InkTober Week 4: The shortest post ever!

Flash post! Lar and I are celebrating our 25 years of marriage, and the festivities are about to begin! But I wanted to share my InkTober week 4. (I'm afraid I don't have the pictures of the individual tangles, but they will appear on next week's post.)

Have a lovely week!

InkTober 22: Week 3

My friend Rhonda had a birthday last week, and we celebrated it this week. I wanted to make something to honor her joyful spirit, with her favorite color, purple. I remembered a series of Phi tiles on the 7F5RStudio site that celebrated friends. I used the string.

Rhonda: joy, kindness, laughter, energy

I wanted to do more cards for Meals on Wheels, but my neck and shoulders were not in agreement! So I pulled out a design I had done last year using Gourdgeous, and spiffed it up a bit. I was really pleased with the colors. I used Prismacolors and mineral spirits to blend them. They are quite vibrant! What do you do when life gives you pumpkins (like a stiff neck)? Make pie!

InkTober came next. Here are the tangles:

And the overall piece:

Here's to wonderful fall days!

InkTober 2022: Week 2

I mistakenly felt like I hadn't done any art this week, at least nothing on paper. I spent hours in the garden cleaning up Hurricane Ian's debris (still) and hours inside working on decluttering my studio and art closet. Those hours would definitely contribute to improving the flow of energy, and consequently, creativity. When I began gathering photos for the blog, I realized I had done more than I remembered. That felt good!

Two important birthdays in one week: my niece, Gala, and my friend, Rhonda. I really enjoyed making their cards. Gala's card used the autumn leaves piece from last week.

Here's Rhonda's:

Moving on to InkTober, I enjoyed a morning--yes!--shading what I had drawn and posted last week.

Before

After

The week's tangles

While waiting for Lar to come home, I gave my "friend" Narfello a go. 

Aargh. I always struggle with this one! I finally got it, in pencil, and inked over it. One day...!

Yesterday I enjoyed a class with Lynn Meade, CZT, on Escher-inspired tessellations of birds. The proceeds from this class went to SOS Children's Village, for relief in Ukraine. I haven't quite finished the whole piece, which is 7 inches in diameter, but I wanted you to see the birds. (They kind of remind me of Narfello!) I'll post the final result next week.

Solidarity with Ukrainian children

This workshop was yet another example of the talent and generosity that grace our Zentangle world. Beate Winkler, CZT in Germany, is teaching Zentangle to 60 some Ukrainian refugees in her area. There is also a FaceBook group called Zen Bird Club that has already had 4 Zen Bird classes, and plans to have 4 more. (The next one will probably be held on December 4th. If you're interested, check out #zenbirdclub , #zenbird5 , #zenbirdescherstyle.

Wishing you fun explorations!

InkTober 2022: Week 1

 Are you familiar with InkTober? Originally created by Jake Parker "in 2009 as a way to improve his inking skills and develop positive drawing habits", it has become a worldwide event. Stephanie Jennifer, of 7F5RStudio, has made this challenge easier for tanglers by providing tangle prompts to use. You can find the tangles and stepouts for it here.

For this year's InkTober piece, I decided to use a distress ink background with some Autumn Leaves Magicals. Starting a few days late, I decided to go with the flow rather than limiting myself to one prompt a day. First, a page in my sketchbook to show you the isolated patterns for the first 7 days.

Here's how they look so far, without any shading, and with some others thrown in just for fun. (Rule follower that I am, I just felt like jumping around this time and that feels good.)

I'll be featuring an update every week here.

Wanting to focus on the gorgeous foliage colors and transitions I spoke of last week, I did this piece. And I did some more. Done. And I did some more. There. Finished! (I realized that sometimes I stop when I'm done, but before the piece is finished. Something to be aware of.)

I hope you can join me for InkTober, whether it's for a day, a week, or the whole month!

Transitions in the Dance

Autumn. New colors. New temperatures. New patterns in our daily routine. New light. So many people say it's their favorite season, including myself. But it represents a transition to shorter days, longer nights, and that can be challenging.

