I Am The Diva Challenge 178: Duo-Tangle

The challenge this week is to create a duo-tangle using tangles that begin with the first letter of your first and last name.  Since my name is Barb Sailor,  I had to find patterns that began with B and S.  I chose Boomerang and Sparkle.  

I worked on a 5" x 5" square piece of good white drawing paper and did my design mostly in .005 Micron Pigma black pen and poppy red Prismacolor colored pencil.  I also did some shading with a black colored pencil.  I tried to get this design symmetrical, but failed - oh well!  I enjoyed doing it anyway...I have to get over being such a perfectionist!!! lol

Courtney's Beautiful Bloom

This painting will be our lesson for Monday night's watercolor class.  This   flower painting is taken from a beautiful photo taken by our neighbor, Courtney Kay Gasson.  She recently won honors for the

photo at the Shelby County Fair in Ohio, and graciously allowed me to use it as the source photo for my painting.

The painting is 9" x 12" and is painted on 140 lb. cold-pressed Canson watercolor paper with mostly Holbein watercolors.  I know my watercolor family will enjoy painting this one.

Courtney Kay's Prize-winning Photograph

I Am The Diva Challenge 177: Truffle

I Am The Diva challenge this week is to design a Zentangle using the tangle "Truffle!"

For this I used a chip of grey mat board 4 1/2 " x 5", and MicronPigma black pens and then shaded with Prismacolor colored  pencils.

Northwoods Bait Shop

A good friend has a home in the northwoods of Wisconsin - I have visited there often and definitely appreciate the beauty of that area.  When I heard of this bait shop on Star Lake, I asked her if she would consider a mission to find it and take many pictures of it so I could do some paintings of it.  She proved that it was not a "mission impossible" and sent me some beautiful photographs.  This is the first painting from those photos and I am going to use it as a lesson for my watercolor class tomorrow evening.

The painting is 9" x 12" and is painted on 140 lb. cold-pressed watercolor paper with the new Golden QoR watercolors.  They are so wonderful to work with - I am really getting spoiled.

Old Gnarled Tree

 

I thought I would use the rest of the strong coffee and do another BYOB Zentangle.  I painted the tree with extremely strong coffee.  The mixture of the coffee with the light blue mat board makes it look browner than I ever figured it would be.  I decided to use Nebula for the sky since it looks like it might be night.  I don't know what I used for the tree since, as I have said, I am new to Zentangle and don't know the names of the tangles.  This is 6 1/2 inches by 4 inches approximately and is also on a chip of mat board.

I Am The Diva Challenge 176: BYOB

This week’s challenge is to  B.Y.O.B.—Bring Your Own Beverage—to the tangling session and utilize it in  our art. From coffee to Kool Aid, cola to cabernet, the choice is  ours! Cocoa, tea, Gatorade, chocolate shake, kale smoothie, cranberry juice—surely something will quench  our creativity!  

I decided to use coffee - in my case, instant coffee.  I used a chip of creamy mat board and applied the coffee with a paint brush in circles.  Unfortunately, my coffee wasn't strong enough, so I made another cup, a lot stronger and once more applied it with a brush in solid circles.

Then I applied blobs of ink and blew at it with a straw to form a loose abstract pattern.  I then filled in areas with a Micron Pigma black pen (.005)  The final touch was to do some   designs in the black areas with a creamy Prismacolor colored pencil.  The Zentangle is approx 6" x 5".

I Am The Diva Challenge #175: Crux

The challenge this week is to use the tangle "Crux" in your Zentangle.  We were allowed to use another tangle in our composition, so I chose "Tipple" which sort of contrasts with the straight lines in Crux.  I did three variations of Crux and varied the sizes of the Tipple areas.  I also tried to balance my dark and light areas using symmetrical balance.  I used a .005 Pigma pen and a #.08 to fill in areas.  I used a black Prismacolor colored pencil to shade.

I superimposed 3 strings for this design.

If you have seen some of my other Zentangles, you have already figured out that I am very anal and controlled.  I am going to have to work on getting looser and more spontaneous in my tangling.

At Rest On Wrestle Creek

My friend and art student, Bridget Weller, knows that I love to paint old trucks, so she brought me this picture of an old International Dump Truck, which is "resting" on her farm on Wrestle Creek Road.  I also plan to use this painting as a lesson in the watercolor class so she will also paint her truck.  Thanks, Bridget!

The painting is 9" x 12" and is painted on Canson 140 lb. cold-pressed watercolor paper with QoR watercolors from Golden paints.

Visionary: Mixed-Media Portrait

Happy Fourth Of July, everyone!  Enjoy this day of celebration for America's independence.

My new painting, "Visionary", is another experiment in mixed-media.  The painting is 16" x 12" and is done over another discarded painting from the "archives!"

I first tore text areas from a magazine and collaged them over the old painting which was done on 140 lb. cold-pressed Arches watercolor paper. I stamped and painted textures on white tissue paper with white Gesso.  I used rubber shelf paper for the stamping, and the rest of the designs were hand painted.  I then tore shapes from the tissue paper and collaged those on top of the magazine text.  I did this at random - paying no attention to where the various textures were going to be in the final composition.  I used matte acrylic medium as my collage medium.

When this dried, I drew the image on top of the collage with an HB pencil and painted the image in transparent watercolor.  I added a few areas of white to the beard with block-out white to finish.  I did not use colored pencil on this as I did on the first.  I love the way the stamped and collage images show through the watercolor.

I Am The Diva: Weekly Challenge 174: Superimposing Strings

This is my contribution to this week's Diva Challenge: Superimposing Strings.  For those of you who do not Zentangle, a string is the linear pattern which you lay down first, in which your tangle patterns are drawn ( in the sections, or outside, etc., or, in my case, both.

I did this tangle on 5" x 5"  good white drawing paper.  It doesn't look white because my camera is getting crazy.  I used Sakura Micron-Pigma waterproof ink drawing pens and an HB pencil for shading in some areas.

I discovered that I am really way too intricate on this one - Oh well - live and learn!  As I said before, I am new to this tangling thing. :0