CHRISTMAS CARDS AND CATCH UP

Oh my goodness, I haven't written here since the beginning of November.  I taught my first class and it turned out to be so popular that it became a six week series.  I've been a busy lady lately and haven't had time for other fun things such as keeping up this blog.  Since I'd never taught zentangle® before the classes required a lot of preparation work at home each week.  I found that I love teaching and am so glad I did it.  I'm also thankful to have gotten this teaching experience and to have had the opportunity to do all the basic preparation work now that I will be able to use for other classes in the future. 


My students were wonderful and enthusiastic.  Many of them have taken to zentangle® as if they were born to do it.  It's so rewarding to watch them enjoying it so much.  I'm going to miss the class very much now that it's over and I'm heading South for a few months.  But, I already had someone inquire about my giving a class there.  Who knew zentangle® would open up a brand new world for me?!


In this week's class, the last one of the series, I'm going to teach my students how to make greeting cards and holiday tiles using Zentangle® Inspired Artwork (or ZIAs).  Some of the cards shown below are originals, but to save time others are made with reproductions of ZIAs I created specifically for greeting card use.  


To do that first I measured my blank greeting card to decide how large I wanted to make my ZIA.  Next, I drew four boxes the size that would work best for my cards, in this case 3" X 4 1/2", onto Strathmore Vellum Bristol paper, a favorite of mine for use with colored pencils or ink.  If you notice in the picture below I did not make the boxes go all the way to the edge of my paper.  This is because, unfortunately, copy machines do not always print your original correctly.  Therefore, I like to leave a lot of leeway on the edges so that I don't lose part of my drawing.  Although it's not necessary I did, however, put all four boxes touching each other at the center as you can see here.  There is less cutting of the finished copies that way.  Here is my finished greeting card master:

I used Prismacolor pencils, a Micron black pen, and Pilot Razor Point colored ink pens for my tangling.  Before I use a card I always stamp or write any sentiments on the inside of the card AT THIS POINT!  All too often I've worked diligently on the front of a card only to make a mistake on the inside afterward with the stamping process or handwriting process and then have to throw the entire card away--a real bummer as you can imagine.  


After cutting out the ZIA photocopies, and being happy with any interior work I've done on the blank card so far, I glued my ZIA copies onto the blank card front (bought the cards in a local craft store) with a glue stick.  Double sided tape or dots works well for this purpose, too.  If I plan to add words or a saying to the front of my card I do any necessary stamping or handwriting at this point.  Next, I use a ruler to make a light pencil border around my Zia and go over that with either Prismacolor pencils or ink in a matching color to add accent.  Lastly, I added a bit of decoration on some of the cards


These are the sample cards I wound up with and will be using in this week's class along with a few original ZIA greeting cards shown here.  Of course, there are also many other creative ways to make greeting cards using tangles:

Can you find purk, pais, dragonair, vertigo, cadence, zander and shattuck, among other tangles, in the cards and ibex and BTL joos in the two tiles on the lower left of the picture?  Unfortunately, it's difficult to see the enhancements I've added to the cards in this photo.  I used three dimentional stickers, puffy paint and tiny bling (jewel) stickies on the cards I will be sending to special family members and friends.  


I was lucky to find tiny black plastic easels to display the tiles on.  A tile and an easel makes a nice little gift for a friend or a great hostess gift.  And, you can display them on your own coffee table whether they're done in a holiday motif or not.  


I have quite a few family and friend birthdays coming up in the beginning months of 2012.  I think I'll get busy after the holiday season is over making birthday cards.  I hope I've been able to inspire you, too.


Wishing your holidays, whatever they may be, are wonderful in every way, and are filled with love and lots of fun.  May all of you have the best of health and happiness in 2012!

HEY EVERYBODY! THE DIVA'S GIVING FREE GIFTS!!

Just wanted to share this good news with all my fellow happy tanglers.  Laura, our favorite Diva, is celebrating her blog recently achieving the 200,000 mark.  And, that's quite an achievement to be proud of!  In honor of this achievement she is sharing her happiness with the rest of us by giving out prizes!!  So, head on over by clicking here I Am The Diva to see how to enter and say hi and congratulations to Laura....

