Bunzo for Sandy

The storm has passed us by here in Delaware.  Luckily for us, we suffered nothing worse than a large branch down.  We didn't lose power or anything.  The weather closed school and work yesterday so I took advantage of the day and tangled.

The Diva's challenge was to use the newly released Bunzo.  I like this pattern but I see that I could do with some more exploration.  Like Allium, I have trouble keeping this pattern small.  Maybe I should challenge myself again and try for a tighter design.  Here is what I came up with.

 I just jumped in with Bunzo.  As I was working on it, Bunzo reminded me of Wirlz so naturally, I needed to use Wirlz.  Thing is, I just couldn't stop once I got going with the Wirlz.  I think they look nice together.

Sunday night I was playing with some Gelly pens and gave Bunzo a try with those.  I used pink and pink glitter to make this on some scrap paper.  I wanted to see what the design would look like with some variations in color.  It's fun if nothing else.

Along with the challenge I worked on ornaments.  I have them listed in my etsy and have sold some at the craft fairs I have been doing.  Several friends have placed some orders as gifts so I have been working on them when the mood takes me.  Lucky they are fun to make.  I have been making Zendalas with the snowflake shape but yesterday I thought, "Why not use Auraknot?"  So, I traced out the shape to make sure where I wanted my lines to go.  Once I had that figured out, I was off.  The center here is Fife with one step left out.  The second X in the center is too squished to use on the ornaments so I have been leaving it off.  It reminds me of a Poinsettia.  The ornament in the photo is unfinished here but is an example of how I spent the day.

I hope that all of you who were in the path of Sandy fared well.  Those who might be getting the snow from this crazy storm, I hope that you are warm.  The numbers coming out of West Virginia are crazy.  I'm continuing to be thankful that the storm was not worse for us and thinking of those who are still dealing with the after effects.  It will take a while to clean up after this I think.

Thanks to the Diva for making time for the challenge this week.  I hope that Artoo is feeling better and you are able to get some rest.  Hugs for you all.  I am thinking of you.

Stripes 2.0

Over at the Diva's blog, the challenge this week is to use stripes as a string.  I have used this several times since the challenge was first posted last year.  Using stripes can be fun and makes for a good visual.  This time, I made my design large, I used an 8" square piece of watercolor paper and added red as a pop of color.

I added the challenge of red just to see what I could do with it, use it more as an accent rather than just drawing my patterns in red.  In all it came out pretty good I think.

Thanks to the Diva for another great challenge.  I'm sticking to a short post this week as we are looking at Hurricane Sandy to start effecting us soon and I wanted to get this out before we lost power.  Luckily, we are inland.  Water and wind will still be of concern, but we won't have to contend with the storm surge.

Stay safe everyone and have a great week!

Halloween Zendala: It's webtastic!

It is fall here in Delaware.  The nights are cold and the days are cooler.  The leaves have started to change.  It's a good time.  This week at the Bright Owl, the zendala challenge is a Halloween/Fall theme.  I was all excited as I eventually want to have a zendala themed for each season.  However, as Zentangle often goes, this zendala didn't turn out the way I thought it would.  Rather than fall, I have Halloween zendala.  I really like it though.

Halloween Zentangle

I started this zendala on an 8X8" piece of watercolor paper.  I then took an AquaStic in orange and colored the background orange.  I kept the color uneven and unplanned.  I thought of the outer ovals as the eyes of a mask.  I even started to blacken them all in but I thought that all of them being black would be too much.  I added Verve and Allium to the center to mimic a spooky eye.  Afterglo and Web came eaily at the larger triangle spots.  After that however, I was stuck.  I had this large shape in the middle and could not think of what to fill the space with.  This morning Auraknot jumped up and said "Use ME!" so I did, bringing Web back to the center to tie it back to the edges.  The shading really added to the dimension in this one.

I hope you all have a wonderful fall and Halloween.  As of today, my sons want to be a Teenage Mutaint Ninja Turtle and a Korean Pop star.  Funny that the turtle costume will be the easiest to do...

Note Cards for Christmas

Now that I've decided to do the art show thing, I am always trying to think of things that not only will people like, but what they might like to buy.  With the holiday season quickly approaching, I thought maybe Christmas cards.  I designed a card last year to use as my own personal card and I got nice feedback from friends and family.

So, as I had one design already done, I made up two more so that I can offer a few options to potential buyers.  For the first one, I used Mi2 as the back ground.  I used a red micron to make the "seeds" and the centers of the pattern.

Christmas Tree Card

I have found that making the card large works better when going to get it printed.  The original was drawn on a note card, but it leaves extra space at the top and bottom.  Making the design 5X7" seems to work better.

For the next design, I wanted to have a card with words on it.  My handwriting/lettering is not very good so I designed a card that I could have words printed in the space.  I used Huggy Bear as the back ground here, and red and green micron pens.  I left the center of the card blank.  When I uploaded the card, I was able to add the Season's Greetings.  It came out pretty well and I'm glad it did as I wasn't sure what I would do if I couldn't make it work.  

I scanned both images with my new scanner and am really happy with how they came out.  The shading turns out well and when reprinted, they look good.  Having the images printed on matte 100 lb card stock, they come out pretty close to the original drawings.  There are a few little tweaks that I would do differently next time, but nothing that interferes with how happy I am with how these turned out.

While I know you are all quite able to make your own cards, these are in my etsy shop should you like to skip the step of having your own made.

Thanks for stopping by and checking out my work.  I'd love to hear what you have to say.

The Challenge of Sankegg

Finally!  Things have settled down enough that I can get back to the Diva's weekly challenge.  I have stopped in to see what was going on each week, but have not been able to get myself sat down and put pen to paper.  Since September, I have been doing some shows and fairs in the attempt to get my art out there.  It has been a learning experience to be sure.  I'm still working on finding my audience but I'm getting there.

I have not tried Sankegg before.  I really like the look of it, but I'm not sure that I have it down very well yet.  See I have this thing with evenness, in that I get a little twitchy if things aren't even.  But, in the spirit of Zentangle, I just went with the pattern and let go of my twitches.  After just doing a quick pencil try on a scrap paper, I jumped in with both feet.  I had to refer to the step out often, I kept getting confused, but I think I got it down.

Sankegg Challenge

I knew that I wanted to put Sankegg in several places in the tile.  Nothing like a use my tangle challenge to play with variation.  After making my string, I started in the center and went with Sankegg as in the step out.  I ended up adding Tipple around the Sankegg in the upper left side mostly to cover my mistakes.  I somehow ended up with too many lines but through in a few circles, and BOOM, no more extra lines.  For the lower right side, I decided I wanted to try varying the triangles.  I stopped short of shading Sankegg as I just wasn't sure where to start.  I'll work on shading it next time.

Have a great week everyone!  Thanks for stopping by.

PS:  I got a new scanner, an Epson Perfection V33.  The above image was scanned using the scanner.  Isn't it lovely?  It's scanned in at 600 dpi and no touch up was made.  A very sweet and affordable scanner if you're looking for one.