Who loves Paisley? Who loves Birdies? I love 'em both. Let's make some ...
I added some finishing touches with a bit of white paint to their little bellies and fancy hats.
Use them on cards, tag art, ATC's, scrapbooking, art journaling or make a flock for your favorite notebook.
Have a look at some of the paisley designs in my sketchbook and doodle away.
Happy Friday
Who loves Paisley? Who loves Birdies? I love 'em both. Let's make some ...
I added some finishing touches with a bit of white paint to their little bellies and fancy hats.
Use them on cards, tag art, ATC's, scrapbooking, art journaling or make a flock for your favorite notebook.
Have a look at some of the paisley designs in my sketchbook and doodle away.
Happy Friday
A slight cold - nothing too terrible but thank you for your get wells. A long walk yesterday, I went out for a quick walk but the sun felt so wonderful that I kept thinking "just one more block." I saw a robin and some crocuses bursting out of their shells.
Things: I'm participating in a panel on Sunday in connection with the Mt Airy Art Garage's Quilt Show (NW Philadelphia) and International Women's Day. The title of the panel is "Ain't I An Artist." See Soujourner Truth's "Ain't I A Woman" here. My discussion will be on the artistry of Boro cloth and will spotlight Jude Hill's modern day interpretation of that cloth.
It would be fun to have you there.
Sunday at 3 pm, at 11 West Mt. Airy Ave, Philadelphia ($10 at the door)
and some coloring in
Art Journal Meet Up yesterday. You should check to see if there are any in your area. There's a dyanmic, fun group of women is forming. I found this old drawing and just colored it in with Pitt Pens. So much fun. Just a little more to do on the mountains.
I tripped over this drawing from almost 6 years ago of my son' on his 17th Bday. Loose and loopy drawing; an unconcerned pen traveling over the paper catching this and that. Then some drawings for watercolor
and a bit of paint
We have a new baby in the family. Amelia Marie, 8.14 (wow). Happy-making.
enjoyed a bit of studio time today
cast is off, finger quite stiff and sore but am limbering it up. stiches come out next week.
pecan pie purchased for tomorrow. now tea and a wee rest. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. I am thankful for so many things including you. xo Diana
I'm thanking you here for all of your get well wishes in lieu of separate replies. I appreciate it. Very much.
It's taking me awhile to get back on my feet.
Last Thursday and Friday mornings I was in the studio again. Sewing and patching eco paper. Very slowly.
Spending some time on business stuff in the afternoons. My stomach is still upset from the antibiotic.
My hand just feels very weird and uncomfortable. I looked at some old journals and thought about my birdies and how nice they would all look wearing hats. Birds wearing hats makes me smile.
I got knocked down (as the song goes) but I'll get up again. Eventually. Happy Monday. xo - Diana
Another Taming the Critic post ...
I don't know about you but December is a busy time of year round these parts. There are last minute deadlines and much distraction in the Red & Green form. Journaling gets a bit neglected.
So here's an idea. Pull out your colored pens and your notebook or journal and leave them out (high up, if necessary) and doodle when you have a spare 10 minutes.
{By the way ... there are loads of books on doodling and Zentangling as it is all the rage. There is no right or wrong with doodling: just take your pen for a walk. Just watch any 9 year old.
We're way past the notion that your journal pages need to be beautiful and accomplished and Art, right? Ha. Anyway, here's a beautiful gift to give yourself: doodle and don't care. I had an interesting conversation with myself last night:
M(e): I want to stitch on felt.
C(ritic): You have too many other things to do.
M: I wanna make some felt ornaments
C: How about those 3 artworks you need to finish before the end of the year and the afghan you are making? How about THAT?!
M: You know what Mr. C? Just don't ask. I'm not interested.
J(the husband): What are you doing now?
M: making felt ornaments
J: Cool.
Have you had similar conversations with your critic? I'd love to hear them.
So yeah! ... make some felt ornaments or doodle or get out a bunch of stickers and stick 'em in your journal or paper scraps and make a bunch of tags in your journal. Keep it small, keep it do-able. Give yourself a gift. XO Diana
Spending a lot of time over the past week sitting in a comfy chair and lying in bed. ugh. I thank you for your emails and comments. They've cheered me up a lot! Still kind of out of it but I've been researching apps and softwares for my binding classes and found one!* But first ... over the past few months, I discovered a couple of apps that you might like. The FREE Paper app from FiftyThree.
Inside Paper, there is a collection of moleskine-style notebooks, a pen and 9 colors. Kinda chintzy on the colors. For $6.99 you can purchase the paintbrush, pencil, marker and spraypaint tools.
I bought myself a Bamboo stylus for about $15. I can't draw or write with my fingers! You can get a stylus at Target, Walmart, Best Buys, etc. I hear the foam tips are not worth buying. You want the rubber tip stylus.
I used the watercolor, marker, pencil and pen for these two sketches. The colors may be limited but you can layer them which is pretty cool.
I'm not the queen of apps, but I do like this one along with Wreck This App from Keri Smith. You can read about that one here on Keri's blog. Fun stuff. ut hope
*Back to Doceri. I'm really excited about this. It is an interactive white board which essentially makes drawings into animations for presentation. What this means to you and me is that I can make drawings of bookbindings, anotate and upload them and then you guys can see them. There are so many different learning styles. This gives me one more tool to teach a binding! YIPPITY! You can find out what kind of a learner you are here. I hope to have something up soon-ish for you to see how it works.
It was a great pleasure to attend a local class with CZT (Certified Zentangle Teacher) Katy Abbott recently. She is a top drawer teacher with tons of energy, enthusiasm and she brings creativity to the mix. Since my first tango with tangling was less than creative, this gave me a TON of pleasure.
Katy was able to describe the difference between "tangling" and doodling. Tangling is mindful; doodling is not. It is that simple. You can read all about the inventors of Zentangle, Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas over at Zentangle.com. There are tons of examples of tangles. Take a look at the newsletters, listed here and you'll find enough tutorials to keep you tangling for a long time. All for free.
The materials for Zentangling are really simple: pencil, pen and paper. You can be tangling within minutes after reading this post. The Tanglers-In-Chief recommend a square "tile" available on their website. They also recommend a Micron .01 pen. This is readily available. Not necessary but nice.
I made a long accordian book by slicing down a piece of 11" x 17" paper in half width-wise, yielding two 5.5" x 17" sheets. I folded in one short edge on each sheet, glued them together and commenced with folding up my accordian book. It is a great place to store explorations and practice. I folded up a black accordian book and am using a white pen. My favorite white pens are the Uniball Signa and Gelly Roll White from Sakura (both links from JetPens).
I hope you'll give this a try! It's slightly addictive ...
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