MY NEWEST TANGLING ADVENTURES

This October I attended a workshop in Providence, Rhode Island presented by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas, the founders of Zentangle®, to become a Certified Zentangle® Teacher.  I'm so excited to now be able to share this terrific new form of art and meditation with others.  


The workshop was not only filled with intensive learning, but it was also an extremely inspiring experience.  I came home and couldn't stop tangling.  Here are a few of the zentangles I've created since then...

As always thanks for looking in!

DIVA CHALLENGE #45

Well, it's obvious to me that I need A LOT MORE practice with Punzel, and since I really like this pattern, I'll definitely be doing that.   But, in the meantime here's my challenge entry for this week....

Enjoy your weekend fellow tanglers!

ZENTANGLE DIVA CHALLENGE #42

The subject of this week's Diva Challenge is HOPE and is in honor of National Breast Cancer month.  For more information or to join in the challenge, just click here.  I did my tangles in color this week because "hope" is a happy word for me.  My tangles are in honor of my cousin and her deceased mother, who was my godmother, both of whom suffered from breast cancer.

Thanks for looking in!

JUST A FEW OF MY RECENT TANGLES

A Tangler must Tangle.  :-)  And so, here are a few of my most recent tangles...


The ZIA (Zentangle Inspired Art) below is the first page of a Tangling Journal I began recently.

Before I started on the following two tiles I put watercolor paint down letting the colors bleed together.  I let it dry overnight and then did my tangling.  This works fine with no ill effects.  I just love color in my tangles. 

Aqua Tangle

I added small bits of color here and there using Prismacolor pencils in these two tangles below.

And here is a tangle that would have been greatly enhanced by adding color in my opinion...

And now for some fun, classic tangling...

Inapod and Friends

Cadent, Paradox

Flutterby, Paradox

And, a greeting card done mostly with the Cadent pattern...

As always, thanks for looking in.  Questions or comments are welcome and appreciated.  I hope you'll join the fun by doing your own happy tangling real soon!

ZENTANGLE-DIVA WEEKLY CHALLENGE #40

This week's challenge was in honor of September 21st's "International Day of Peace" and a movement that grows larger every year, started by two Florida teachers, "Pinwheels for Peace".  For more information and to join this week's challenge, click HERE


Being a child of the sixties I couldn't help but think of peace signs, so my first tangle represents them.  As I was creating the tangle, however, it made me sad to think how many years ago it was that my generation protested for peace and meanwhile we watched our former high school friends be maimed and killed in a senseless war.  Here it is 50 years later, many pleas for peace have been made by many people in the ensuing years, and yet another senseless war is killing and maiming our youth. Will we never learn?


So, my second tangle needed color, because I needed color to cheer myself up a bit.  I only wish I could feel more hopeful that world peace was near.  I leave this week's challenge with somber thoughts.  

Sorry to be so serious.  Sometimes those Zen-tangling thoughts just go there, I guess...

ZENTANGLE-DIVA WEEKLY CHALLENGE #39

This week's challenge was to think about LOVE while tangling and to tangle lovingly.  What a nice challenge!  To learn more about the Diva's Weekly Challenge, please click HERE .  


I'm a two-time kidney transplant recipient.  So, for me it's been my two kidney donors who have exhibited the most ultimate and selfless act of love.  I received my first transplant from the family of a 29 year old woman who died in an automobile accident.  After 14 years when that one was no longer healthy my brother-in-law donated one of his kidneys to me.  (He and I are still doing fine.  Hubby and I had lunch with him yesterday, in fact.)  God bless both of these beautiful, loving people and their families who have given me the gift of life, surely one of the world's ultimate acts of love.  


These amazing people have allowed me to live a healthy and happy life almost 25 years longer than expected, to finish raising my three children, and to see my four grandchildren be born.  May God bless them both and may He bless all of the medical personnel who have so lovingly given of themselves along my miraculous journey, as well.


I did my first tangle in honor of my two kidney donors and their families.  The second one is in honor of all the loving acts we experience everyday of our lives.  

"Love Doesn't Grow on Trees"

As always, thanks for looking in.  May there always be much love in your life!

Color Dropping Demo

Yesterday, I decided to drop some watercolor paints on a piece of 6" X 6" Strathmore Bristol Vellum paper I've had lying around.  I let it dry and had to press it under some books and took it out this morning with the intention of doing a floral piece of Zentangle inspired art on it with my black micron .01 pen.  


