Renaissance tile no.1

My first Renaissance tile attempt. And my first success in getting a picture onto my blog using my mini iPad !

ZENDALA DARE #86 'Gratitude', and some ATC's

I really appreciate Erins (http://thebrightowl.blogspot.com) work in giving us Zendala Dares in the holidays! Also considering all the work she has at hand. Thanks Erin. Her theme for this week is "Gratitude". The template is shaped like a frame, and inside we are to place something we feel very grateful for. I find my friends a great source of strength and enjoyment, so have placed that as my theme. As I always seem to do work in colour ,I've done this in black and white. Plus the fact that frames are rarely multi-coloured.

Ive continued to work on card taken from art gallery invitations for my ATC's and am quite enjoying the challenge. Some card is glossy, so that is an extra thing to master in that the ink doesnt take at one, or dry quickly and so its easy to smudge, but the end result is worth it.

More of the ATC's!

Yesterday I was sorting through old Art Gallery invitations, deciding what to keep, what to pass on to an art teacher and what to throw out. Then I had an idea!! All this nice card and colour, why don't I use it for my zentangle adventures!!? In particular, ATC's. So thats just what I did. I cut one painting up into ATC size and tangled two of them. I rather like the effect. What do you think? I first used a no.1 pen, then tried a .05. I found the latter too fine against the colour, so reverted to the .1. As the card had a slight sheen, I found I needed to be careful to not smudge the ink as it took a while to dry. I then shaded with Prisma Verythin coloured pencils.



This is one of the cards before tangling with part of the painting on it





Next week I shall be off to Perth once again to see my son and his family of seven children! They are expecting no. eight on Jan 9th, so I shall be busy. Heres a picture of myself with Chris as a toddler., then have a look at what he has produced! 



ZENDALA DARE #85

I havent done a 'Dare' for a few weeks, having been on holidays, so happily did this one tonight. I was in the mood to use my Gelly Roll pens , I like the way they flow smoothly and the colours are vibrant. I kept the colour scheme to Analogous or Harmonious, so the colours toned together well. The thing thats missing is fine detail. Its not brilliant but I enjoyed doing it and thats the main thing hey?

ATC CARDS CONTINUED

Ive had some fun playing with ATCs. Quite like the fact that they are smaller. I had some nice replies from last blog that a few folk will swap with me, but I'm not sure they realise I live in Autralia!! Thanks to them very much. indeed. For two of these I did a colour wash background first but found the linework didnt really stand out enough. This was for tangling. The cogs one I did with coloured pencil and the other using micron pens. For the circular design I actually enlarged some zendala designs and printed them off to work on. The patterns were scattered over A4 card, then I cut them up into ATC size.
                                                                    

 Does anyone out there have an Apple Macbook or iPad who can help me to do my blog on? I have just switched from Windows to Apple and am finding the difference frustrating although I have quite fallen in love with my ipad mini. The problem I have found is getting my pictures onto the blog. I can write  it ok but have yet to find a way to download my photos.

Diva Challenge #148

Recently I became interested in Artist Trading Cards. They seemed a good size to swap cards with others who create artworks. So far I have yet to meet anyone else who wants to swap! However, I did this weeks challenge on an ATC, not brilliant but a start. Then in my art group today I gave each a blank card to create something on. We used Maria's calligraphic 'Z' as a starting point. Each was amazingly different, vastly different to mine which still retained a resemblance. Sorry I don't have theirs to show you. Actually they weren't quite finished when they went home.

One day in my art class a lady produced an interesting print out of cog wheels. I knew I just had to recreate it!. It took some while to draw up, and just as long to colour over a series of nights. As my lovely Prismacolours have gone walkabout, I opened up my old box of Faber Castell Polychromos coloured pencils, which I haven't used in decades. It was an interesting experience. I decided to work in layers, and found them to be most co-operative to do so. It didn't matter how many layers I worked, I could always add another. I hope you enjoy my piece. I am working through a journal of 270 gsm paper size A5. Great stuff.

ZENDALA DARE 82

Thought I'd work with traditional black and white for a change!! The two tangles I used for this zendala were "Well" and "Knase".Whilst "Well" takes time to do, I always enjoy using it.