Doodling…

I’ve been creating fine pen doodles, sometimes known as zentangles, for years now and have sketchbooks full of them. When I started creating these, the originals were always black and white and if I added colour I did it digitally after I’d scanned the originals. I was very precious with those originals – too frightened to experiment in case I ruined them. But just recently I’ve started adding them into some of my mixed media work…

…and I’m quite pleased with how they’re turning out.

This one was created using a collage of book pages, followed by a watercolour wash and clear gesso glaze. The doodling came next. I don’t plan this, its totally spontaneous and I’m always surprised by the end result! Lastly I added some colour to the doodling using pitt pens and a bit of shading with a water soluble graphite stick.

Quirky Bird Bug!

Yes, I have definitely got the Quirky Bird Bug – I can’t seem to stop drawing them!

This time I decided to try painting one on material. I primed the material using clear gesso then painted the bird using a mixture of acrylic paint and neocolour crayons exactly the same way I did on the paper. I’m really pleased with how it turned out – I love the way the pattern on the material shows through in places under the paint.

Drawing birds has kept me from finishing my latest zentangle canvas, but today I finally finished it – number five in the series!

I decided to try drawing with some Pitt artist pens as the unipin pen nibs were wearing out so quickly! The Pitt pens are lovely and very waterproof, but I think it must be drawing on the canvas – they’re wearing down too! As before, I used the luscious Twinkling H2O’s to add colour to the image.

Maybe some mixed media paint splashing will cure me of the Quirky Bird Bug – keep watching this space!

Zentangle Star

Today I finally got around to finishing my latest zentangle canvas! I drew it at the beginning of the month but didn’t get round to colouring it till today.

This was the original, drawn on a canvas board using a unipin fine line pen…

… and this is the final version, coloured using Twinkling H2O’s.

Zentangling again!

I’ve been zentangling again! Only this time I forgot to scan before I started painting.

I chose an Ankh as my central image – said to represent eternal life, dating back to Egyptian times. As with the others, I drew it using a unipin fine line pen and coloured it using Twinkling H2O’s. I added a small gem stone to the centre which made it impossible to scan! No matter how hard I try to capture it, the image is a pale shadow of the original!

Doodling and H2O’s!

Still inspired by Jodi Ohl’s Just do it – Free Art Friday post, I decided to create another stained glass image, but to cover it in doodles in the style of my zentangle drawings. I used a 5″x7″ canvas board to draw it on.

I doodled using a Unipin fine line pen which claims to be ‘water and fade proof’. “Hmmm, we’ll see about that!” … I thought. My record with so called waterproof pens is not very good!

Wow – I’m impressed! Not a smudge or a smear anywhere! These pens are good! I used Twinkling H2O’s to add the colour, so the ink got verrry wet! Now that it’s finished, I think it looks kind of mandala-ish – the way it pulls your eyes in to focus on the heart. It wasn’t intentional, but I rather like it. What do you think?

Just Doodling…

Continuing on from yesterday, I thought I’d stay with the small size and doodle some zentangles. The inspiration for this came from the latest issue of Craft Stamper Magazine.

I created the border round the edges first, then stamped the mouse and text (very old freebies from a magazine), then filled the remaining space with doodles. I used my trusty Rotring Rapidograph pen for the doodling and a black Staz-on ink pad for the the stamping. I finished it off by colouring the mouse using neocolour crayons. I like the contrast the colour makes with the black and white of the doodles.

Sleep With The Journal? ….. No Way!!!

Sleep with the Journal? …. No Way!!! It’s much too lumpy and there are far too many sharp bits sticking out!! Instead I altered the instructions and created new ones!!

It now has a series of statements/ instructions:

Sleep is something we all need
Are you happy with Life?
Experiment with the book!
Journal your thoughts …
Descibe how you are feeling …
Play with the art
All experiences are useful
Leave your comments here

I then coloured the pages using a water colour pencil wash, and added an explosion of colour to the left page! I may well add some more comments to the right page as I think of them 🙂

This next page evolved as my doodles are inclined to do!! I had no intention of drawing a face when I started out … it just ended up that way!

The left page evolved after I used it to try out some new rubber stamps I got from the SSP Guild on Saturday morning. It just reminded me of these words from an old Dave Clark Five song called Here comes Summer (Showing my age there!!) Only trouble was … the page got really wet after I wrote the words and they bled everywhere!! So I wrote over the top again. I think it looks even better now!! What was that I was saying about accidents improving artistic content? (see bottom of last post)

Following another set of instructions …

… I coloured the edges of the pages using Perfect Pearls from Ranger. It would have been easier to do at the beginning before the book got so fat!! 🙂