Zentangle–Gold Fold

The other day I decided to experiment further with the tangle “Paradox” and was trawling through Pinterest for inspiration, when I came across something related, from Margaret Bremner, and was captivated! I just had to try this…

I have called this piece “Gold Fold.”

I just love how the addition of some shading makes a design spring into 3D!

Tangles in this piece include Striping, Elven, D’eneh, Footlites and Barberpole, and I have added some dewdrops (my first attempt) and various random elements of my own devising. Elven and D’eneh are new ones in my repertoire and I really like them. They are really 3D.

This also embraces my ongoing interest in improving my ability to draw shiny reflective surfaces. I have learnt that the secret to this is to make as much contrast as possible, something I haven’t been brave enough to do in the past! After working on this piece for a while, I went back and added more intense shading and this helped with the reflective elements as well as the general 3D-ness of the whole thing.

I drew this on the iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil, using Procreate, and it’s taken me several days to complete. It’s the first one where I have created a textured background – I’ve saved this as a Zentangle tile template so I can use it again. I have only recently attempted drawing on a non-white background, and I love being able to add highlights as well as shading. I am also thinking more about “white space” in my designs – like many people, when I first started, I thought the idea was to fill every space with tangles, but I think this approach sets off the individual patterns better, and allows them to speak for themselves.

I must get back to practising Paradox, though! It’s a pattern which has always been a problem for me!

Completion of Florabunda Alphabet

Last night I finally completed the Florabunda alphabet I’ve been working on, with the letters K to Z, so I can now make personalised cards for all my friends, even those whose names begin with X lol!

Here is the complete set.

Health Update

At long last I am starting to feel better! The final chemo just over three weeks ago certainly made its presence felt and the effects went on well into week 3 of the cycle, which was unusual because with previous treatments, by week 3 I was always feeling a lot better. It was doubly surprising that it went on so long, because the final treatment, like the penultimate one, was at a reduced dose. I am still getting peripheral neuropathy, mostly in my feet now, which is strange because I’ve had more trouble with it in my hands previously – it seems to be there a lot of the time, giving me feelings of numbness and pins and needles, particularly in my toes, and it seems unrelated to cold, too. I shall mention this to the oncologist when I next see her.

I have now started to pick up the threads of my life again, doing some domestic tasks. It may sound funny, but I am so enjoying this! It is making me feel a lot more human again, and in control of my life. My hubby has been so wonderful looking after me all this time but I really feel it’s high time I took back a lot of what he’s been doing, and started looking after him again after so many months.

Here are the “firsts” in getting my life back again!

Thursday: I did my first batch of laundry. Since going into hospital, my lovely cleaning lady has been doing this for me, apart from the odd bit of hand washing that I’ve managed to keep up with.

Friday: First lot of ironing.

Saturday: I got up and got my own breakfast for the first time. Since my operation, my hubby has been bringing me breakfast in bed. First washing up – I did the breakfast things! A gentle introduction. I also finished the ironing. I sorted the larder cupboards in the kitchen and made a list of what we’ve got, and what we need. I started making my first shopping list for the online order I shall be doing in the coming week.

Sunday: I went to church for the first time since May, when I had recovered sufficiently from my operation, just before I started my chemo. I was quite overwhelmed by the lovely welcome I received – everybody was surprised and delighted to see me back and I got a LOT of hugs! Everyone said how well I was looking. I would have easily forgiven them for forgetting me altogether, it’s been so long since I showed my face in the place! I washed up the evening meal dishes. Soon I will be cooking the evening meal, too!

Monday (today): I sorted the freezer and defrosted it. Much as I hate having to throw food away, I did have to throw away a bit, because it was too old. Once I’m back in the driving seat as far as the cooking and shopping are concerned, I shall have a proper idea of what we’ve got, and what needs eating first, etc. etc. and this won’t happen again. I have also re-started my diet – I am on the 5:2 diet, where you restrict your diet to a maximum of 500 cals for two days of the week and eat normally for the other five. I had to abandon this, on the advice of my surgeon, in advance of my operation, in order to keep my strength up and allow my body to recover. Although I have gained some weight during this time, I have managed to keep it on a more or less even keel, which I am pleased about, but now it is time to resume the downward trend and hopefully to reach my target weight by next summer.

During the coming week, I’ve got the fridge to sort and clean out, and the small freezer (part of the fridge-freezer in the kitchen). I also need to clean the hob and possibly the oven but I may ask my cleaning lady to do the latter lol!! There’s a box of food out on the counter where my hubby has been putting his food shopping for easy access for his cooking, and this needs sorting and the stuff putting away, and then I can clean that counter, including all the crumbs from the toaster! Tomorrow morning I shall finalise my online shopping list and then do the order in the afternoon, and request the delivery for Wednesday, as I used to do before. I am hoping to cook the first evening meal on Wednesday.

