Doodle Mania!

Ahhh, collaborative art making... Last weekend I sat down to try the first prompt in the new book by Traci Bautista, Doodles Unleashed, with a friend of my daughter's who had an itch to "make something". I grabbed out colorful Utrecht alcohol markers, some Tim Holtz stamps, cat-eye chalk ink pads, a bunch of stencils and my favorite pens (Sakura brand Micron size 1 and Gelly Roll) to get the ball rolling. Using the Spontaneous Marks book ideas, we began scribbling color onto our Bristol papers with giddy abandon.

 Sarah Rodeberg "Doodles Unleashed" inspired artwork.

For my doodle page, I decided to try out some stamps I hand carved and experiment with the Sakura Souffle pens as well - they add that little bit of puffy shine to the design.

Couldn't help myself... had to add the raffle coupon!

The next prompt in Traci's book had us Finding the Doodle; randomly painting on a page and then doodling around the shapes. This was so much fun, my 13 year old, Devon, got in on the fun...

 Reminds me of Dr Seuss' Whoville. Acrylic paint and India ink.

Just amazing what kids see in the swirls!

There is sooooo much more to discover in Traci's book, I'll show you the results of my working through her prompts as I try them out.

I've also recently been working in another book, Creative Doodling and Beyond, by Stephanie Corfee. Stephanie includes examples of her stylized doodles, then gives blank pages adjacent for her doodle fans to practice with. My favorite pens for her exercises are the Micron colored fine-point markers. They give great control and don't soak through to the opposite side of the pages. I'm just in the beginning of this book, but looking ahead I am excited to try her projects using dimensional paint to doodle custom stamps, make gift bag tags, doodling on photographs, creating custom banners, embellishing fabric...and BEYOND!!! I moved into an art journal with a left over paint background to try my hand at Stephanie's doodles today and here's what was created using Sakura Gelly Roll pens:

Stephanie's book page is to the left... doodles in my journal to the right.
See the hidden protozoans with a tail I added to my design? Yes, I'm a closet scientist! :)

More of this weekend's journal play included doodles and stylized words inspired from Handcrafted magazine vol 8 (winter 2012).  [Got so much art-making done these last few days, it feels GOOD!] On this page I also created color samples of different pens (Sakura Souffle, Gelly Roll, Micron) & China markers (grease pencils) and experimented with them all on the page to chart their effects. I also pulled out the Twinkling H2O's shimmering watercolors to throw a little sparkle onto the page. My favorite text from this play is the word "wish". Will have to look for an art piece in progress to use that on... and if you're like me, that means you have at least 5 pieces in various stages of work at all times!

To perfect our ART, it helps to PRACTICE. My advice: grab a doodle book or any magazine and start playing with what you see. Keep it simple. Create fun variations of common motifs like hearts, flowers, leaves, swirls, words, houses, animals, faces, etc. Then, play with color. Eventually, you will find that... inspiration is EVERYWHERE! 

Happy Doodling!   Tristina

Art Journal Inspired ATC's

Colorful Artist Trading Cards

I was so inspired by finishing up my art journal for The Sketchbook Project, that last weekend I decided to play with my art supplies before putting them away. I grabbed a pile of blank bristol paper Artist Trading Cards (ATC's) and went to town.

I made two sets of 3 cards, starting at 11pm, before I finally petered out at around 2am. The beautiful thing was that I didn't have to get up early the next morning...Yay!

To create a background for the first set of cards, I used Portfolio water-soluable oil pastel crayons. I love their rich colors and I just randomly grabbed some colors and rubbed them on the ATC's. Then, I used a soft damp brush to move the colors around and get them to penetrate the paper a little and blend. Next I grabbed my box of Derwent Inktense water-soluable pencils and scribbled on the surface just to add my artist's hand to the cards. I had many scraps of paper around my desk from The Sketchbook Project leftovers, so I tore small pieces of papers that interested me and used regular gel medium to glue them to the ATC's after they had dried.

I have a large collection of stamps from around the world (about 2000 that I bought in Paris a few years ago) that always come to mind when I have projects like this, so I grabbed out about 50 and found 3 that matched the background colors that I had already laid down. I added texture with acrylic inks and paint both under and over the stamps and adhered the stamps and some 3-D elements with regular gel medium.

I finished off these cards using a soft charcoal pencil around the edges of the card and/or stamps and in some of the texture created by the paints and papers.

It felt so good to get these 3 little works of art done, that I continued on to make 3 more ATC's with a different theme.

