Art Day with Sruthi

 
Today my neighbor girl, Sruthi and I played at being loose with our artwork.  First we drew some flowers with Generals water soluable pencils. Then we painted the background working around the outsides of the flowers.  I went back in with my micron 05 pen and Sruthie just added a few accents with her pen.

 
Next we played with some abstracts.  I used the Micron 05 permanent pen and Sruthie used a gel pen that moved a little when she added the watercolors.  As you can see as I drew my abstract, she was coping mine but making it her own.  Funny, she was across the table from me so her is reversed from mine.  I think I like hers better, I so struggle with abstracts.
These were done in our 3" x 5" Strathmore Bristol books.  I think they are both way cool.
Great afternoon and Great work Sruthi!

Happy Holidays!!

Happy Holidays to you all!
I hope you enjoy all the festivities with your families and friends.  Don't forget to have a cup of cheer for me…or some cookies….or some cake….oh and more of those great potatoes!

This a 5" x 7" card I made for our annual handmade card exchanged.  I found the image of the stocking and broke up the space into "windows" and then had some fun.  I decided to leave the bow without tangles and colored it red with a belly roll pen and then outlined the card with little red dots. It was chosen by Ede.

Wishing you all the best for the New Year!

Just Playing

Another "play" page in my 5" Handbook.  This one took an interesting turn…fat palm trees, funny pineapples or funky musical instruments?  Any way you look at it, it was fun, fun, fun.

More playing with the new tangle "Arukas"  I have to say it was more interesting and fun than I thought when I first saw it.  Lots and lots of possibilities here!

Also in my 5" Handbook.

Re-Working a Non-Working piece

When I was in Italy with Brenda Swenson we were working on doing a negative space painting. Unfortunately, the paper I was working on had very little sizing and turned into a blotter making it impossible for me to move the paint around.  So I started over on another paper but of course I couldn't just throw out the work I had already done.

Hmmmm?…..what could I do with the first set of leaves?

Zentangle to the rescue!  My ZenFriend, Linda liked the fuzzy edges of the leaves so I outlined them just inside the shape of leaves to leave a little glow around them.  I used some variations of fescu to fill in some of the back ground.  It was fun to re-work a non-working piece into something I like.

6" x 6" bad Watercolor paper
Watercolor with Pen

Waiting and waiting and…..

What do I do when in Amsterdam waiting for a plane to Pisa?  Whip out my little 5 inch handbook and play with Zentangles.  It sure makes the time go faster.

And then what do you do when your flight 10 days later from Pisa to Amsterdam is delayed and delayed and delayed?  More pen and ink and little calming voice in my head.

And hours later when all the Italians and students are yelling at airport personnel…….of course another Zentangle!  This one I finished up waiting for my plane from Amsterdam to home.  Ahhh…….thank you Zentangle for filling the waiting.

Last day at Abbondanza

Finished the chestnuts today.

Page done a little at home and a little in town.

Breakfast brioche and cappuccino in Lucca.

A day in Lucca, Italy

Grid page from the gardens in Lucca, Italy.

Page in the works of some chestnuts and leaves.

Sketches from Italy

Today we practiced vignette drawings. The pig weather wave is up the road from here.

Bits from Lerici........

And pieces too!

More from the sea at Lerici

House on the way to Lerici.

On the way back from Lerici.

At the sea side town of Lerici.

Morning in Abbondanza

Kitchen and dining room

Drive up to small house

Side of kitchen house with two bedrooms down on back side

La Selva the main guest house

Sketches from the Museo in Volterra

First days at Abbondanza

Here's a sample of our first few days at Abbondanza in Tuscany Italy.  A little rain but lots of fun!

We worked on contour drawings, painted ceramic plates and have eaten a lot of very good food.

Views of the valley.

Not to mention the cappuccinos!!

Picture Shelves!

