Mandala beginning and end

I thought I'd share the beginning and ending of this particular mandala.  I don't always start with a skeleton, but sometimes I just don't stop making lines.

I don't always work in colour either - but I'm loving this paper in this mixed media journal.  It takes the sharpie really well - although I'll have to paint the backsides because the sharpies do bleed through.

Here's another printer's tray I put together.  It took quite a number of weeks before I finally decided what was going to go into each section.  I had fun doing it though.

Create something everyday.

Joan

The marble not yet carved can hold the form of every thought the greatest artist has. 

Michelangelo

More Zentangles and hot glue

I'll tell ya - I had a bit of a hard time remembering how to use a compass properly from math class!….but I finally got the hang of it again.  I had fun filling in all the sections and learned to do a new sort of flower and leaves.

For Donna Downey's Inspiration Wednesday this time round we used hot glue guns to create our own stencils.  What fun!  I will be making more of these for sure.

Especially when the pages turn out like this.  I put gesso on the pages as a bottom coat, put down the stencils (once they were hard and dry) and then painted with watercolours, letting the stencils stay where they were while the paint dried.

You can't tell from the picture, but the paper sort of rippled into the stencils too - probably because it wasn't water-colour paper.

I will definitely be doing this again.  Tons of fun!

Create Something everyday.

Joan

My paintings are not about what is seen. They are about what is known forever in the mind.

 Agnes Martin

Journal Pages

I have this stencil of eye glasses that I just couldn't pass up for some reason.  Here I paired it with a pair of wooden glasses that I painted bright green and added rhinestones to.   And staying curious is an important thing to do - especially in anything artistic. What will happen if I do ….this…?  Music, painting, dance, acting, are all open for curious minds.

I did follow an "Artist Gang" tutorial for this journal page and I'm glad I did.  Creating a background and then using the "Mask" portion of this stencil was a new process and a good one to remember.

I attended one of the Urban Scrapbook journal nights and this is the page we created.  Imagine how happy I was when I saw we'd be including zentangles!  Right up my alley.  I also liked the process we used for adding the text.  I adhered sticky letters of various fonts onto the bare page and then covered it with gesso.  Once all the layers of colour were on, I outlined the letters in sharpie to make them pop off the page.  Too Cool.

Create something everyday.

Joan

Draw your pleasure, paint your pleasure, and express your pleasure strongly.

 Pierre Bonnard

Doodling...

I was at an event a week ago and I brought along one of my doodling books that I can carry in my (big) purse.  Over the course of the evening I worked on this mandala…I don't usually make them so intricate, but I like how this one turned out.

I'm trying my best to work with zentangles that are not "contained", but rather flow around the page…..and to use colour rather than just black sharpie.  This particular book is bound with Mixed Media paper by Canson - boy what a difference paper makes.  I'm usually doing my doodles in my found paper books, which are fantastic, and work perfectly.  But the flow of the sharpie on this paper is wonderful. Now - what would happen if I changed to a "good" pen.

Create something everyday.

Joan

The highest art is always the most religious, and the greatest artist is always a devout person. Abraham Lincoln

Zentangle on Canvas

I created this background with leftover paint from another project last week and have been working on this zentangle.  I find it very relaxing to sit and do the tangles, and I'm getting better now at embellishing them a wee bit too.  Practice, Practice, Practice.

Create something everyday - even if it's continuing to work on something over a number of days.

Joan

"Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.

Leo Tolstoy

More Doodling...

A couple weeks ago I was working with Dylusions Spray Inks, but I was painting some lines (dribbles) with the inks.  So I had squirted a little of each ink colour into a little plastic container.  When I was done, I didn't want to waste the ink, so I dribbled it down the pages of a journal and spritzed it a bit with water.  I then decided to do zentangles on the pages - but on the left page I doodled only in the white spaces, and on the right page I doodled in the coloured spaces.  White space can be a good thing - although it's a hard thing for me to leave along.

