Saturday, October 29, 2016

DC #290 ~ Duotangle ... 'Nzeppel / Flux

Just a short post this week ... my computer chair gave up the ghost and decided to break on me and toss me to the floor when I was leaning over to pet one of my kitties. So I am kind of in a world of hurt atm. Laura Harms, the Diva, challenged us to a duotangle of 'Nzeppel and Flux. But I had never really tried 'Nzeppel before and Flux is one of my all time favorites, so I decided that I had best do what I could. After trying 'Nzeppel several different ways in my sketch book, I was finally ready to work on a tile or two.

Media: 3.5" plant-dyed tile
Sakura Micron 01 Black
Graphite pencil for shading
Grey fineliner for additional shading

For this first tile, I used one of my experimental backgrounds. I had read about "boiled books" right here on the Diva's website and decided to give it a try. There weren't actually many leaves left on the vine out back when I tried this, so the colors weren't the greatest and I wasn't exactly sure how to proceed. Turns out I need a whole lot more steps to get it looking fabulous, but I kind of liked the way this one turned out. I tried to include a couple of Flux (Maria-style) as well, but I don't do as well with those.
Media:  3.5" self-cut tan tile (Used Creative Memories
Scrapbooking page and cut it up)
Sakura Micron Sepia pen 01
Sakura Micron Black pen 01
Prismacolor Premier colored pencils







This is my second tile and I like it much better. This utilized my favorite form of Flux. I like the combination of colors here too.  My favorite color combination is sepia, black, and white on a tan tile. For this one, I actually used a very light pinky beige for the 'Nzeppel. It doesn't show up well here, but it's just a hint of color on the actual piece.















Thank you for stopping by this week, and as always, comments and critiques are welcome. I try to get around to all the blogs, but I may be a bit late this week, due to not being able to sit at the computer for very long right now. For those who haven't checked out the other submissions, you should go see what has been posted for the Diva's challenge HERE.

Have a zen-ful day!











Wednesday, October 19, 2016

DC # 289 ~ Leafy Goodness! (and a few late goodies to share too)

Apparently I'm back again...my computer decided to play nicely for awhile (actually the computer plays perfectly - it's the wireless connection that doesn't want to play nicely!), so I can get my challenge tiles posted. I'll try not to bore or overwhelm you with a long post, since I have really been gone now for a few weeks. But, before I get started, I just HAVE to share this picture of my 3 adorable kitties with you. First though, a little background ... on my old computer hutch that I haven't used in a very long time, there are cubbies that I normally put the grocery bags in and in front of that my craft sewing machine on one side and my printer on the other. There is room for 2 kitties to sleep perfectly on the bags and the normally do. Salem, the youngest, is usually the only one up there anymore and he sleeps behind the sewing machine. Nicky, the middle fur baby, originally had that spot, but apparently Salem won the toss. Mistoffellees, our old man, usually sleeps next to me in one of the dining room chairs. Anyway, this particular day, everyone's routine got upset and Salem was upstairs longer than normal...when he came down, and was about to go to his hidey hole, he found it taken. Well, normally he will just go to the other side, but Nicky was there because Mistoffellees was in Salem's spot. So Salem started telling me about it and when I turned around from my computer, I just about died laughing at the scene going on, so I grabbed the camera. Anyway, these are my 3 wonderful furbabies!
An indignent Salem...with Nicky and Mistoffellees totally oblivious to
the outrage of our youngest kitty...lol
I loved our challenge to tangle autumn leaves (at least they are autumn leaves in this part of the world right now - my inlaws would have spring leaves). I had a maple leaf cutout and a oak leaf that I used for my strings and tried to use the techniques from 2014 "Tints on Tan" kit that I had bought at that time. I liked the way it looked, but there was far too much 'white space' for me, so I was going to just add a little grey tipple around the leaves, but got carried away. I didn't really like the way it was looking, so I used graphite to color between the tipple and hated that even more. Then when my husband was looking at it, the angle that he was holding it at made it look to me like the leaves were floating on a puddle or something like that, so that's where I went with it. I added blue which greyed the background so that it wasn't so obtrusive and the leaves popped. Guess if you just keep at it, eventually it will satisfy. Not to say that it didn't...I loved drawing this one and really got lost in the tangles, but I really wanted to make this ZIA out of it. Anyway, this is my submission ...
Media:  3.5" square tan tile
Brown Micron 01
Black Micron .005
Sepia Micron .005
Prismacolor colored pencils
Media:  3.5" square black tile
White gelly roll pen




Diva Challenge #288 challenged us to use the tangle Gourdgeous on our tile in honor of Canada's Thanksgiving. Gourdgeous is one of my favorite tangle patterns, so I did two. The first one is just white on a black background, but I had fun doing it.












Media: 4" square watercolor paper
Dye ink background
Micron Sepia Pen 01
White Prismacolor



The second one is done on a watercolor washed background, which really wasn't what I had intended. I had decided to try some watercolor backgrounds and this one just really didn't work, but that's likely because I couldn't find my watercolors and used some dye inkpads for my pigment and the tile wasn't nearly wet enough. But I used it anyway, so it is what it is!











And here is the last one (I promise).  I loved Daniel's stepout  for Dreamcatcher, especially since when I was in high school and college I used to make them for my friends out of wool roving and bits of turquoise, so I really did love the wonderful stepout he did for it. My version is done on a tan tile with what I thought was terracotta pencil shading, but I have a light out in the kitchen where I do my tangling, so it was actually a mulberry color. When I discovered that is was the wrong color, it actually worked out well as I wanted the outside ring to be a bit darker, so I used the terracotta for that and it worked out well. But that's okay, pink is my favorite color anyway! So here is my last submission for this week and I will not be nearly so long next time. That's a promise *grin*
Media: 3.5" tan tile
Micron Black 01
Micron Sepia 01
Prismacolor colored pencils ~ Mulberry/Terracotta
As always, comments, critiques, messages, or just a "Hi, how are you" are appreciated. And please do the same for everyone that has joined in the Diva Challenge this week. If you want to play with the challenges as well, you can find them at the Diva's blog (click here) and join us sometime. It's a wonderful group of people and very informative. I've learned a lot participating in this. Have a great week!