Hooray! I did it!  Finally tackled it myself and got  my picture shelves from Ikea up in the studio.  That space was so plain I needed some color up there.  Are they perfect? ahhh, no but they are up and I cleared off the top of the flat files.  Hooray!

Also got the last side of the peg boards up in the closet and then did a little more organizing.  Ready, set……ART!

Back to Class

 

Tomorrow starts another 10 weeks of teaching my monoprint class.  These works I did as an example for my students to show the value of working in a series and pushing the design and the plate to see where it will go.  The pods were cut out of manilla file folder and yes, I am a little nuts! I then inked the plate and placed the inked pods on top and got the green print.  When the pods were removed from the plate they left behind the green ink that was under them. I flipped the plate added more ink to it and the pods and ran a second print.           

 

Then without washing off the plate I added some lines with the side of my brayer and re-inked the pods to get the blue plate.  The next print has the other pods added with more ink.  On the final plate I cut the  stem of the blue pod and added it to the top left.  These five prints were made on the same plate which was not washed or wiped down in between prints.  I call this "pushing the plate".  You can see all the ghost pods and images in the background.  Pushing the plate in a series is fun and you never know where it will take you!

5.5" x 11" Monoprints

Playing with Kandinsky

A few weeks ago after looking at some of Kandinsky's work we started this project.  This is Sarah's painting which she chose to draw the circles and paint the outer square first, leaving the centers white.  Then Monday she started painting in all the circles in circles but as you can see her imagination and creativity took over.  Great job Sarah!

16" x 20" canvas board
Acrylic craft paint

This is Jessica's painting and she decided to paint solid squares the first week and then circles on top when she came back.  When she returned I told her she could go right and paint in the circles or she could turn left and just play with the squares.  Adventurer that she is she decided to go left and fill the board with collage and pearl white paint.  Wonderful work Jessica!

16" x 20" canvas board
Acrylic craft paints and collage

More Zen Play

I started this one as a little continuous line leaf drawing, then added some fescu curlies and decided to keep it simple.

At our last Zentangle group, Virginia had a couple of pages where she had used a rubber stamp and then filled in around it with lines and zentangles.  On this one I stamped the two circle designs and then added the hand drawing around it.  It was a very fun exercise.

The idea for this one Sharla found on pinterest.  Sorry I don't have the original artist name.  It was confusing, hard to not get lost but a very fun challenge.

Zen Moments

There always seems to be some time for Zen moments.  I keep an old 3.5" flopping disk holder with some Zentangle tiles and a pen in my purse so if I have a quiet moment I am ready! A moment here, a moment there gets the job done.

This one I finished at the car dealership and gave it to Earl who took very good care of me. He thought it was very cool and said his 21 year old daughter was into drawing.
 Zentangle.com!

Last time at ZenFriends we talked about stretching ourselves and pushing a favorite tangle in a new direct and explore the possibilities. On these two tiles I played with a new approach to "hollibaugh". Over and under…….duck, here comes another line.











3.5" x 3.5" Zentangle Tiles
Pen

Lotusland

On Saturday I joined a tour through Laguna Nursery with Ruben Flores to Lotusland in Montecito by Santa Barbara.  Lotusland is a spectacular private botanical garden that is open to the public by reservations.  The story of the gardens and Ganna Walska is quite interesting and the grounds are fantastic.  We had a great guide and the weather could not have been more perfect.  The metal figure on this page was not at the gardens but at Laguna Nursery.  I sketched it after my mimosa and before getting on the bus.  It was a long day but well worth it and it felt good to get out there and do a little sketching again.

The actual tour moved too fast to sketch as we tried to cover the 18 acres but after lunch we had some time so I managed to get a few things down. This page is a compilation of some things I found interesting.  The bird is from the Japanese garden, some plants from the bromeliad area and the interesting shaped flat stones were  almost planted themselves as they stood upright is their own garden.  Fabulous!

Robert Bateman Sketchbook
5" x 7"
Pen and Watercolor