  

An Ensemble

Ensemble of 4 Zentangle® Tiles 

The 4 Tiles shown separately

Well I have been totally busy for a few days so to make up for my lack of daily art...I decided to make 4 Zentangle tiles and show how an "ensemble" looks. This is the first one I've ever tried and, of course, it takes a lot longer to do 4 than one!!!

In this example I taped them down and drew the string on all 4 of them connecting from tile to tile.  I did continue tangle patterns from one to another where it seemed to work.  I do not think you have to do that.  I think you could draw the strings and then give out the tiles and people could so whatever and then put them together again.  

I tried some new tangles this time.  I'll star the new ones.  Ribbon, Footlights, Earth Rising*, Coaster*, Eylet/Crescent Moon Re-mix*, Scraper, Fishnet, Paradox, BTL Joos, Spaghetti & Meatballs*.  

The re-mix one is courtesy of Sandy Hunter's blog. A remix is when two tangles are reworked into a totally new tangle.

Making Art Every Day in November: jewelry

Adding Zentangles to Jewelry

I found this at a garage sale for 50 cents.  It just seemed to say..."got a tangle to spare?"

Garage sales are a terrific place to look for surfaces to tangle.  I did one little piece of jewelry last summer, if you remember...a tiny little doll pin named Zoe Zentangle.  (I know...I get a little weird sometimes.)  I wear a lot of red (and black) so this seemed like a fun idea.  I used patterns like Earth Rising, Paizel, and IX on this. Just an extra fine Sharpie.  

Creating Art Each Day...the Challenge

My first white on black Zentangles

Today really was a challenge to get something created.  Just a busy day.  I did order some white jelly roll pens (Classic .4mm) and thought I'd just do a few little simple trials on the back of my black notebook since I did not have any black paper handy.  (Very hard to photo as it is a shiny surface.) 

The right one turned out (completely by accident) to be a cat, don't you think? I mean I totally did not see it until I took the photo. And it was actually created vertically.  Funny how these work out sometimes.   

Create Art Every Day in November Challenge!

A small box about 4" x 4"

This project was sort of fun!

The box was one that I got flat and then could fold up later.  I needed something for people to put some donations into and so I cut a hole in one side for that as well.  The "string" for this one was based on one that Margaret Bremner had on her blog a few days ago.  Looped strings made all at one time in one stroke.  Also I am participating in the November Art Every Day Challenge.  See here. There are a LOT of artists participating and I was 203.  I don't know if I'll get to posting each day in November...but I might group my work and post once a week.  We'll see.  

Have you Found Robert Genn?

"The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of the work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: On the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work in the "quantity" group: fifty pounds of pots rated an "A", forty pounds a "B" and so on. Those being graded on "quality," however, needed to produce only one pot--albeit a perfect one--to get an "A". Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of the highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the "quantity" group was busy turning out piles of work--and learning from their mistakes--the "quality" group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay." Robert Genn These kinds of stories along with tons of interesting "clickbacks" are delivered to you by newsletter bi-weekly.  Photos of artist's work often included.   I quote Robert often but some folks might have missed it. Click here to find out more about his newsletter.