A New Tangle from Zentangle® "IX"

  Last week at this time, I was sitting in Providence, Rhode Island getting my certification as a CZT (Certified Zentangle® Teacher). A brand new tangle was introduced called IX, which is the Roman Numeral for 9, and we were the 9th group of teachers to get trained.  One of our trainers, Maria, said it was a gift to us, and she gave me permission to post it when I talked to her on the phone today, just in case anyone is curious. Some of the previously trained  CZTs have asked us in group 9 to share how it is done, so here is my step out. This is only the second time I have ever drawn IX or a step out of any kind, so it isn't an exemplar, but I think it is close enough to get the hang of it. I have two layers in each direction, but we did three at training. I believe we were told we could vary the number of layers and the number of auras each time. When we originally did it at training, we did more than one IX on our tiles and added on some extras. The bottom photo is my original zentangle®. These are not all shaded, but we were told that the shading could be done on the final diagonal red lines as well as where lines cross over one another in the final X shape.

 

  

Have I Mentioned That I Love My Job?

My body is coming down from my Art Unraveled High! I taught four classes, took two, and sold my creations at the shopping extravaganza. Add to that staying up way too late giggling with other artists, teachers, and friends and I. AM. EXHAUSTED!

The art journal that I made to be auctioned off for charity raised an surprising $175.00  in a bidding war, which just makes me so happy because all the proceeds go to a children's art organization. Thanks to all of you who bid and congratulations to Marcy for the last bid, making her the winner!

I sold a record amount of artwork on shopping day, so now I have to get cranking big time for the next show. This is when loving your job, which I do, comes in handy. I had to have a friend with a truck help me get everything for the week over there since it wouldn't all fit in my SUV, but I was happily able to get all the sewing machines, supplies, suitcases, and leftovers from the sale in my vehicle alone to get home, and I could see out of all the windows! I'll bet other drivers were happy for that.

You just never know how inspiring this sort of thing can be until you go and stay. People are just inspiring each other like crazy, making the coolest things, and swapping tales and art. Wow, did I ever come home with some good trades, including my art for other teaching artists' art. Great stuff!
Thanks to all my students who chose my classes, including locals and those who came from all over the United States, and even one who came all the way from Venezuela. You inspired me and I loved working with you, sharing ideas, and learning from you.

To Jane Davies who taught me some tips about making fabric paper that I never tried before when I was doing it, thanks so much.  A lot more of that is going to be made in my studio, for sure.  And to Leighanna Light who taught me how to make birds out of old tins and other odd metal parts, your class was wonderful. Jeane has already lay claim to one of the flock. I have a new appreciation for that muscle type of work,  and it makes me wish I could do them on the sewing machine instead. : )

I am now in the process of finalizing my proposals for next year which are due soon and crossing my fingers to be lucky enough to be selected again from amongst the usual hundreds of proposals that are sent in. Wish me luck!

In the meantime, I have several upcoming classes at Frenzy Stamper which are listed in the sidebar of my blog. I plan to be adding some other classes to at least two other local venues in the upcoming few months as well. Even though I don't exactly know how I got so lucky to have this "job," I am feeling very lucky!

Photos for the Flowered, Upscaled Quilt and Doily Book

 

Photos for  The 10 of Hearts ATC Swap Book

Photos for The Double Double

Out With The Old and In With The New

In preparation for Art Unraveled, it was time to doctor up some more business cards. I'm not one to do the same thing forever, so I decided on a new style. The ones on the way out, which if history repeats itself will be gone before AU is over, are the ones with the Dick and Jane fabric and the ones with the yellow machine stitching. Making their debut are the black ones. They just make sense in keeping with using up scraps in the style I call Scrappy Chic.

A Few Weeks In the Life of a Studio

All of the photos in this post show things I have finished in the last week or two. Some have been a work in progress for a while. There have been no days of volunteering at my daughter's studio for two weeks since school was ending and is now out for the summer, no part time job for the same reason, and the grandwonderfuls came to my house for Nona days, which gave me what would normally be driving time, as well as naptime to go, go, go. Son-wonderful-in law made that possible being their chauffer on his way in to his office!
When they were awake, there was also some time in the studio as well. One of the happiest moments of my life was in the last few days when I was at my journal table working on something, grandwonderful 2, age 3, was on the floor doing watercolors by herself, and grandwonderful 1, age 5, was over at the sewing table on the other side of the studio using the sewing machine. She has the same problem I do. She loves sewing on paper.  I had left the machine threaded, but she did all the rest of it herself. Amazing, but as I said, she is grandwonderful. It is interesting how this just sort of happened. It is just great to know that they love creating just like I do and can make themselves comfortable in the studio. G2 has made the place home before, but this was a first for G1 doing it as well and all of us at exactly the same time, well, fabulous.
Another recent day's star moments were when grandwonderful 2 was watercoloring, and I looked over just in time to see her paint water going onto the floor. She calmly looked up and said, "Nona, I've got this under control," before I could say a word.  She was also talking about her watercolors and instead of saying something like, "Do you like my picture?" she said, "On this piece of artwork, I _______ ." She had been experimenting on how different amounts of water affect the colors and blending colors. I can blame part of that on her art teacher auntie.
Well, anyway, you can be glad I am not posting a picture of my studio. It would be scary. I am taking a break from the task of putting nearly everything away and starting over to do this post. I can only go so far before I throw my hands up, grab the vaccumn and try to create surfaces that are not completely covered in stuff. The fun part of this is that I make stuff out of scraps. I have covered this addiction before. And the scraps get sorted and used as inspiration for what comes next. You can see lots of things in the pix below of scraps being recycled or upcycled or whatever the clever word is for that sort of thing now.

