Saturday, May 04, 2013

Recycling at it's prettiest...

I have a fun new project I have been working on lately.  I have to clean out much of our stuff to make an apartment for our daughter who wants to return home from Maryland.  I will then have all four of my children withing walking distance from our house!!

So...on to the cleaning out.  I saw this idea on Pinterest and paid attention to the details of how it worked and thought 'I have tons of plates and glassware and I bet I can do these'  Got the waterproof glue and set to work.  Got a drill to go through glass but that was difficult for me to handle, so I went with the idea of filling a base piece with dirt and rocks before I glued a plate on.  This made for a heavy bottom to keep wind from being a problem.

Then I dug through shelves and boxes, etc and lined up the pieces in order for color and sizing.
I decided that each piece needed at least 3 upright pieces to create enough height.  And the in-between made a layered look in style and color.

I know how to Zentangle, so I used my ink that I used on my Zentangle Plates to add color and design to pick up other piece's color.

I have glass stones, and I have plastic beads, and will probably think of other things to glue on as I go along.

And of course, I know my way to the Goodwill store for anything I might be missing...lol






Friday, February 15, 2013

Judy's Doodle Challenge 20

Posted this plate over on my facebook page and forgot it was one of Judy's challenges.  The thought crossed my mind briefly when I was tracing onto the plate, but by the time I finished it totally slipped away...lol  This is done with a larger tip pen than I like.  I made a mistake when I ordered them, not noticing the size differences.  I did this plate anyway, with simple patterns, as I had started it and didn't want to wait for a new order of pens.


After working with that thick pen, I shifted over to the color pens that had the finer point.  Did a couple fish in the deep blue sea...


A closer view...I will stick with the color til my new black pens arrive----the FINE point ones!!!

Thursday, February 07, 2013

Catching up....

I feel like I have deserted my blog lately, as I haven't had time for challenges, and have been in other groups and started my own swap!!  I have some plates to share and a few zentangles... here goes!


This is a medium size plate with my favorite snail, and I learned how to manipulate the ink to cause shading on it.


 Got more involved with the shading on this large plate.  A little trickier to shade larger areas.  This plate also had a raised design in the center and rings raised on the outside edge, so I had to work the design from there.


My little chipmunk kind of goes with the snail plate, but the green is a bit more intense in this work, so when they are next to each other, I'm not sure I like it.


And some tangles....   These are 'Kickstarters' from tanglebucket, who gives us 4 specific tangles to use to kick start our imaginations... Fun!





And a few ATC's that got me going off on a swap of my own.  I am  hoping to get it started by March 1, and have as many as 25 swaps in the group.   So I will be busy...









Wednesday, February 06, 2013

Postcard Swap

I've been so busy in so many directions, I failed to post my three postcards in the Artist in Blogland Swap.
I left my blog address on the back, but no cards for them to relate to, sorry.  Here they are.....
This one is done with a purple micron 5


With this I threw in some colored pencils and a bit of metallic gel pen

This is blue batik fabric with a gold sun batik, and a cut out gull apliqued on. Machine stitching done in sky and tight double zig-zag on the outside edges and the sun.

As you can see, I chose to make the third one a fabric card.  The swap was mixed media, so I figured I would 'MIX"...   Hope everyone got their cards successfully.  I have just received my second one today. Looking forward to number three.

Friday, January 25, 2013

Dive challenge 103

so okay...not every tangle is one I'm gonna like.  I don't care for how this came out, but don't know if I have time to do another and will go with the crowd that says POST it anyway....

It is an important challenge to do right for Laura and her son, so I will try to improve.  And I may go look at what everyone else is doing to be inspired.  I don't usually like to do that.  I want to use my own imagination and the patterns I have already collected to put mine together before I see what all of the ladies and gentlemen in our company do.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Zendala challenge 41...a pretty flower

Immediately upon seeing the shape of this one, I knew I would be leaning towards flowery designs.  I actually did the leaves first, with a new design from just a couple days ago,  Of course you may not recognize it because I did only one line of it right down the middle of the leaf.

 I had fun coloring this one using every pen and pencil type I owned.  Micros, gel pens, prismacolor pencils, even Staedtler pen for the tiny yellow dots on the outside edge.  I don't have every color in any type of pen, so I poked through all of them to get the colors I wanted.

