Strange Shapes...

This week's challenge to use odd traced shapes as a string was, well, challenging!  I had a few trials and it turned out that I liked the first and last ones the best. I did have a tough time finding things that were more interesting than circles to trace, but then circles can be pretty nice too!

This string was two tracings of a star shaped pin/button and one of a lip balm tin. The tangles are Phicops and Pepper with a pattern I am calling "Cobbles" in the background. For more on that check out the post from last week where I also used it.

The last one was tacings of a few leftover and recently empty Easter eggs. This one was fun! The piece ended up being rotated upside down, but I like the fact that the original string is both visible in some spots and not really evident in others. I also like the negative space in this one.

Must run, have a great weekend!

A late Fanz entry

Well, I was on vacation all week with the family so I had sporadic hotel wifi access and managed to peek at the Diva UMT Challenge . After walking ALL day and seeing every possible sight about the only thing you can do in the evening is sit with your feet up and draw! So here are my poor attempts to use Fanz. I like some of the other versions I have seen perusing the entries better - but, these are what got put down on the paper...

I like the pattern in the upper half of this tile - it is a vacation inspired one done in a little different way. The last time we were in DC I saw the cobble stone streets and walkways, especially near the art museum and came up with a pattern inspired by that. This trip it came back to mind and I tried it out again. I like it, I think it should be called Cobbles if there isn't already one like it. I have done it up in its original conformation in the dark tile below and this is a link to the first time I posted it. 

This is the second tile with Fanz. It has been forever since I used Gloven and the river pattern was brought to mind by looking at old maps from colonial times where the rivers are surrounded by contours like the graduated auras. I also used a blending stump for this shading because it was pretty rough since I was doing it in the car... blend it a little and you can't tell!

 This one was done at the end of last week when I still had Flux on my mind.

Finally, this one came about from seeing all the spring blooming flowers in DC (yes the Cherry Blossoms as well as others) and seeing those cobble stones again. I really like this darker paper and the look of the white highlights it allows. So what do you think, is that Cobbles pattern like anything you have seen before? Should I step-it-out? 

Till next week, have a great one!

An unheard of mid-week post...

Whoa!! Wait, what? Its Wednesday and I am already posting a challenge?? Crazy!

Really I just love Flux and have used it in many forms over the years. I have a little extra step that I do when I do it Maria-style that helps me to keep it evenly spaced, but otherwise its pretty much the same. I tried thickening the lines in places in the first piece to see what that was like and ended up not really liking the effect. I haven't given up on it yet, but  this certainly isn't the answer. Anyway, here they are.

Springy Saturday

Another week, another week closer to spring break! I must be thinking of traveling to warm and sandy places, not that I will be but because the Spiral Challenge this week kept resulting in pieces that looked like shells!

I like the off centered-ness of this spiral. I actually did not intend to make that first section have horizontal lines, but I was drawing while waiting for all the kids to get their hair cut and got distracted... no mistakes, right?

This was an attempt to break out of 'spiral snail shell' mode by doing more than one... the drawing had other ideas. I must remember that changing the thickness of lines is so effective - I am sure it could be used with great effect with lots of  patterns.

This was a very uninspired one, very plain and not terribly imaginative but it has its simple appeal.

Then last week I got to looking at Challenge posts and ran across the one at Margaret Bremmer's blog, The Enthusiastic Artist and LOVED Sam Taylor's Narwal tangle she was trying out. So I went and watched the video and played with it some on Saturday. I added some to the bottom left corner of my art box. I have been slowing decorating it over the last few years and the bottom is the last surface left. I really like how it came out with the very dark black and the very light highlights of white it really leaps off the surface. I highly recommend Sam's videos, there are some really great tangle patterns there that I had not seen before.

Spring Green challenge!

I was very excited to read that the Challenge for this week was to "green up" your tangles... I had spent a little time last weekend making myself some color wash water-color tiles with some new paper squares and I had one that was all greens with a little brown. Then I couldn't find the silly things to save my life. Then the week got really busy with grading and things and here it is Friday night before I get to sit long enough to make something to meet the challenge. Spring and green always make me thing of ferns, and the fiddle heads that come up in the spring. Frickle has alwasy reminded me of those so I started with it. After a few green patterns I just had to put some other color in there as well!

Of course as soon as I was finished and went to the scanner to scan it in I found the original colored tiles... so now I guess I can play with those too - if I don't misplace them first! I also finished a piece this week that I have been working on one section, and sometimes part of a section at a time for many days. No green, but I like it anyway!

Poke Root Challenge

Here is my entry for this week's Diva Challenge and, I am here to testify that Poke Root IS a challenge! I always have 'neat and orderly' angst with tangles that are super free form like Poke Root and Bridgen. Somehow Mooka has a flow to it as does Squid and a few others and I have never found the 'flow' to Poke Root - maybe I just haven't done it enough. Of course I love Cubine and really enjoyed looking back at the original tutorial for it on Margaret Bremner's blog - such loveliness and great ideas! I tried a triangle version of it here in the corners and set up the square grid in the middle just in pencil. Then I went back and finished the Cubine when my Poke Root 'mushrooms' had sprouted and grown as much as I wanted. Who has good advice for filling in large black areas with out the strokes showing? Obviously I had a little problem with that on this one, even after going over the areas a second time they show up.

Have a great week! I have, as usual lots of grading and I suppose, in the interest of feeding my family this week I should make it to the grocery store today. I also have to direct the finishing stages of a 1st grade science project before Monday!

UMT Challenge for March

Things have been pretty tight this week and I am super behind in all things physics, but my artwork and the articles are done for the magazine (and sent out today!). So sometime this summer I will have to share the excitement of the special edition magazine with my articles in it coming out. I capped off the week with a relaxing Friday night trying out Unbatz a cute little pattern by Sandy Hunter for the Diva Challenge. Tomorrow it will be up early, an online meeting and lots of grading, writing out solution sets, configuring a test, and planning the next two units for two different classes! I am tired already.

One 'traditional' rendition (right), and an echo-y one of my own device (left).

Have a great week!