As my body tried to alert me to changing barometric pressure, changing light and changing temperatures this week, I thought, "It needs to learn about the weather app and leave me alone." But that's part of my life, with its thunky stiff joints. This too shall pass. In addition to the autumn changes, we had Hurricane Ian sweeping through. (We are safe and warm and dry and grateful for this good fortune that many cannot claim.) And this intense weather had me looking out the windows, watching the swirling treetops and intermittent moments of calm and marveling at nature's power. "Sometimes storms come through to clear the air." Usually after a hurricane, our skies are a perfect azure blue. For now they are still grayish white. But the sun is popping through, and we know that blue skies lay ahead.

Inspiration came from those hours in front of the windows, and from a birthday gift of more Lindy's Magicals. (Thank you, Lar.) The Autumn Leaves set showed up at the perfect time. After making some distress ink backgrounds in Walnut and Vintage photo, I made some swatches with the pigments and a background.

More to come...

And other stuff, before the pigments came.

Illern, by Annett Rumpler

Colors from "Prairies Meadows" set. They stole the show!

An ugly duckling tile. Yuck. 

But when I painted the Ukrainian inspired "Kivka" pattern on top,

 it suddenly transformed. So glad I didn't give up.

Inspired by Debbie New (7F5RStudio). I don't think it's a pattern

in the middle, intersecting BeadLinz with auras?

In this time of transitions, may our dance move freely, smoothly and with gratitude and appreciation.

My 3-day Getaway

I turned 63 earlier this week and celebrated by going to a fairly remote and rustic cabin in the mountains with Lar. Not a lot of art happened, but we did s l o w   d o w n. I especially enjoyed being on the crest of the Blue Ridge, where we had unobstructed views of the valleys, sunsets and sunrises and the darkest night sky I've seen in years. I felt spoiled.

When we returned,lots of "stuff" needed our attention, and I started to get anxious about whether or not I would get things done and see any resolution in ongoing tasks. That feeling of "hitting the ground running" prevailed. I won't lie and say that I finally beat it, but I did manage to take some deep breaths and let go of things I can't control. At least, momentarily! This quote stroke home!

"Imperfect, limited, and vulnerable as I am,

the sun still shines upon me, things do

work out, food appears, rain falls, wonderful 

conversations take place, and the grass

grows without any help from me."

--Dharmavidya David Brazier

And so I made some art.

I hope you can slow down, too, this week, and make some art. It doesn't have to be perfect. Neither do you. 

Right side up?

Zentangle teaches us that there is no up or down, no right side up. We turn our tiles as we work, and after we finish, to see them from different perspectives. This week, I heard a wonderful Rumi quote: "Try not to resist the changes that come your way. Instead, let life live through you. And do not worry that your life is turned upside down. How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come?" In the same vein, I saw a Meister Eckhart quote that resonated with me: "Be willing to be a beginner every single morning."

I had a fruitful week.

Some tiles featured Lindy's Magicals and distress inks:

Some, including the above tile, responded to an Inchie Challenge from Mindful Art Studio:

And some, on the new translucen-Z tiles, were lessons from Project Pack 18:

Somehow, being willing to be a beginner, to question which side is up (especially on the translucent paper, where we draw on both sides), was powerfully liberating--although I did fall asleep at 8:30 every night!

Is there anything you can question this week? Do you begin every day in the newness that it offers?

PS: I also set up MailChimp to manage subscriptions to this blog. (You may have noticed the clunky gadget on the right!) If you notice any glitches or have any questions, please let me know and I'll do my best to respond.

Collaborating with Nature

August and September find me spending more time in the garden, cutting back spent cone flowers and black-eyed susans, breaking up the parched soil before watering, raking leaves, pulling weeds and trying to get a handle on it all before the last hurrah of Sheffield mums is heard. I gave some poke weed plants space to flourish this year, and they needed a little pruning. After that task was completed, I noticed that my gardening hat was stained from the berry juice. A collaborative art project was born.

I picked up a Permapen and added some Pokeroot. Then Pokeleaf, and as I worked around the hatband, I envisioned my garden so that more patterns could be added to represent it.

The poke weed juice is on the far right

The co-artist and the collaboration product

I finished the Romantic Rosettes lesson from 7F5RStudio this week.

Then, I finished my journal by tangling the inside covers.

The inside was from the ZTHQ Well-being, Part 1, video

Gardening on the brain

Working with Lindy's Magicals and Zendalas is always a special treat for me. (Like a colorful cookie?)