This is a picture of what the paper looked like before I began...

(Sorry about my poor photography here.)

I began with a tangle pattern by the name of Mumsy.  That pattern, and the colors I'd dropped, got me thinking about autumn.  Soon, I got carried away with the designs I saw in the dropped colors and just let the pen go.  My mumsy morphed into another tangle pattern by the name of Flux.  Next, leaves showed up.  And then it was calling out to be shaded with my black Prismacolor pencil.  That's the fun of dropping color with absolutely nothing planned and then just letting it speak to you.  This is what I wound up with in the end...

Autumn Abstract

ZENTANGLE-DIVA'S WEEKLY CHALLENGE # 38

For more information and to try this week's Zentangle Challenge,   Click Here

I'm in love--with Paradox!  I never tried this pattern before, although I've admired it in other people's tangles for quite some time.   And, after working with it in this week's challenge I certainly know I'll be using Paradox a lot in the future.  It's so much fun to do.  The first tangle below is a practice tangle and in the second one I wanted to try tangling with curved lines.  After I started the second one I realized I may have simply been tangling another pattern that I'm not aware of.  If so, I apologize.  


It's been a quite, rainy day here on the Northeast Coast of USA with the holiday weekend being over and the grandchildren heading back to school this week, so I had lots of time to try to master Paradox.  I'm afraid I still am not quite "getting" how to control the results, though (fan vs. twisted column).  I definitely see more Paradox in this week's future.  :-)  I'm determined to master it!

  

  

this third one last night after finally getting the hang of controlling how Paradox turns out a bit better.  This one's pattern is more organized at least.  Having CONTROL makes me love the this pattern all the more.  LOL

As always, my thanks go to Laura, our Diva, for challenging me to learn, learn, learn!  And, thanks fellow challengees for looking in.  Comments and suggestions are always welcome and appreciated...

AMONG MY FIRST EVER ZENTANGLES

I just came across these two tangles and thought I'd post them here.  I did these several months ago when I first discovered Zentangles and both are probably among the first 5 I did.  It just shows that it doesn't take long to get the hang of doing Zentangles.  And, that's one of of the very best things about them!

Tangled Swan

Tree

Smiles to your day.....

USING INCHIES TO MAKE GREETING CARDS

Once I got the hang of making Inchies and Twinchies as demonstrated in my other post  Click here  I decided to use them to decorate handmade greeting cards. 


1.)  For my first effort I found an old failed painting to use.  Then I looked for colorful areas in it, and ripped out a few possibilities...

I looked for a few areas that I especially liked with my handy dandy 1" masking matboard (lower right hand corner in picture below) and cut out one inch squares of the areas that I thought would go together nicely.  Once I got what I liked I put all six inchies together and flicked a bit of gold paint on each square.  In this case I glued them down on a blank olive green greeting card.  After all that was done I "framed" the six inchies with a gold pen.

Here I've laid my inchies on the greeting card to figure out the most appealing assemblage. You can also see the materials I used in this picture.

I used the same scraps of an old failed painting to make the card above, but here you can see I decorated my inchies with black ink for a cohesive look and mounted them on a white greeting card instead.

For this card I made my own abstract inchies by flicking many layers of watercolor and acrylic paint on top of each other until I got the effect I wanted.  I also decided to make use of the deckled edge of the watercolor scrap paper I was using when I cut my inchies.  Once I was happy with them I glued them on to my card and drew a "frame" around them with a black micron pen.

2.)  For the next few cards I used old stickers I had laying around... 

For this card below I painted four two inch squares deep pink to use as a base to glue my stickers on.  Once I glued the stickers to the pink squares I flicked gold paint on them.  Next I glued the four of them onto the card and drew a frame around them with a black micron pen.  Then I stamped the words, "Wishing You Joy" below and viola' I have a card.  Here are the supplies I used to make my twinchie fairy card...

"Wishing You Joy"

Here I'm making another greeting card from old floral stickers I had laying around.  These stickers fit perfectly onto inchies...

It was fun to make these cards and it's a lot of fun to use them when I need a card for a friend.  In the photo below you can see all the finished cards together...  

Thanks for looking in.  I hope you've been inspired.  Comments and suggestions are always welcome and appreciated.