Flower ATC's

I started the two cards on the left with acrylic fluid inks; one blue on the bottom and gold on the top, then the opposite on the second. The third card was an experiment with sticky grid tape that I painted over with acrylic paints. For the two left cards I used scrap tissue paper I had painted left over from The Sketchbook Project, glued it down with regular gel medium and stamped words on after dry with StazOn ink. The third card I glued a piece of scrap paper to and added a word torn out of a children's book.

I am a crazy woman for having elements that pop off my artwork, so I went to my canister of colored Prima Flowers and started auditioning the different color combinations with the ATC backgrounds. The flower on each card is a combination of 2 or 3 paper flowers I adhered to the ATC and to each other with WeldBond glue. I found at scrapbooking stores some really cool multi-colored flat-backed plastic DewDrops embelishments that I also WeldBonded to the center of the flowers, then layed a light book/object on top of each card overnight to help the flower and dew drop stay in place while the glue dried.

The flowers were fully set in the morning...and I was In Love on the big reveal. <3

I hope I have inspired you to make your own small works of art...just for the sheer joy of it...and remember, ATC's are for sharing! Anyone out there want to trade with me? Leave me a comment. :)

Happy Art Making,  Tristina

Fuzzy Headed

I was texting a friend of mine in the morning after dropping off the kids at school. She misunderstood something I had said and apologized for "being silly". I assured her that I share her same "early morning child induced intoxication" and am usually quite fuzzy headed myself until about 10am!

That being said, here is another of my recently finished Zentangles. I usually work on these in the morning when I just need to zone out till my body pumps enough blood to my head to be able to think cogently. :)

This Zentangle includes KurlyQ, Dropletts, Sprouts, Bricks, In N Out, River, ChainGang, Spinners, Portholes, Yimkin and a few others I don't remember the names of off the top of my head!

I will be hosting a Zentangle Artist Trading Card (ATC) demonstration at the Utrecht Art Supplies shop on North Federal Highway in Fort Lauderdale (next to the Whole Foods) on December 17 (Sat) from 1-3pm. Bring your blank ATC's (Smooth Bristol are best for this project) and Micron pens or purchase them at Utrecht just before the demonstration. Completed ATC's will be put on display in the shop for other customer's viewing pleasure. Should be a very fun and relaxing primer to the holidays!

To learn more about Zentangles, go to Zentangle.com or TanglePatterns.com. I will be going to class to get my "Certified Zentangle Trainer (CZT)" in Rhode Island in February... I'm a Florida girl, what am I thinking???

Cheers to your relaxing this Holiday Season. Happy Turkey - Thanksgiving - Day!  Tristina

Zentangle Works

     Preparing for my Divorce sure takes up a LOT of time! Been focused on pulling paperwork...so haven't had a chance to write, although I have been art-making and book-reading. :)

      Finished up a few Zentangles using designs from the Zentangle 2 and Zentangle 3 books (by Suzanne McNeill, CZT). These are on a Strathmore Mixed Media Visual Journal 3.5in x 5in. This is a great little journal to easily carry with me when I'm packing light. It has nice large spirals so that a Sharpie fine or Micron black pen easily fits inside to keep it close at hand and the paper is absorbent enough so that the ink doesn't smudge.

This sun image is my variation of a stamped and zentangled image in Zentangle 3 (I drew this face).

     Also in Zentangle 3 is a suggestion to make index tabs with the different zentangle designs as a reference, even suggesting just reaching into a jar of these index tabs and drawing whatever designs you pull out! Sounds like fun... Below are a few tags I cut out of Bristol paper (great paper for marker work) using a large punch bought at Michaels.

      When I travel heavy (which is most of the time!) I carry a baggie with me filled with black Micron pens of different nib sizes, a set of colored Micron pens (my favorite is Sanguine brown), Utrecht double ended colored markers, a soft 6B pencil for shading, paper smudging stump (tortillion), pencil sharpener, eraser, and white pen.

     My regular sketch book is a Canson Field Drawing book 7in x 10in, also with big spirals. See below how this book holds 4 micron pens! I usually have the 03, 05 and graphic 1 or brush (for filling in) black nib sizes and have also been carrying the Sanguine color pen. See the work in process using both colors, I love it!

     Zentangle is having their next teacher certification class in Rhode Island in Feb. I know it's crazy to imagine a Florida girl in the NorthEast in the dead of winter, but I'm so excited to go up and get certified to teach Zentangles! Then I'll offer classes in Miami/Dade, Broward and the Palm Beaches. So much to learn and share. :)

     Happy reading and experimenting!  Tristina