Diva's Challenge #15

Diva's Challenge #15 - Love your curves, Baby!

The challenge is to use only curves and no straight lines. I loved what came out as a drawing for the previous challenge (#14) that required using just straight lines and I hoped I'd feel the same about this one. Didn't happen, unfortunately. It's way too busy. Just to add to the mess the drawing from the other side  of the page bleeds though to this page slightly, so it looks like a shadow (upper right corner). Ah well, it's not about perfection, anyway. I enjoyed making it, so all is well.

Diva's Challenge #72

Diva's Challenge #72 - Tanglation Nation - Crescent Moon

At the first glance it seemed like a very easy challenge. Just use one tangle and it's a simple one - crescent moon. Turned out a bit more challenging than I thought. It's in no way perfect, but this is the best I've got right now:

Diva's Challenge #14

Diva's Challenge #14 - I walk the line

The challenge here is to use only straight lines. This was a true challenge and one of the most fun ones so far.

Diva's Challenge #13

Diva's Challenge #13 - Non-Dominatrix

Use the non dominant hand to draw. I am right handed, so I used my left hand exclusively to make this.

Diva's Challenge #12

Diva's Challenge #12 - Something Blue

Use color blue.

Diva's Challenge #11

Diva's Challenge #11 - Monotangle

The challenge was to use a single tangle for the whole piece. I saw this as a good opportunity to practice a tangle I like a lot, but had trouble with in the past - striping a creation of the super talented artist and author Sandy Steen Bartholomew. 

I have definitely made progress with striping. I like how it turned out here although I would make a few tweaks if I were to do it all over again.

Diva's Challenge #10

Diva's Challenge #10 - The Space Between; Exploring white space

The challenge is to stay mindful of the negative space and it's role in the design.

Diva's Challenge #9

Diva's Challenge #9 - Use tangle Artoo

Splotch Monster Book Page 5

Illustration Friday - Sight

The creature was a scary sight.

This is a monster from my book of splotch monsters. Page 4.

Splotch Monster Book Page 3

Splotch Monster Book Page 2

Another Flower

Diva's Challenge - Color Me Sepia

This week Diva's challenge is to use color brown.

I used the new tangle Chainlea, added some other random elements  and ended up with this:

I am happy with it.

Flowers From Templates #3

Flowers From Templates #2

Flowers From Templates #1

I recently stumbled upon Ana Navas' awesome Flickr flower tutorials and decided to try a few. I used atc sized paper which is small and convenient. This is just the first of a few I made so far:

Dots and Drops

Just a little abstract made mostly from dot and drop shapes and finished off with a bit of shading.

Zentangle Inspired

As far as I know one of the rules of drawing zentangles is to start with a string. I often don't follow that rule and just start drawing patterns and see where that leads me. This is one of those rare ones that did start with a random string. It was supposed to be just an abstract experiment with different sizes of tangle Groovy. Somehow, I ended up with something that looks like a dog head to me. I didn't even notice it until it was finished. Coincidence or not, I like it.

What do you say? Does it look like anything familiar to you?

Salvaging Cards Example #2

Today I have another example of a card salvaged from a failed Diva's Challenge attempt.

At the point of giving up on using it for the challenge:

After I worked on it and finished it:

I am pleased with how this turned out. Could have done a better job with the paradoxes, but overall, I think it's fine.

Diva's Challenge #69

Diva's Challenge #69: UMT v.IV: Groovy

I first saw the tangle Groovy just a few days ago. I liked it immediately, but didn't have a chance to try it until tonight. I had a little trouble with it. In some places it's not quite what it should be. For the first time, though, I think it turned out all right.

Acrylics

It's been a very long time since I last painted with acrylics. This angry-ish looking cat is my tiny comeback piece.

I sketched it on a page of an old book, then cut it out and glued it (with acrylic gel medium that I used for the first time ever) onto a piece of a scrap cardboard and finished it with acrylics. You can see some of the letters coming through a little bit in places. It was fun. I'll be doing more of that soon.