Nouvelle

Wishing you a safe and fun Labor Day!

Broadening my definition of creativity

What does "creativity" mean to you? Until this week, I suppose I would have limited the idea to my drawing and blogging. As I continue reading and working on the tasks in "The Artist's Way", by Julia Cameron, I'm broadening my definition. 

Cameron writes: "The quality of life is in proportion, always, to the capacity for delight. The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention." In Zentangle, I sometimes have a lot of "detailed work". Embellishments, line weight, texture, backgrounds usually involve small bits of pen strokes. When I walk in the forest, it's often the tiny details that bring me the most pleasure and awe. There's a supermarket commercial on TV with a blown up image of blueberries. I never get tired of seeing their little blossom ends, or "belly buttons", as I call them. That yellow-orange center inside the "petals" of the many-shades-of-blue blueberry always makes me laugh! It's this attention to little things that delights and inspires me.

While preparing for an out-of-town get-together with my cousins this week, I was planning and prepping the appetizers. There was nothing at all complex about it, just some crudites, crackers, dips, pickles. Thinking about the above quote, I decided to focus on the detail, and work as if I were tangling. In my garden, I wanted to prepare for being away by doing some much needed mowing, weeding and pruning. I tried to approach that task in the same way, with the Zentangle philosophy of slowing down to notice the little things, one stroke at a time. This small change in my perspective made me feel much more relaxed, calm, and creative, just like when I'm tangling. I quickly realized that the chores of prepping food and gardening had become creative acts. I was exercising my creativity in different ways!

With no pictures of my appetizers or garden, I offer you these few creative acts from the week:

Relaxing with my journal

Inspired by Project Pack 18, Day 5

A cover for my "Artist's Way" journal

Another journal entry inspired by Project Pack 18, Day 6

 Can you approach your chores with a creative lens this week?

How to make an easel for your tiles

Recently I saw a Pinterest post about making an easel with a clothespin. I tried it--super easy and inexpensive. However, it involved gluing artwork to the easel. Nono. 

My Zentangle "What if...?" wheels started turning. Using an Apprentice tile easel lesson that Molly Hollibaugh had shared, I went to work. I can't find the lesson, so I'll recap.

1. Using a 4.5 inch square piece of card stock, or an Apprentice tile, fold three corners so that they meet in the center of the back of the tile. Fold the fourth corner to the front. Open the folds SLIGHTLY. Turn your fold over, so that the front is showing and the fourth corner is now on the bottom. This will be the base of your easel, on which you place your art.

2. Glue the clothespin easel to the center of the back, so that it supports the paper easel. (Sorry for switching to a black tile here.)

Voila! No more slippy tippy tiles! This would make a nice gift to go with your artwork. And, if you like, you can tangle on the sides of the Apprentice tile to make it more decorative!

NB: This post will be permanently available on the home page under "Pages" for your convenience.

Explorations and Artist's Dates

Are you familiar with Julia Cameron's book The Artist's Way? It was published 30 years ago, and, luckily, I recently discovered it through a morning meditation two weeks ago. "Mystery, not Mastery" was the phrase that intrigued me that morning, so last week, I started the book and its twelve-week program. At this point, I'm quite happy with it. One of the two actions that you commit to in the program is weekly artist's dates, where you make a weekly date with yourself to explore art / beauty  in whatever form you choose--a trip to the dollar store to buy some new "stuff" to explore, a walk outside, a meet-up, a trip to a museum, etc. My artist's dates this week included some YouTube lessons and a meet-up with my Meals on Wheels card makers, or, as I now call us, the "Sisters of the Travelling Cards".

As part of some self-care that I needed, I purchased a lesson from 7F5RStudio called "Romantic Rosettes". Here's the first tile:

I enjoyed this so much I did another version in my journal:

I did two of the Zentangle Project Pack 18 videos, too, in my journal: 

 

Day 2

Day 3

Maria did an amazing version of her tangle "Verdigogh" in this video. 

Just watching her draw is awesome.

I had these scraps from making my swatch sheet. 

I mounted them on colored card stock and then tangled inside the holes. 

Swiss Swatch!

Lar worked 4 days with a broken toe,

 so he got a little lunchbox tangle, with Gribbits and Cabbits, by Debbie New.

Just for me--and you!

Wishing you wonderful artist's dates!