I am also trying to be good, and going to bed earlier than I am used to, so that I can get up earlier. The trouble is, my M.E. messes with my internal clock, and I tend to be mentally alert in the small hours, and do not feel at all ready to go up at midnight! I am trying to go up to bed at 12.20 a.m. at the latest. Since I have been doing this, I have not been sleeping well (waking frequently) which is what always happens if I go up before I feel ready, but this time I am determined to try and educate my body and put up with the wakefulness until it settles down into a new routine.

This whole cancer journey has brought me to a new start in my life, and I am determined to set up good habits from now on. I seem to be at my best for doing things in the mornings, so I am putting my feet up in the afternoons and evenings and not overdoing things. I have been needing a sleep in the afternoons but this may not last forever as I gradually recover my strength.

I am also hoping to be able to start spending some quality time in the studio doing art and being creative! Initially a lot of my energy will be taken up just getting things straight in the house again, but once this settles down and I’m properly into a routine, I am looking forward to spending time up there, probably mostly in the mornings, depending on how my energy levels pick up.

Card Factory 2015–Small Zentangle Cards

Here is a collection of six small Zentangle cards that I assembled today.

These Zentangle designs are some of my early ones, when I first started tangling. I scanned them so I could print them out and use them when I wanted. Some time ago, matted them onto black card in readiness to make into cards, and then never got round to it.

I decided to add stamped sentiments to each of these cards, and used a selection from the Stamin’ Up sets that I have.

Here they are individually.

All the cards have the identical sentiment stamped inside, apart from the “Thank you for caring” one which has a simple “Thank You” inside. Each one has the Zentangle explanation stuck to the back as well.

Most of these will probably go to the chemo unit for sale.

This was a relatively quick project to make, because the designs were already matted, and all I had to do was cut and score the card bases and stick the designs down, and do the stamping. They are all A6 size, when folded.

Card Factory 2015–Foiled Cards and another Florabunda Card

Today I made up three quick cards. The first two were made from my Florabunda Floral Mandala design which my friend Lucy foiled for me, one in gold and one in purple.

The gold one:

and the purple one.

Always hard to photograph shiny and reflective surfaces, but I hope you get the idea! I kept the matting and layering fairly simple. The gold one just has a 1/16-in matt layer made from gold mirror card, and then straight onto the white card base. I thought that was all that was required, to keep it clean and simple.

I didn’t have any purple mirror card so I used silver, again at 1/16-in, and then some of the pale purple glitter card from the collection I have used for other cards in this Card Factory.

Both simple designs, but with some impact, I think.

While I was having my final chemo on Friday, I did a bit more colouring with coloured pencils, this time in reds, oranges, yellows and a bit of purple, on my Flowers in a Circle Florabunda design, so I made up that card this morning as well.

I made the 1/16-in matt layer from orange glitter card from the same pack, and then onto a wider matt of plain cream card. Again, quite simple, but co-ordinating with the design and colour scheme of the card.

Card Factory 2015–Florabunda Mandala Cards with Perfect Pearls

The first of two posts for today.

My next collection of cards is the Floral Mandala design, which I decided to colour with Perfect Pearls, to give a rich, jewel-like shimmering effect which would emphasise the complexity of the design, which has a somewhat Islamic feel.

The original design, printed on the laser printer.

Some time ago, I created a Perfect Pearls palette to make painting easier. I used a Tim Holtz ink palette, and followed the instructions from Creations by Christie. Here is my palette, together with the first Mandala that I painted, using a fine brush dipped in water, and picking up the colour from the palette.

The completed painting.

A word about one of the amazing properties of Perfect Pearls. Some of the colours exhibit interference properties. A good explanation of how this works can be seen here. The mica flakes in Perfect Pearls and other pearlescent/iridescent or interference pigments act like a diffraction grating, and the same principle  can be found in action in the iridescent and shimmering colours of peacock feathers and certain butterflies’ wings and beetles – these are not actual pigments but are visible as the result of how light is reflected and refracted off different surfaces at the microscopic level.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29Ts7CsJDpg

I suppose it’s because I am such a fan of bling and shimmering and metallic colours that I love this effect so much!

I recently had a foray into Twinkling H2Os which work on the same principle, but I did not find them as satisfactory as the Perfect Pearls in my palette – with a moistened paintbrush you can apply these fairly thickly and you get a very rich, iridescent and shimmery effect.

Several of the Perfect Pearls are labelled as “interference” colours, such as “Inteference Red,” and “Interference Blue,” but some of the other colours exhibit this property too, such as “Berry Twist” (one of my favourites) and “Blue Raspberry.”

When viewed at one angle, the colours appear somewhat dull and dark, but turn the piece into the light at another angle, and the shimmering colours emerge. I have photographed each of my pieces in turn, showing first the duller version and then the bright, shimmery version, so that you can see this principle in action. Some of the colours just appear brighter, while others actually change to a different colour. Compare the two pictures and see. These photos also serve to give you a close-up view of the drawing and painting.

