• Challenges,  Zentangle,  Zentangle Inspired Art

    Zentangle Challenges "Year of the Snake" & "New Official Tangle Quandry"

    February 21, 2013 /

    Challenge #106: “Year of the Snake”

    I created this one last week in atc size. I wanted to use watercolors on it but I didn’t have a chance till this week.  I originally wanted to put it up for trade but I think I might keep it because I really like how it turned out.

    To participate in this challenge or to view other submissions please visit I am the Diva.

    Before Watercolor
    With Watercolor

     

    Challenge #107 – “New Official Tangle Quandry”

    I had a hard time with the new tangle. I eventually got frustrated so this is the end result.  I used watercolor but I shouldn’t have since the cardstock I use isn’t meant for watercolors. Its now a bit warped.  I think I may make some tiles out of watercolor paper so if I wish to use watercolors I can.  I also used Sakura 3D Glaze Pens but I didn’t give the blue and yellow colors enough time to dry and when I used the black it bled into the other colors.

    To participate in this challenge or to view other submissions please visit I am the Diva.

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  • Art Journal #1,  Art Journaling

    My First Art Journal Page

    February 21, 2013 /

    Last week I did my first art journal page.  Art journaling has been on my long list for a while and since I have been feeling creative I decided to start.  I used acrylic paints, sakura pigma micron pen, washi tape, cardstock and for texture, scraps of a door screen and kraft paper on watercolor paper.  It was different but fun to create.  Once it was done I decided to give it to my husband for Valentine’s Day.

    I’m still not sure what type of book I should use for art journaling.  Watercolor sketch books seem really good since they are thick but are very pricey for just 30 pages.  Larger regular sketchbooks are more reasonable and have lots of pages but the paper seems thin even when I add gesso.  If anyone has any suggestions on what to use I would appreciate it.

    I will be placing images of my pages here.

    "Love"
    “Love”
    Created using acrylic paints, Sakura Micron Pens, washi tape, kraft paper, cardstock and scrap piece of a window screen on watercolor paper.
    Created 2/13/2013
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  • Artist Trading Cards,  ATCs

    My First Artist Trading Cards

    February 14, 2013 /

    As some of you know I love to collect postcards.  A couple of years ago I joined postcrossing.   Its a lot of fun receiving and swapping postcards with people from around the world.  After a few months I wanted to try to create my own postcards to send out but was discouraged by the fact that even though people are not supposed to be picky about the postcards they get many people make lists on their profiles of the cards they do not want to receive and many of those listed that they did not want handmade cards.  After a while I decided to do some anyway and did a few zentangle postcards but only mailed them out to family and when on the rare occasion I came across someone on postcrossing who didn’t mind handmade postcards.

    So your probably wondering what the heck does this have to do with Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) and what the heck are Artist Trading Cards?  Well after I was discouraged I did several searches for creative/art swaps and one of the things I came across was ATCs.  ATCs are small works of art that measure 21⁄2 by 31⁄2 inches which is the size of baseball trading cards. They are created by artists and traded for other artist’s ATCs.  It sounded interesting but I only came across yahoo swaps. I really wanted something more official.  I planned to look further into it but then life got in the way as it always does and I just placed ATCs on a long list of things I wished to do someday.

    Then towards the end of  last year I came across Rhonda Chase‘s Creature Cards kickstarter.  After the kickstarter ended Rhonda and I would email each other from time to time.  I told her how I had wanted to create and collect ATCs for a while and that she was the first in my collection.  She mentioned a few places I could look into swapping for ATCs.  One of them was ATCsforAll.  I looked into it and decided to join.  Before I could start swapping I wanted to create a few ATCs so that I could have some ready to trade immediately. I created some zentangle inspired ones and some splotch monsters which were inspired by Rhonda.

    I’ve created a few albums to post images of the ATCs I create and receive.

    ATCs Available for Trade
    ATCs Traded
    My ATC Collection

    Here are a few pictures of the ATCs I created.  Though you can view each one individually in the albums listed above.

    The first few ATCs I created.

     

    Splotch Monsters ATCs inspired by Rhonda.

     

    More splotch monsters ATCs inspired by Rhonda.
    My husband created the splotches and I created the monsters.
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