INCHIES, TWINCHIES AND SO ON

This past winter I discovered a new art craze and it's called "Inchie Art".  It consists of tiny one inch square pieces of art work.  They can be made of anything, paper, mat board, felt, leather, etc. as long as they measure one inch square.  They're painted, woven, stuffed, collaged, sewn, tangled, etc.  


When they're finished they can be framed either separately or in groups.  Special frames are made just for inchies and be ordered from the internet.  They can be made of cloth, decorated, stuffed and mounted onto tiny canvases that stand on small easels sold just for this purpose and they can be displayed in small shadow boxes  The options are endless.  Inchies can be used to make greeting cards and gift tags.  People make jewelry and fold out books with these little gems.  They are also swapped on Yahoo and eBay, and they're fun to do.


Many supplies are available for inchie making:  frames, precut mat board inchies, jewelry to mount them in, special stickers and collage materials just for inchies, and on and on.  To find these supplies simply do a web search for them by typing in the word "Inchie", of course.


Then....there's Twinchies!  As you may have already guessed they are the same thing only they measure two inches square.  They call 1 1/2" squares Betweenchies, I believe.  And, when they're round they're called Rinchies.  Pretty confusing!  


They're all fun to do, however, and like so many of the miniature artworks that have gotten popular lately, they can be done with so many different materials and used in so many different ways.  The sky's the limit.  For more information, examples, links to inchie websites, supplies such as precut Inchies and frames, and a detailed explanation of exactly what these little gems are all about, here is a link that explains it all far better than I can:


http://stamphenge.wordpress.com/1-2/inchies-twinchies-definitions/


I had fun dabbling in inchies myself and below are a few demos of how I made mine, the materials I used and what I did with my tiny little artworks once they were completed...




1.)  For my first few attempts at creating inchies I simply got out my watercolors and painted them.  When I had what I wanted I glued them into my 11" X 14" visual journal, sometimes mounting them on a background first, drew a frame around them and wound up with very decorative visual journal pages. 


Below is my first attempt, a silly little bunch of inchies depicting the beach where I spend my winter months...

"Water Temperature 92 Degrees, Naples Beach"

Next I wanted to do something colorful, so I made a few tiny little cup stencils, traced them onto watercolor paper that I cut to square inch size, and painted all sorts of colorful cups that I then glued and "framed" into my large visual journal...

"Lotsa Cups"

I loved a little poem that I found on a tissue box this past winter and so for my next inchie creation I copied parts of it and made an inchie display using it.  When I had what I wanted I mounted the inchies on a piece of Scrapbook Paper that looked like grass and then mounted all of that into the same journal...

"What's This I See?"

2.)  Once I began playing with inchies my mind began to think of more and more ways to create them.  Next I decided to collage a few.  

For my first attempt I got out a few old magazines and cut out one inch squares of color to make a rainbow that I had in mind.  When I was finished I glued all the square inch pieces down in my visual journal.  Here is a picture from my studio of the materials I used to make "Roy G. Biv"...

Ruler, Roller To Press Glued Pieces Down, Scissors, Old Magazine To Do My Gluing On, and Piles Of Inchies In Rainbow Colors 


And, the end result...

"Roy G. Biv"

3.)  Well, that was fun.  So, next I decided to use my own artwork to make a couple of Twinchies (2" squares).  First I scanned my own paintings.  Then I resized each scan into 2" X 2" squares, cut them out, mounted them together on suitable backgrounds and finally inserted the final pieces of artwork into my large sketchbook. 

 "The Gallery"

"The Ladies"

To see my Inchie Greeting Card Demos please click here.

My examples pale in comparison to many of the much more creative inchies you'll find by searching the web.  But, I hope you've been inspired to try making a few of your own and looking further into the Inchie Craze if you've never tried them before, and as always thanks for looking in!