First, the card with the red mount (the first one I painted).

The card with the blue mount.

The card with the purple mount.

Finally, the card with the orange mount.

Now a picture of each of the finished cards in turn, with details of the matting and layering.

For the red one, I opened a pack of decorative papers that I bought simply donkey’s years ago – so long ago that the shop closed a long time ago! This paper is rather thin, but it works fine for this. This card first had a 1/16-in matt layer of gold mirror card.

For the blue one, I created a 1/16-in matt layer with green mirror card from my stash. I didn’t think I’d be very likely to use this one, which someone gave me some time ago, but it turned out to be perfect for this card, with its blue-and-green colour scheme. The wider mount was created from a piece of scrap blue card which is quite thick and excellent quality, with a slight hammered texture, which had been the cover of a brochure (never throw anything out lol!).

For the purple one, I chose a piece of gold wrapping paper for the 1/16-in matt layer. The gold Perfect Pearls I used for this design was “Heirloom Gold” which is a softer, less bright gold than “Perfect Gold” which I used for the others, as I wanted a more subtle effect, and I thought that regular gold mirror card would also be too bright. This gift-wrap paper is quite thin compared with the gold mirror card, but it worked just fine. For the wider matt layer I used some more of the glitter card that I used for the narrow matt layers in my Brusho Trees cards project the other day.

For the final card, with the orange mount, I again used gold mirror card for the 1/16-in matt layer, and some orange glitter card as above.

By using different colours, and emphasising different areas of the same design, it is amazing the different results one can get, which makes them look almost like different drawings! It has been great fun experimenting with this, and certainly something I would wish to continue with.

Card Factory 2015–Three Florabunda Cards

 

I have started colouring some of the Florabunda drawings that Lucy printed out for me. For the top one I used coloured pencils, and for the other two, Inktense pencils.

I kept the colour palette fairly limited in each case, and added a little background shading. For the third one, I ran a wet brush back and forth across the drawing after colouring it, which activated whatever Inktense had not been activated while I was colouring it – I quite like this streaky background. Using a coloured pencil for the background, as on the others, gives a bit more control, and this is probably what I shall do in the future.

Initially I was a little underwhelmed by the results but they did grow on me, and I had confidence that they would be improved once the drawings were mounted, with the matting and layering picking up the colours I had used on the drawings, and I was not wrong. I am actually quite pleased with the results now.

Before I began, I had a good look through my stash for some decorative paper and card to use – I am determined to make inroads into my huge stash, most of which I have had for years and have never got round to using – and ended up sorting out a lot of muddle, and my paper shelves do look a lot more organised now! This took longer than making up the cards, which were really quite quick. (So nice to feel sufficiently better to do enough to get a sense of achievement!!)

For the first and last cards, I found a pad of gorgeous decorative card that I’d forgotten I had – it is printed in different colours with flower and leaf designs, and each one has a little sparkle in it. I was very pleased that this did show up a bit on the photos – not much on the purple one, but certainly on the greenish one.

Each card was matted with some co-ordinated plain card before sticking down onto the wider patterned card, and then the whole thing was mounted on plain white card which formed the card base.

For matting this second card, I found a piece of teal coloured card that had been the cover of a brochure. There’s quite a lot of useable card in this piece. The background layer was created with some paper with a slight texture and an embossed leather finish.

The final card is matted onto dark red, which is the accent colour in the design. See the shimmer in the background layer.

I spent a long time experimenting with different papers and cards, different layers, and different orders until I was happy with the results.

I am going to leave most of the cards blank inside for now, with no sentiments. It will be an easy matter to stamp a sentiment inside each card as I use it – much quicker than making a card from scratch!

I made plain white envelopes for them all with my Envelope Punch Board. These cards are safely in my new card stash which now has four cards in it! Not a great deal to write home about as yet, but I’m working on that! While sorting through my paper stash I found a few bits and pieces that can be used to make cards – the results of some faulty cutting with Sheba, my Cougar cutting machine, which can be salvaged and parts used – I am now very glad I didn’t throw these bits away!

Watch this space for more cards in the Card Factory.

WOYWW 331

I have not had a good week healthwise, despite a reduction in my chemo dose. I was better last week, but this week I have been very exhausted again, sleeping a lot, and not able to do anything much at all.

With my hubby’s laser printer on the blink, my friend Lucy printed out some of my Florabunda drawings for me so that I could start experimenting with colour in different media, but first they had to be cut out. I managed to cut some of them out this morning before becoming too shaky and exhausted to do any more, but at least I’ve got something on my desk to share with my fellow deskers this week!!

