Zentangle My Heart

I took my son to have a procedure done in an outpatient surgical center, so I had to wait for a couple of hours until he was finished and ready to come out of the anesthesia.  I would have ordinarily brought a book to read, but I am in between books right now.  Instead I took my sketchbook and some pens, and ended up doing the above Zentangle.  Since it is almost Valentine’s Day, a heart-shaped one emerged.   

Do you know what a Zentangle is?  it is a kind of structured doodling art form – using repeated shapes and patterns in a deliberate way.  It is a great way to help unleash your creativity, and let your mind wander.  In fact, it is a fabulous way to get out of your left-brain, analytical thinking mode, and just let your creativity take over.  Here is a good site to learn more about them:  http://www.zentangle.com/about-what-is--1.php

These are fun, and it kept me busy the whole time I was there.  Waiting went so quickly.  Doing them in color is also nice.  It gives me the opportunity to try out different patterns and color combinations too. What do you think?

I just joined a swap in a Yahoo group I am in, where we will each make and swap two Zentangles in a circle shape – a mandala style Zentangle.  I have also heard them called Zendalas.  It should be great because in this group are some amazing artists so I am looking forward to seeing what the other participants will come up with.  I am also doing my Drawing From the Right Side of the Brain exercises with the group.  More on those later - I have to do the next exercise first. 

Creatively Yours in Spirit,

Arlene

Technorati Tags: zentangle,Valentine's Day,heart,art,Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

Drawing and Playing with Colors

A quick post and update in the life of a scattered artist. I can’t believe the month of January is done already.  What happened?  Seems like I blinked and it was gone. It’s almost Valentine’s Day, for goodness sake!

I have been doing some artwork, but just not blogging about it.  I set myself a new project of working through the Betty Edwards book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, and have completed some of the initial drawings in the book. Here are some of my drawings that I’d like to share with you.  These are just pencil drawings.  The first two are pre-drawings, and the first one was done from looking at my image in the mirror.

Pre-Drawing: Self Portrait

Pre-Drawing: My Left Hand

Next is one done upside down from the source image, which was to get us to switch over to our right (artistic, creative) side of our brains. 

Upside Down Drawing

These next two drawings were using a viewfinder with a plastic insert that had a grid drawn on it (2 x 2 cells) and done mostly with one eye shut.  This technique really helped me to “see” differently – i.e. just see the shapes in two dimensions without having to identify what I was drawing, and to know where to place the shapes.  It was great!

 

Viewfinder Drawing – My Left Hand

Viewfinder Drawing – My Shoe

I know – not very unique drawings but certainly good practice.

Other than these drawings I have been playing with some ATC’s and acrylic paintings.

 

    Flower Abstract

Acrylic Abstract

Some ATC’s I have created lately:

  

 

Various ATC’s

The above ATC’s were done with mixed media:  paint, gel pens, permanent markers, collage materials (magazine images, ribbon, glitter, sequins, paper punches, even some origami papers), India ink in a pen, etc. I just played and had fun with them.

That’s about all.  Next time I want to show you some painted glass plates I created for Christmas gifts for my family.  I didn’t want to put them in before the holiday in case any of my family decided to read my blog.  Enough for today though. 

Until next time – Creatively Yours In Spirit

Arlene

Technorati Tags: acrylic painting,mixed media,ATC,collage,watercolor painting,creativity,drawing,Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

Simple Abundance - A New Start

Hi, all!  I see it has been a month since I last posted.  I never planned to wait that long at all.  In fact, I had planned to post on or near the 1st to wish everyone a Happy New Year and to post about my thoughts and plans for this new start to the year and to the new decade.  I still will do such a post.  For now, I just want to share that I have had a month of "hibernation" it seems, with a lot of time for rest and introspection.

One thing I do want to share about today is that I have started reading a book entitled Simple Abundance - A Daybook of Comfort and Joy by Sarah Ban Breathnach.  It is a book of readings, one for each day of the year, with simple short essays about living a life that brings one back to the essentials of self-authenticity.  The back of the book states, "Simple Abundance shows you how your daily life can be an expression of your authentic self... " I have been reading it now for 10 days and it is bringing me much peace and is very thought provoking.  The opening page also says, "This is the month to dream, to look forward to the year ahead and the journey within."  That has truly what it has been for me so far.  My intention is that by going inwards, my life will be enhanced a lot, as well as my creativity.

Some of my thoughts so far have been about (re)discovering who I am truly on the inside and about deciding every day what it is that makes me happy.  In fact it is about deciding each day to BE happy, and what I need to do to feel and express this happiness.  In addition to that, I am reminded about noticing small, "unimportant" things and realizing that there are NO unimportant moments.  How important it is to live our lives recognizing and appreciating all the little things that make up our lives.

