One goal for this year is to create one mandala each month. Each time I do one, I try to push myself in technique and design. For February, I have done a colored pencil piece using the "Flower of Life" pattern. I'm a bit surprised at the secondary image and must decide if this is really finished.



Usually my pieces are 7" drawings on 10 by 10" paper. Canvas pieces are often bigger.

There just had to be a lady on the next pages in my moleskin zentangle. Here she is with her hair blowing. Color was added with colored pencils'



Have a nice day! All comments are appreciated.

Trying Something New

I had been checking the links that other EDMers list on their blogs and found the use of watercolor crayons on canvas. Just had to try this technique. LOVE IT!



The zentangle was done with various pens. I found that some of the smaller pens seemed to quickly refuse to work. I wonder if the the wax in the crayons was the reason? This tangle is a bit "tight" when it should have shown more joy as my grandson was released from the hospital on the sixth day. A new alertness has come to the family with the diagnosis of asthma.

After a break, I did add to my zentangle moleskin. This is done with ink and colored pencils.



Well, I see that blogger has decided to place my pictures to the left. I'll have to figure out how to center them----later.

Sharing love

Sometimes your actions and thoughts come together. My hairdresser's younger brother (age 28) passed away and the cause may not be know for a year when testing is done. Obviously, she and the family were quite upset. My heart aches for her and knew that she was grieving, big time. So I made the following card design with a split heart and a ribbon to express that love and time will heal a broken heart. I can only hope that it helps.

A variation from my red, white and blue quilts. I made this smaller turquoise, black and silver quilt for a veteran who is in his 80's. The pattern is Winding Ways found in a book by Nancy Elliot MacDonald.

Tomorrow is figure drawing and a visit to a quilt show. Also, I am playing with colored pencils. There are some terrific examples in the books that I purchased as a gift to me!

A special thought: Oliver, my 5 year old grandson has been in the hospital all week and two of those days in ICU. Seems that he was diagnosed with asthma and contacted a common cold. The combination created the "perfect storm" and he has been fighting to regain his health all week. Hopefully, he will be able to go home tomorrow. Your good thoughts and prayers are appreciated.

Journey

Currently my journey through art has taken me to zentangle mandalas. For some years I did a mandala a month and then I seemed to fall away from that. This year I decided to challenge myself to do it again. Because I had been given a portfolio, I established that I would do a mandala that is 7" in diameter on 10" paper. Certainly, there were variations as some were done on painted canvases.

This pieces has been framed so that the finished size, including the mat, is 14" by 14". I let the watercolors flow and then I cut a snowflake out of tissue paper. With a light pencil I traced the snowflake and then drew lines to connect points. There was no set rule, I could connect any points-hey, it's my piece!

One technique that I have learned is to draw the same mark between two points in all the places it appears, then repeat the next line until all of those connections are made. Hope that this makes sense. Rotate your paper and do the same mark over and over. This is both meditative and art wise successful.

There is a show for aspiring artists at the Sacramento Fine Art Center that I plan to enter. I must submit my piece on Saturday. That was a good motivation to get it framed. One disappointment is that the plexiglass reflects light. I looked into a non glare acrylic and that would cost $44. Guess that I'll go with what I have. Well, I could leave the the plexiglass off. Any suggestions are welcome.

OK, now I'm working on a quilt and arranging my crafty projects so that I have just the right piece to do while the 49ers are playing American football or, for the Europeans, it will be a tape delayed of a Manchester United football game.

Snowflake Zentangles

A dear friend asked me what book I would recommend for zentangles. She had sent me Zen Mandalas Sacred Circles inspired by Zentangle by Suzanna McNeill, CZT and I told her that it seemed very helpful. Of course,this inquiry made me want to look at this book again. I discovered a exercise that is a terrific starting point for this type of drawing. Cut out a snowflake! I could handle that task. So, out of tissue paper I cut out an design.

Next, you lightly outline the spaces with a pencil. Then you take a pen and connect points. The choice is totally yours. There is no set "must do". for this step. You add the zentangles for a meditative project.

Of course, I had to try this technique again. This time I added watercolors in a random style. Later I filled in some specific spaces with more watercolor.

Needless to say, this was really fun for me and I hope that you are inspired!

Quilt of Honor & Zentangles

My Mixed Bag has another quilt. Since I gave the last quilt directly to a wounded soldier (who has just driven his family to Georgia from California), I wanted to do another for the Quilt of Honor program. This time I used a light blue as well as the stronger red, white and blue colors.

It really is a square quilt, about 62" by 62".

The layout of blocks can create many variations. I decided that the rows worked best for this quilt. As with painting pictures, you don't always know what your final decision until after you get to the end of a project.

I've included this close up (a bit hard to see the detail, sorry) because I wanted to convey the idea of using zentangles in other art forms. The sewing machine was set to "free motion" which allows me to move the quilt in any direction that I chose instead of a straight line. This method demands that I draw a design that will be interesting and certainly achieve the goal of holding the fabric layers together. I think that you can click on any picture to get a larger view.

It's all packaged and will soon be in the mail as a thank you to a service man or woman.

Colored Pencil Project #3

This is the last of three projects that are teaching me about colored pencils. The goal of this piece was to help me realize that the white color acts as a blender. Using this pencils smears (technical term!) the colors and gives a bit more shine to the piece.

Before I continued with more drawing, I decided to get a true grasp on what colors I do have. So, I made some color charts Here is a peek at my setup.

The holidays got real quiet for me after Christmas so I was able to have fun doing artsy stuff. There is so much more to share!