It’s taking a bit longer than I expected, but once I finish, I’ll get colouring. The small squares on the right are cut from offcuts, and will be used to draw more alphabet letters.

Just over a week to go now until my final chemo, and then the normal period of recovery from that, after which I should start to feel considerably better. I have been told it will take time (maybe many months) to get back to my previous level of strength and energy (never very great) so I will have to be patient.

Have a great week everybody – full of inspiration and creativity. Happy WOYWW!

Florabunda Printouts

The other day, my hubby tried unsuccessfully to print out my pdfs of the Florabunda drawings I did recently, and my friend Lucy offered to print them for me – they have to be done on a laser printer whose ink will not run if you wet it. She dropped them off this afternoon and the results are absolutely great – I gave her two different sorts of card to experiment with, and the best results were definitely from the smooth card (Oce Top Colour Satinated printer card). The lines came out lovely and fine, unlike the somewhat smudgy dark lines on the rougher, more absorbent card (regular inkjet printer card). The Top Colour card is the one I like to use for Zentangle drawing as it has a lovely smooth surface that the pens flow over nicely, and it seems to take colour well, at least from the Inktense pencils – I am going to have to experiment with other media, which is one reason why I wanted several copies of each design. If this is successful, I shall ask Lucy to print out some more for me.

My hubby’s laser printer is not working very well and may be on the way out – he’s had it for quite a number of years now, and maybe the time has come to invest in one myself. He doesn’t use it much since he retired and I can always print out anything he needs done on a laser printer. Not that I am particularly keen to shell out the cash for another printer just now…

Anyway, here are examples of the sheets she did for me.

If you look carefully you can see some small black lines in the margins of each sheet. These are part of the grid templates I have created on my desktop publisher in various sizes for different purposes, and indicate where the card should be cut. The card with the larger motifs on it has four 2 1/2 inch squares down the right hand side, which I shall cut and do further alphabet letters on. The borders were just arranged as many as I could get onto an A4 sheet, without creating a grid template for them – they were just drawn on offcut strips and I’m not so fussy about them being an exact size, but for the other pieces it’s good to have an accurate measurement for matting and layering purposes when card making.

Then came the big surprise! Lucy persuaded me to look again at the stack of copies, and at the bottom were two sheets that she had foiled!! I was stunned at how absolutely gorgeous they were, and could scarcely believe that I had drawn these – with this treatment, they looked like professionally printed designs!! On the cutting machines forum recently we’d had a discussion about different methods of foiling, and Lucy, and several of the other members, have foiling machines that they use in conjunction with their laser printers – you need a laser printer because the toner will re-melt in the foiling machine and fuse the foil onto the card just where the black toner is, and nowhere else. The detail is astonishing. (Oh dear… not only do I now want a laser printer, but also a foiling machine!!!)

As usual, shiny and reflective surfaces are notoriously difficult to photograph, but here goes with my best effort. The top image on the right-hand sheet is foiled in purple but it isn’t catching the light.

I hope this gives an indication of what fabulous results you can get from foiling! Lucy said that she did the whole sheet of the letter B, laying strips of different coloured foil for each row, so that I could experiment with adding inks and other forms of colour – she thinks that the foil should stay put and not lift up if it gets wet. The foil should also act as a resist to any water-based media. It will be interesting to experiment. I shall probably leave the two larger ones as they are, and make cards from them.

Not having felt too well over the past few days, I have made no further progress with drawing and colouring.

My First Florabunda Drawings

The third of three posts for today.

After I won the lovely Florabunda book from Neil’s blog giveaway, I started experimenting. I cut some pieces of plain white card and also found some narrow offcut strips to make borders with, and got my Zentangle drawing pens out and started to have fun!

These are the little border pieces I did. They are 5 1/2 inches long.

With the book, Neil sent me a lovely little Zentangle card with my initial on it, so I decided to start making a set of alphabet letters in the Florabunda style. So far I’ve got to E. Each one measures 2 3/4 inches square.

A couple of circular designs.

In the book, I love Suzanne McNeill’s use of pods and gone-over flowers as well as all the pretty petals. Here’s my first take on this. They look a bit half-dead, with some of the leaves drooping and dropping off!

Some stylised leaves on a curve.

All these last ones are 4 3/4 inches square.

My plan is to draw a good collection of these Florabunda designs, and then scan and print them. I can then make up a collection of cards quite quickly, and colour them how I want, in a variety of ways, giving different interpretations to the same designs and seeing which I prefer. I am keen to try adding colours with my new Brusho paints in an uncontrolled way so that the detailed drawing sits on a suitably-coloured background, giving contrast between fine detail and random colour. The shapes can also be coloured with markers, watercolours, coloured pencils… As with the adult drawing pages, the possibilities are endless. These drawings also stand alone with no colour. So many different variations and so much possibility to have fun! For me at the moment one of the great advantages is that I can do them while relaxing on the recliner.