Autumn Zentangles: Initial challenge

The challenge on the Face Book Zentangle group this week is to put together a tile that includes your initial (s) as part of the string or design.  V is Virginia and so I used some inspiration from another artist in the group and was inspired to use Hollibaugh and Purk as the two tangles to accomplish this.  Sometimes simple is more elegant.  V is a rather unusual initial.  Not a huge number of names start with V.  

Gorgeous autumn day in the Northwoods today.  Probably the last one in the 70s and 80s as weather man predicts a huge drop tomorrow and some rain on the way too.  So I hope to do a little sketching outdoors this afternoon.  

Inktober Tangles anyone?

Inktober is a on-line challenge that appears about this time each year.  There are places to post the work AND there is list of suggested words so that you are challenged to find some image to match the word.  NOT easy by the way.  

Several of us did this a few years ago.  Fun but actually pretty time consuming!  It also comes while I am traveling which adds to the problem for me.  

So this year one of my Facebook Zentangle Groups has proposed a Zentangle Inktober challenge.  The group is called Anything Goes: Tangled Art for Everyone. Inktober Tangles sounds more reasonable to me.  However when I looked some of these up I found that they have picked some VERY challenging tangles for this!!!

Step-outs I believe are all located on line and should be available in hard copy or with videos to demo for you if it's a new one you need to see (or to refresh you).  Oct 1 is Mooka which is below. I did this one ahead as a sample.   I am challenging my art group in FL to see if anyone will take me up on it.  (Or any of my blog followers).  If interested you can put something in the comment section below.  

Art Display About Sketching

On Thursday our church (Lac du Flambeau, WI Presbyterian) is sponsoring an "arts" evening.  Along with music and finger food there will be a reception in the evening where members of the church can share their creative talents...carving, knitting, pottery, painting, etc.  Totally fun.  

I decided to share my sketchbooks.  Well, a few of them.

I brought along a few "how to" books that I enjoy just to give people a bit of a hint that there are ways to "learn" about sketching and enhance one's abilities even on your own.  

Creating a Dali

This oak leaf was the inspiration for my abstract leaf below.

My art friends say this looks like a Salvador Dali inspired leaf.

I have to agree.  It is about 8 x 10 on watercolor paper done with crayons (of all things) and black marker pen.  

This was the result of a short class one evening sponsored by Lakeland Art League on using crayons in art (again).  Because my paper was textured the crayons took that texture on. 

This is a very "free form" activity with drawings done in graphite first and mine turned out the most abstract of anyone's which was a surprise.  It was fun to do but I am not very excited about the result.  Still it did give me some ideas about how to start out free form art.  

And it's always fun to think outside the box now and then.