Camelia Challenge and Carve Stamp Play Workshop

CAMELIA CHALLENGE

This week's Diva Challenge (#165) was to use the Camelia tangle created by Anne Marks (steps here).  I had fun learning this tangle and then creating this ATC-sized piece for the challenge:

Camelia is the black and white tangle.
Other tangles: Flux, 'Nzeppel, Amaze, and Fescu
Colored and shaded with Inktense and colored pencils

Carve Stamp Play Workshop

After the Zentangle workshop, the Artists of the Round Table group started working on the Carve Stamp Play Workshop based on the book by the same name by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer.  As I love to carve and I always learn so much from these worshops, I decided to participate in this workshop as well.  


 The first few lessons went through some basics, but now things are definitely getting interesting and I'm having a lot of fun.  Here are a couple of my favorite finished carvings so far.  I hope you enjoy them.

Print from my faux wood carving lesson

On the left is the print , on the right is the carving

Earth Day and Cloth Paper Scissors Challenges

Earth Day Challenge - Diva's weekly challenge #164

I'm really enjoying participating in these weekly challenges; it forces me to do something every week, and also post consistently on the blog :).  You can see this week's challenge and all the wonderful submissions from other participants here.

Because the challenge was for Earth Day, I decided to use recycled paper - used tea bags - and because the Earth is round, I went with the round tea bags.  I used Sakura gel pens, Inktense, and colored pencils.

The challenge for me was then to create nature inspired art with tangles.  Some are very obviously organic in nature, but I enjoyed using others which may not be so obvious.  I definitely could keep going, it was so much fun!!!

Top:

• Left - Sedgling Forest
• Center - Angel Fish Tree
• Right - Isochor Flowering Trees

Center:

• Left - 'Nzeppel Flowers
• Center - Rain trees
• Right - Tipple, Printemps, Amaze, and Flux Mountains 

Bottom:

• Left - Aura-Leah Plant
• Center - Flux Plant
• Right - Eke Plant

Cloth Paper Scissors Magazine Reader Challenge

Cloth Paper Scissors is one of my favorite magazines; I absolutely love it.  Last year they had a challenge to create a mixed-media stitched square (6" x 6" - around 15 x 15 cm).  I decided to enter and submitted my piece below, which was then published in the January/February 2014 issue.

So, here is the finished piece and some of the in-progress pictures.  I hope you enjoy them.

Finished Piece

Finished Piece - close-up

Background - started with a piece of my husband's old jeans
and layered old book pages, stamped and drawn-on tea bags, gesso, and inks. 

Drew and stitched a tree, and then started adding flowers

Close up of the tree branches and flowers

In the end I added more color with Inktense as you can see in the finished piece and stitched it to a piece of felt.

It was so much fun to open up the magazine and see my art in it :)

Diva's Challenge and Zentangle Inspired Mountains

The Challenge

This week's challenge was to use the new tangle Rixty (instructions here).  It was fun to learn the new tangle and try it out different ways.

I ended up shading some of the triangles, as I messed up one of them :).  I actually like the effect, so... here it is:

The Zentangle Inspired Mountains

While doing the Zentangle workshop a few months ago, I decided to create mountains covered with tangles.  Well... I made them connect on all four sides so that you'd have a continuous design and therefore it could be used on fabric.

Today, I decided to create a few products on Print All Over Me and here are a couple that I would love to see for real - and wear!!

What do you think?

Diva's Challenge, ACEOs, and Bookmarks

The Challenge 

This week's challenge (here) is to use your initials as a string.  I really enjoyed playing with the string until I got something I liked.  You can see in the second picture the M in pink and the h in purple.

The ACEOs

I grabbed a couple of pieces of brightly painted paper (with acrylics) stamped over with hand-carved stamps, and drew some leaves.  I may still fiddle with them, but I might just list them as they are on Etsy.  How do you like them?

Background was done with colored pencil over acrylics

Background was painted with white acrylics
and swirls drawn around a very wonky moon

The Bookmarks

These are very fun and colorful bookmarks and they will last a very long time.  I've had one for several years and it looks as good as new - and believe me, it has been abused!  It has even been dropped in bubble baths several times :)

They are made from art canvas, painted with acrylics, stamped with hand-carved stamps, drawn on with black pen, and finally sealed with 2 or 3 coats of varnish.  Since 2 of them fit together, do you think I should list them as a pair or individually on Etsy?

Front

Back created with acrylics, hand carved stamps, pen, and colored pencil

Diva's Challenge #161 and a shower curtain

Diva's Challenge #161 - Quandary

Quandary is a Zentangle tangle (instructions here) and the Diva's challenge (here) was to try different ways of creating the tangle and create a piece using it.

First I had fun with two of my hand-carved leaves on a sketch pad to practice sets of threes - the prints have been put through a filter so they look a bit more stylized:

Then I created a tile:

The shower Curtain:

My Mother-in-law wanted to get a new shower curtain to go with her newly painted pink bathroom.  We talked about tones of grey and after going through a bunch of my art, she decided on the dancing trees.  So... I changed them to grey and put them up on Cafepress.  

I hope the shower curtain looks good in her bathroom!!