I actually stayed within the lines all the way through and only added a tiny extra on the edge.  For me this is unusual.  But the shape was a good one right from the get-go.

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Zendala 40 challenge

Wasn't sure where to go with this til I saw Helen's (little lime)heart tangle pattern.  Looked like fun to try that first, not realizing there were SEVEN points to this zendala.   Figured I do every other point and then put another heart-type in the other points.  Well that doesn't work with an odd number so I had to hang in there and put the hearts ALL the way around.  They took some time, but I did like the end results.  And the ribbon-style edging was inspired by Margaret Beauchamp's latest gallery art we got to see this morning.

So thank you fellow tanglers for you inspiration.



I also wanted to share my newest zentangles on a product other than paper...



The round circles are the little feet on these cutting boards/ hot plates.  They won't take the paint, and I was not sure I could put them back on securely if I took them off...lol  So they slightly interrupt the design. The design shows because after I do the ink, I spray the back with white.  Because this ink is waterproof, it seems to handle the paint product without bleeding.  


Here is a photo, rather than a scan, to show the size.  They were a bargain at the 'dollar' store and perfect for little cutting jobs.  And for showing off a Zentangle!!!


Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Diva 102 second challenge try...

I tried again, and this time stuck to just the two tangles, but I couldn't resist messing with them again.  They looked too small in the 5 x 7 space so I extended the auraknot with extra aura...lol

Diva challenge 102

Okay, I did this without reading thoroughly  the instructions given by the Diva.  I saw Helen's adorable flower and the other great ones she did. And I thought okay I will try putting these two together.  But when I tried the auraknot, I went slightly crazy trying to get all the petals to work under and over.  So I started another one and only put six points instead of twelve.   And then I had to add a few little tendrils.
THEN I read Diva directions and realized I shouldn't be adding extra stuff.....

Can you look at it and maybe ignore the tendrils???  I did try something different in striping the auraknot and lining the bunzo for a new look.

I will try to get time to do another and do it correctly.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Supertrooper challenge...

My son is a fantastic artist and loves the gory graphics that are in many games.  He and his daughter admired a recent piece of art that was in that genre, and I kidded him that I could take a storm trooper from the Star Wars series and Zentangle him into a similar look.  So here is the image I got from Google and the results when I did a job on him.

 

I would like to think I did okay, but I am waiting to see what he has to say.....It was fun and QUITE a different way to draw for me.  Don't want to stop my flowers and fantasy for this!!! But a challenge is a challenge and I gave it a go!

Wednesday, January 09, 2013

Diva 101...sounds like a beginners class...lol

...and I am beginning with my first monotangle.   Almost mono anyway, as I put a 'net' behind the tangle to hold it all together.  LOVE this new tangle and decided a good way to cement it into my head was do it over and over.  I also had just received my first set of metalic gel pens and gave them a little try on the extra stripes I added to the shells.  I don't see the shine in the scan, but in real life it has a nice metalic glow when it hits the light right.  Gonna have to use them more in the near future.


Hope I did B-rad's new and fun pattern justice...  So nice to have the diva back and throwing new ideas at us.  Been working on a larger pic, 11 x 14" so I am behind on the challenges again.  

I'm off to get my new permanent glasses for after the cataract surgery.  It seems like this whole deal has taken forever and I am glad to be getting the right glasses finally.  I am getting tired of switching glasses for computer to glasses for drawing, back to computer ones for reading and getting instructions on food items when I make supper (I'm a microwave diva...lol)  



Thursday, January 03, 2013

Dive #2 and more...

I hadn't really expected to have another item with the diva dance pattern in it, but then it seemed to be just the right start for this plate.  Rock and roll made a perfect flower type tangle in the middle and then I just used part of fox trot in four of the points, so there we have it---a second try.



And that wasn't the end of working on plates, either.  I did these two as a 'pair'  and I loved how they turned out on the pearlescent white of the plate with that 'carnival' coloring on the outer edge.




And the last one I finished just today.  A pottery-looking feel to it, so I did a rugged chunky type of tangle on it.  It came out rather golden in the pic, but is more of a terra-cotta color for real.