Book Of Splotch Monsters

I started a new journal. It's not going to be a typical art journal. I am going to fill it up with splotch monsters. As I mentioned in previous posts I get the inspiration for splotch monsters from Steve's A Splotch Monster a Day blog. They are so fun to make that I decided to dedicate a whole book to them.

The book is a sketchbook with 300g watercolor paper pages. It comes with a convenient hole in the front cover, so I used that to make a simple title for the book.

I ended up with a lot of blank space on the first page, so I added some monsters to it.

What I love about splotch monsters is that I never quite know what I'll get as a final result. It's exciting, like a little adventure with each monster.

Here are the closeups of those I ended up with this time:

Making this book is going to be a super fun exercise.

Looplopp Flower

I am really enjoying using colors with tangles. Here's my latest creation:

I used basic Looplopp for the flowers. It's a really nice tangle with great variations.

Salvaging Cards Example #1

I had a bit of trouble with Diva's Challenge #68. I had to abandon a couple of cards (I worked in the ATC format) before I got it right. In the spirit of Zentangle and the philosophy that no attempt is a failure I set out to salvage the cards I already started, but that were not good for the challenge.

Here's the first card at the point when I decided it would not work for the challenge:

And here it is after I finished it:

Not perfect, not great, but it was a good practice.

Tangled Fish

This one started out as a doodle. There were numerous moments when I thought I should just abandon it, but I kept working on it and in the end I didn't think it deserved to end up in the trash.

Stolen Idea

My first Zentangle inpired houses. The inspiration for this one came from Margaret the Enthusiastic Artist. I just loved her Zentangled houses and had to try it. I did it late at night so it's a bit messy, the lines are not very precise, but I still like it.

I enjoyed this, I think I'll do more of similar drawings soon.

Diva's Challenge #68

This week Diva's Challenge is "DuoTangle v.IV: Hybrid/Strircles" and as I mentioned in a previous post, my first attempt to create it ended up a failure since I didn't follow the rules. I chose to work on an atc sized paper, which is only 3.5x2.5" and that's presented an additional challenge. It turned out like this:

I don't know what to think of it. I both like it and don't like it, if that makes any sense.

I am looking forward to seeing what other participants did with this challenge. It's a really good one.

My Upcycled Art Supplies Holder

This is my new art supplies holder. As you can see it's very amateurish and that's because I made it from scratch using my own design. I used scrap fabric from an old pair of jeans and scrap sturdy cardboard from an old calendar. Each side including the bottom is made of two pieces of fabric and has a matching piece of cardboard sewn inside, between the fabric, to make it strong and stand upright. The container has 3 compartments. I made the dividers from the same denim as the sides and also used 2 pieces of fabric for each of the 2 dividers. I didn't put cardboard inside the dividers, so they are flexible and can make each compartment smaller or bigger depending on how much stuff you put inside. I did some sewing with my sewing machine, but did the most of it by hand.

The end result is super practical and holds all my pens and watercolor pencils, plus some glue, rulers, erasers, torillons, pencil sharpeners and more.

I painted the outside of the box with fabric paints. I am totally inexperienced with that and had difficulty with precision. It didn't turn out as I hoped and planned it would. I think it would be so much better if I worked with some sort of markers and such, but the paint I used required a brush. I guess I could paint over it and start over, but I am not really into it right now, I can always do that later. I'll call this good enough and be happy with it for now. What I care about the most is functionality and that is where this supplies holder really shines.

Diva's Challenge #68 - Almost

I love to read fiction. Non fiction and instructions - not so much. That's how I missed the rules of the Diva's Challenge for this week. I made this:

But just as I was going to post it, I gave the text a better look and realized I didn't follow the rules. The rules say only two tangles, nothing else. I thought it meant mix the two tangles into one. Obviously, this is totally out of the question for the challenge. Meh, serves me right for not reading carefully. I'll give it another shot tomorrow.

Regardless of the challenge, though, I do like how it turned out.