Gurney Journey: Video: Sketching a Donkey

Just had to share the video below for anyone interested in using watercolor pencils.  I, myself, haven't gotten around to using them yet, but hope to soon.  This is a fun video, just a bit over 4 minutes, with fun music.  You just may catch yourself dancing while you're learning!  Enjoy......

http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2011/09/donkey-portrait.html?spref=bl

WATERCOLOR DEMO, PURPLE IRIS-HOW TO KNOW WHEN YOUR PAINTING IS FINISHED

This is a demo of a painting I began in a recent watercolor class I was taking. I'd like to say that it's also a good example of the age old problem of how to know when your painting is finished.  But since that's a lesson I still haven't learned after 30 years of painting  I'll let you watch me NOT know when a painting is finished so that maybe you'll do a better job at it.  LOL  This is also a lesson in using a limited palette in your painting.

All Paints in this demo are Windsor Newton and the paper is Arches 140 lbs. Cold Press.

Colors Used:

French Ultra Marine Blue

Alizarin Crimson

Sap Green

Aureolin (Yellow)

1.)  Below is my sketch and my beginning washes.  I was happy with this and thought it showed great promise.  I made my purple by mixing a combination of Alizarin Crimson and French Ultramarine Blue.  You'll also notice I'm bringing some Aureolin Yellow into the flowers to tie in one of the other irises that I intend to make all yellow.  By using as few paint colors as possible and mixing them to achieve other colors you need you give a cohesiveness to your painting.  

2.)  In this next step I'm continuing with my flower washes and I added the first glaze to my background by mixing the Aureolin with Sap Green.  I covered some of the leaves while I was glazing the background because I know I'll use this layer of glaze as an under layer when I build the leaf colors up later on.  I consciously choose a yellow for the bottom front iris so that it will pop forward.  I also want to tie the whole painting together by using bits of the same yellow on my other two iris flowers and using it in my green background color mixture.  It was at this point that I also decided to do this painting in a vignette style (not finishing it to the outer edge of the paper).

3)  Okay, now I've darkened my background (this turned out to be a Bad Move as far as I'm concerned) considerably by mixing a lot of the French Ultramarine Blue and a bit of the Alizarin Crimson into my Sap Green to make it darker.  At this point the leaves are still the color of the first background glaze and the flowers are the same as they were in the previous step although they might look a bit different because of the difference in background hue.  You might notice that at this point both flowers and leaves are fighting to be the central point of the painting and that's not a good thing.  There can only be one star!

4)  In the finished piece below you can see that I further darkened my background.  I did this by using an Indigo Prismacolor pencil to blend in some of the blotchiness and darken the background around the three iris flowers and leaves hoping to pop them all forward a bit.  I also used a Dark Green Prismacolor pencil for that purpose and to solve the problem of the leaves fighting the flowers for attention.  I shaded them darker so that they would recess further into the background which would make the flowers pop forward.  

Also, in this last step if you look closely you can see texture on the leaves from the pencil.  If you choose to use colored pencil as I do you have to add the texture all around your painting here and there, which I did, although it's probably difficult to tell in this photo.  If you don't add it in places everywhere around your painting the spot that you did add it to will look out of balance and the viewers eye will go right to it.  Using a Deep Purple and Indigo Prismacolor pencil I sharpened up and deepened the iris flowers, as well.

Using Prismacolor pencils in your watercolors is definitely not the norm.  It's a habit I developed out of being too lazy to achieve the same effect with a small watercolor brush and more glazing, which is how it really should be done when you're painting in this particular style.  But, I'm no watercolor saint.  I break whatever rule gets in my way nowadays.  LOL  Eventually, I'd like to try doing this last step, a step I just can't seem to resist for some reason, with watercolor pencils.  But, I haven't experimented with them nearly enough to feel confident using them in a painting yet.  Perhaps that calls for another "Paint Along With Me And Watch Me Make Mistakes Demo".   :-)  

My Comments:  Was this a successful painting?  Not really, as far as I'm concerned.  If you go back to the first photo of this demo I quickly lost that light, washy, watercolor look that was my original intent for this painting and that I thought was so pretty.  The background is probably the problem and I lost it the minute I put in the first glaze and made it too heavy.  Right there my background began fighting with my flowers which I had to correct by darkening the background and so the problems began.  As the title of this post says, sometimes it's just good to know when to stop fussing with your work and let it be.  I think I should have stopped many glazes before I did!  So, after 30 years at this it's still a continual live and learn process for me.  Mistakes are great teachers and I'm a slow learner!  I hope I can spare you from making some of the mistakes I've made by letting you learn from mine.

Thanks so much for looking in...comments are always welcome and appreciated.