I appreciate so many things and people that I have in my life.  My intention is to spend much more time recognizing those rather than the things that are not going well or that I don't have.  Simple but not always easy.

Holiday Thoughts and Creative Pursuits

I know it has been a long time since I updated here, and I apologize to my followers.  I allowed too many things to interfere.  Holiday “busy-ness”, out-of-town family visiting, and then the mother of all colds hit me.  I have been down for the count for almost 2 weeks.  Still coughing now but at least my mind is functioning again.

Rather than pick up where I left off – in the middle of Create Every Day Month – I will just start from here, and with this post move forward.  Perhaps I will share some of my creative activities in the past few weeks, and also some of my thoughts.

What is it about this time of year that adds a note of craziness to many peoples’ lives?  Are we all called upon to do more than is humanly possible simply because it is the “holiday season”?  Certainly it often is more than we are comfortable with.  

If you work in the retail field, it is hard to be immune to the manic regime of sell, sell, sell because we have to make up for the lack of sales the rest of the year.  We hear all over the media how sales are down due to the economic pressure we are all feeling.  Many large retail businesses are having “Black Friday” sales every weekend up until the 25th! 

Those of us who are handmade artisans and artists are feeling it too – we work harder and harder to create and present our very best stuff to the world, with very few sales to show for it.  Then we have special discounts, free shipping, and whatever other perks we think will bring more shoppers into our online stores to purchase.  It is mind-numbing to be checking my online store 3 or 4 times a day in the hopes that there will be more orders to fill!

Yet, we are forgetting how this time of year need not be ONLY about sales volume and how much we need to spend to buy gifts for our loved ones.  How easy it is to forget there are other important issues – like how much we can give of ourselves (not only from our wallets), and how we can connect (or reconnect) with other people we care about. 

Perhaps if we can refocus our intentions and make the next few weeks about what and who we are grateful for in our lives, we can end the year in peace and harmony, knowing that we have done all we can and have the opportunity to begin a new year with new hopes and plans. 

I didn’t know when I sat down today to write this blog post that this would all come out.  So, there you are – totally spontaneous.  On to a few pictures of creative experiments and projects in process now.

Wire-Wrapped Millefiori Ring

Wire-Wrapped Lampwork Bead Ring

Artist Trading Card – Pretty Lady

Glass Painting

Wire-Wrapped Pendant – Carnivale 

Until next time – Creatively Yours in Spirit,

Arlene

Technorati Tags: Art Every Day Month,fused glass,wire-wrapping,jewelry,Artist Trading Card,Spirit Essence Art,holidays,Black Friday,pendant,rings,glass painting

Art Every Day Month – Catch Up

I have gotten a little behind on posting, so I am just going to show you what I have been working on for the past 5 days without a lot of commentary. It has been a week of experimentation and trying new techniques, and I am having fun with all of it.

I spent a couple of days creating some ATC’s (Artist Trading Cards), which are the same as ACEO’s (Art Cards, Editions, and Originals) basically in that they are all 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches – the same size as other trading cards. The difference is that ATC’s are traded rather than sold. I had joined a local “Meet-Up” group called Pittsburgh Artist Trading Card group, and we were getting together this week for a “Craft Along”, so I wanted to have a few more to bring with me. It was a lot of fun, and we traded cards at the beginning our our afternoon, and again after we had made some new ones. These are the ones I made before the meeting, some of which I have already traded. I made 3 more on Sunday, and I will show you two of them the next time I post, as I forgot to photograph them today. The third one has already been traded and I didn’t get a chance to photograph it before it was gone. Of course I also received some wonderful ones in exchange!

       

Above and below are journal pages I prepared in the past few days after watching some fascinating videos made by Teesha Moore on her blog, showing how she makes her wonderful mixed media artwork and books. I loved the process and am creating some pages for myself following her techniques. We’ll see what they turn out like. I love the spontaneous, intuitive manner in which they are made! The photos on the left show just the background painted with either watercolor or a wash of acrylic paint, mixed with a thin layer of gesso to give the pages some body, since I am not using a watercolor paper journal. The right photos show the pages after I have added borders made from collaged strips of paper from magazines that had interesting patterns and colors.

I am working on 3 sets of pages at once – the ones above and these pages below:

     

    

Who knows how they will end up eventually? It will be interesting to see how they develop!

Today I played with a new set of wax pastels that are water soluble. When you brush over them on paper with water, they begin to look like watercolor. I didn’t have much time, but I wanted to capture some fall leaves with them and this was the result:

So, now I am caught up and hopefully can continue with 1 picture posted a day from now on.

Until tomorrow -

Arlene

Technorati Tags: acrylic paints,mixed media art,Art Every Day Month,art journaling,collage,intuitive painting,nature,paintings,autumn leaves,ATC,ACEO,watercolor