The Lemonade Award

I haven't posted on here for so long but I received an award for this blog from ana over at http://sewgroovychick.blogspot.com/ for showing great attitude and/or gratitude! What a surprise for me and how thankful I am to her for passing this along to me. Now as a kind of "pay it forward" blogging thing, I am to pass this award along to some others that I think deserve being rewarded for showing great attitude and/or gratitude that are in this blogsphere.

Besides ana, I would suggest visiting these other blogs that I am passing along this Lemonade Award to:
Mommy's House
morninggladness
Cotton
Mercy
I would agree with the ones that ana has chosen on her blog, also. Thank you ana, for your kindness and a unique way to pass on attitude/gratitude:) Hope to be posting here soon *sigh*

For you whom the award has been given, please:
1. Put the above lemonade award logo on your post or blog.
2. Nominate blogs which you think show great attitude and/or gratitude.
3. Link to your nominees within your post.
4. Let them know they have received this award by connecting on their blog.
5. Share the love and link this post to the person from whom you received your award.

The Technical Pen

I know I am jumping all over the place with this artwork from zentangles to comic characters to monks! ha! But as I was working on zentangles, I thought of my technical pen book by Garry Simmons that would be helpful. He has 30 basic pen strokes for the technical pen. One of the exercises in the book is quite extensive. You take the above drawn picture of a monk and make 24 copies to work from. In each monk, you will work your exercises from the strokes he gives for that particular monk, working from Monk No. 1 to Monk No. 24. I have only done 2 completely and am almost through with No. 3 but posted it here since it's almost finished. It is very good practice in control and I thought I could learn some new strokes for ideas in my zentangles.

These photos were very difficult to photograph so please click on each photo for a closer look at the different strokes. The above is Monk No. 1 using continuous line, merging and radiating lines - variant 1, and solid black strokes.

The above is Monk No. 2 using continuous line, geometric pattern, merging and radiating lines - variant 2, and loops and scales - variant 2.

This is Monk No. 3 which is not completely finished. The pen strokes used here are engraving effect, waves and zig zag lines - variant 3, and solid black.

These exercises are time-consuming but relaxing to just sit and do in front of the TV or in complete quiet. It's almost like meditation.

Can You Believe Comics?

Another genre of art I have discovered! Japanese comics! I found this book on drawing Japanese comics and decided to try my hand at it.

This was my first attempt. I sat up very late one night to try drawing some of these little characters and it was so much fun. They're "rough" but I will keep drawing them because I just think they're SO cute and SO much fun to draw and "color". I'm going to keep working on faces but can't wait to progress to the bodies and clothing, too, to make little characters such as little nurses, cheerleaders, etc.

You know where I'm leading with this. My granddaughter will love these! (I hope - I think!)

My First Zentangle

This is my first Zentangle. I just discovered zentangles and decided to try my hand at it and I like it very much. It's just a type of doodling but it is great meditation and very relaxing. I just finished it and it's almost 1:00 am here! This is my imaginary flower.

If you'd like to know more about this art form, go to the zentangle website and check it out. It's very interesting and there is a very intriguing gallery.

A Cafe Somewhere

Just some drawing practice from looking at a drawing in Art Escapes by Dory Kanter. I used pen and ink and tried to copy her drawing. I have realized that I need to do much, much more contour drawing before I move on to volume drawing. It pretty much flowed and I enjoyed it. She water colored hers BEFORE she drew it! That amazes me. I've seen one other person in New Orleans do this and it just amazed me to watch him. But I just wanted to leave mine black and white. I really am pleased with it although I know it's not perfect. The important thing is that it was enjoyable to do and I made time to do it after such a busy day today. I hope you enjoy it.

Escape Artist

OMGoodness, I'm up too late tonight. My original intention was to just make the color chart below with my markers because I've realized as I've used them that the colors on the paper around the marker is NOT the same color as the ink that comes out! I did the chart and then decided to copy the above piece (since I was waiting for my clothes to dry anyway) from a book I have entitled Art Escapes by Dory Kanter. She did hers in watercolor and used salt to give it a starry quality but I was working in markers. I did try to give it a "mottled" look in places with the markers. She called this Escape Artist and suggested to find art to copy in order to frame (or reframe) what you see. It's a windowpane painting.

I loved her use of the Pablo Picasso quote: "Good artists copy, great artists steal."

It was good use of my time to make this chart. I did have 24 colors including black but had forgotten that I bought some grays, too, to work with tones. There are much bigger sets and many more colors but they are expensive so I'll have to add to my collection little by little. I'm not complaining. They should be expensive. They're wonderful markers. The ink just flows like paint so you're really painting when you use them. I did mix two colors this time to get the gray I wanted in the above painting in one of the panes and was successful to get the color I wanted. The more I use them, the more I enjoy them.

If you'd like to see some wonderful art using these markers (and what's possible!) with these and their other products, too, go to this site and browse their gallery. Hope you enjoy!

Color Chart

Tonight I am just making a sample color chart of my marker colors. I have 24 in the set and I've noticed that when I have chosen a color to use, sometimes it's not the color I imagined. I read a suggestion to make a color chart in the margins of your art paper but I think I'll just make one on paper to keep on hand to refer to when I'm drawing. Maybe tomorrow I can get back to actually drawing.