These flower prints have been waiting in my Paper Bag Book for a long time.  I had extra paint one night, so I put the saying on - and then I decided just to doodle (scribble) around the petals of the flowers.  You may notice that there are different layers of paper on this spread - so some where along the line, some of those flowers will be incorporated into another doodle spread.  Fun, fun, fun.

Create something everyday.

Joan

Releasing…twice

One of our projects for the Novel Approach workshop was to create a grudgy background using NeocolorII crayons and covering it with bits of acrylic paint - you can see the scribbles in the background.  Release is my word for the year - so I decided to doodle it onto the page.  I ended up misspelling it - but I was able to sneak the A in and incorporate it into the doodle.  Yay.

I quite enjoy doing these grids with the little pictures I am forever cutting out and keeping.  This was an exercise for our Novel Approach workshop, but instead of just leaving the painted background, which was green in this case, I did a favourite zentangle over top and I quite like the effect.

Try something new from time to time when you create something everyday.

Joan

Busy, Busy, Busy

I have been doing a number of pages or projects in the past little while and apologize for not having posted them in a timely fashion!

On the above piece I painted the background with  a variety of different colours.  After the paint was dry I drew circles all over the pages and then took Payne's Grey to cover the background except where the circles were drawn.  Because the background was drawn beforehand, I could choose where I wanted the circles to be based on how the paint looked; thus choosing my favourite spots to highlight.

               

I'm really not sure how I feel about this one - I like the process, just now how my bird turned out.  I created the background with yellows, pinks and greens.  The bird was created using a stencil, but only colouring in the sections that would create the birds wings and body.  You wouldn't be able to do this with a stamp - getting the reverse image for the two wings.  I then drew around the stencil to get the image of the bird, highlighting it with more paint.  The words were added with molding paste and a stencil.  A stencil was used for the white squares in the background, and I used the edge of an old gift card for the blue stripes.

These are the pages I did for my last "Inspiration Wednesday" with Donna Downey.  There is always a little "page" included in each spread which makes it interesting when building the spread. I used spray paint for the random numbers on the page - that was a first and sort of fun because you get the "faded" look to some of them.

This is not a page I'm completely pleased with.  I attached the little tags onto the pages a long time ago, then  I covered them with blue paint after highlighting some words on the adjacent page….which  then covered lightly with orange.  Finally I decided to do a zentangle in each of the tags and multi-crossthatching in the background.

Prompt 59 was mail ephemera so I covered the background with corners of envelopes I ended up with after soaking off stamps. I then covered the page with old postage stamps and added a bit of colour around each on in the end.

Prompt 56 - Fortune or Horoscope - well, I guess I actually opted out for using Zodiac since I'm an Aquarian.  I had fun using inks and alcohol inks on the left page  to create the different waves/drips of blue to write the characteristics of an Aquarian.

Prompt 60 was simply - Scribble.  Children scribble all the time as they learn to hold writing/drawing tools and before they learn to control the tool to create a straight line.  I think once we've learned to control the tools, it then becomes a bit difficult to let loose with the tools and just scribble.  It took me a while .  I kept doing "repeated designs" until I just let go and scribbled.  The circles were done on purpose with the different pen colours.

This is a mandala I did in a new little book.  It's a bit different than then other mandalas I've done because I alternated designs within a "round".  I like the way it turned out - except if I was to do it again, I would not add the swirls around the edge…..sort of took away the effect of the rest of the mandala.   Try and learn.

Well, back to work….

Create something everyday.

Joan

Music Canvases

I didn't realize I hadn't posted in a week.  I've been busy making some more music canvases to be sold at an Orff workshop this weekend.  The above is a replica of a piece I did in one of my books.  A friend asked if I could do it on a canvas and I said I'd try.

This piece is sort of a replica of one I've done previously.  The idea is the same with the circles and words, but I changed the clefs and of course the backgrounds can never be the same.

I had this pink background handing around for a long time.  I decided to try something new with all the holey tape around the drawn clef.  And of course, give me an open space and I'll probably fill it with some sort of zentangle.

For this final piece, it was a good way to get rid of little bits and pieces of music that I've used on other projects.  One of the music pieces had the key outlined from it - I used it as scrap when I was colouring a key - so I found a quote that had to do with a key and music, covered the key shape with embossing gold embossing powder a number of times and before it cooled off the last time I stamped it with a music stamp.  Each of the little scraps of music has been outlined with gold too.

Create something everyday.

Joan

Mixed Media with Glass

This is another canvas piece that I've been keeping under wraps for a while until I gave it to it's new owner.  It's sort of a joke between a friend and I that he gives me assignments to complete - shadow, reflection, and on this occasion he wanted me to "art" the bottles lined up on a bar and lit from below.  It took a long time to come up with what I wanted to do.  When I did the melted glass ornaments at a Nina Haggerty Art Night - I made the little square piece in the middle.  It wasn't quite what I expected but it grew into this piece which I am quite happy with.  I was very thankful that I was able to purchase small pieces of glass from the Nina in order to fill the "counter" of bottles.  

I drew "stones" below and filled them with zentangles and surrounded them with black molding paste.  There's a lot of texture going on.

Is there a piece of art you can create for a friend or family member?

Joan

Happy New Year - 2016!

Well, since I have not posted for a very long, and I want to do more with this blog, I thought I'd bring the New Year in right with the first piece of doodling for the year.  I started 4 of these sections New Year's Eve and finished the rest today.  I was listening to one of my playlists and wanted to write some of the lyrics down, so they filled four of the sections.  I'd like to actually do an art page for these songs too.
The background of these altered book pages has been covered in Heavy Gesso and I'ved used Gelly Rolls and a white Sharpie paint pen to do the zentangles.

Make a resolution to do some sort of art every day - big, small - doesn't matter - it's good for the soul.

Index Cards 54- 58

I can't remember if the prompt for this index card was envelopes or mail.  I had saved some of the more unique pieces of envelopes when I was soaking stamps off in the spring - they make a unique collage.

Stamps? Paris?  Not sure of the prompt, but I've kept all these retired stamps because I love the memory of being in Paris.

This was suppose to be cogs or wheels and I do not like this card at all!

I created a sunrise on watercolour paper.  I love how the brush strokes turned out on this one.

Queen of Hearts was the prompt here - I stamped the crown and traced the hearts, putting zentangles into each of them.

If you are Canadian, I hope you are having a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.  If I don't post tomorrow it will be because we're eating turkey!

Take time to create something everyday.

Joan

Index cards 41-47

I loved the bridges that we saw through the countryside in Scotland - we didn't see the actual 'Harry Potter"bridge, but a few came close.  I sketched this out using a photograph I had taken.

Great way to use up some of the sticky letters I have.

I pulled the definition of doodle out of the dictionary - so that must have been the prompt for this card.

Focus or Blur

I love doing these sorts of designs - but it can be hard to keep things straight!

A Mandala on this spacey sort of background that was done on a gelli plate.

I can't remember what this prompt was, It might have been plaid or dancing.  I found a little package of kleenex that had these highland dancers on them.  I added blue tissue paper around the outside and let it hand over the edge.

Hope you're enjoying your fall day.

Create something everyday.

Joan

Index Cards 35 - 40 Catchup

The rainbow for this was painted previously for one of my watercolour practice exercises…now filled with zentangles.

We had been in Edinburgh, Scotland for a day at this point, and I loved all the chimneys on the buildings.  Of course there were lots of pigeons too.

As we left Edinburgh and went traveling around Scotland we saw a number of wind turbines.  The paint that was already on the card lent itself well for a landscape.

Another card based on what we were seeing at the time - I had to sketch this "ticket" because there were no photographs allowed in the castle we were in.  I thought it was cool - a metal piece that cut out this sort of shape and was used for private meetings of the Jacobites back in 1746.  Wow!

The prompt for this card - games!

Create Something Everyday!

Index Cards 29-34 -Catchup!

Obviously the prompt for this card was Ice Cream.

Canada Day 2015!

We were traveling this day to Scotland…I stamped some of my cards ahead of time with "travel" themed stamps so I could use them.

I love making these little stacks!

That the catchup for today.

Create something everyday.