 

More zendoodles. I am not sure that is a word, but I am not sure these are completely zentangles either, so that is what I am calling them for now.

These are inchies for my inchie swap at Art Unraveled. I am hosting a swap so I will have enough different ones for a page in my Funky Book of Evidence and Memories class. The first set is grungeboard painted lime with garden mesh and beads. the second is quilted pattern tissue with a threaded button attached and a 10 stamped on it, since this is the 10th year of AU, and the third set is alcohol inks on acrylic inchies that have been adhered to graph paper and embellished with rhinestones. I think they look a little like stained glass. I think inchies look best in collections and I am hoping these colors will look great in the mix.

 

These are little notebooks, part of my what I will have for sale at the shopping extravaganza at Art Unraveled.  They are full of random papers like ledger paper, graph paper, pages from the Walls Notebook by Sherwood Forley, scrapbook papers, old school computer paper, primary school paper, Braille paper, etc. The covers are made from old cut up flash cards and scraps of paper sewn down, with a hand painted fabric binding on the edges. I had some fabric I used gelli plates and paint on from two different classes last year that I cut in strips to do the binding strips. These were not my favorite pieces of fabric whole, but I sure love them in strips. Another reason not to throw out art stuff. : )

These are hand painted canvas books with more crazy papers in them, also for sale at Art Unraveled. Each one has a little pen pocket inside.

And this is going to Art Unraveled as well, but it is not for sale. It is a journal more than 12 inches tall. Art Unraveled supports an organization that gets art to underprivileged kids. Some of the teaching artists are chosen to donate a hand made item that is in a silent auction for the 10 day event. This is what I will have up. I hope it will bring in some decent cash for the kiddos. It has some of my artwork in it, along with painted papers, crazy papers, transparencies sewn on some pages, tabs, clips, etc. and a few other surprises. It has big pockets in the front and back to carry things someone might need with their journal like items that they want to put in later, as well as small pockets in the front for scissors, pens, whatever fits. And the cover is made of scrap fabrics with scrap ribbon embellishments. Oh, big surprise. I have had this mostly done for a while. I just needed some time to figure out how to finish the front. I finally decided on circles like I used to do a while back. Long story. Today the answer came, and I jumped on it before I forgot.

 

Finally, these are little buntings (strings of flags) that I will be sewing down to the folders I make to house the little kits I make for each class I teach. The first two are made from scrap strips of papers I quilted on to a substrate and then cut in little triangles. If you click on the photo, you will be able to see all the stitching better since the photo will get larger. The biggest ones are about 2 inches long and narrower. The third set is made from an old map I cut into triangles and the last set was the perfect scrapbook paper for my heART quilt class. Each string is several yards long and held together by just one row of machine stitching. This makes them positional however I want to hang or sew them the second time whether it be straight, curvy, whatever. That is what is on the list next. I just gotta get the vaccumn to quit calling me first.

More Ten of Hearts hearts

Working away in the studio today. Here is part of what I got done, both  groups are from sets of hearts for the class at Art Unraveled where we will swap hearts and attach them to fabric pages, making a book called The Ten of Hearts. I have 4 sets done now, so I am done with this part of getting ready for this class. Some are backups, just in case they are needed last minute.
The top set is made out of gessoed canvas that I tried out some tangles on.  I quilted some fabric and sewed the canvas hearts down and then added a rhinestone heart. The rhinestones look better live.
The second set is pattern tissue that I stitched multiple layers of onto some sturdy paper. The base is a Hambly transparency sewed down to a piece of lettered canvas. After stitching all that together, I sewed on a little pair of Tibetan silver scissors. The scissors move around still since they are just sewn with a loop stitch.

Zentangles: I'm Hooked!

I have a confession. In the midst of everything else, I now have another love: tangling, making zentangles, hitting paper with pen, two of my very favorite things. Long story short: The first zentangles I made I wasn't very happy with. I put them away with the idea that I MIGHT get back to them. They kept calling, but I didn't answer. I just decided it was something I wasn't so great at. Then one day, they called louder, and I looked at them again. They looked better than I remembered, and I picked up my pen again, and then things got a little crazy. I started carrying them with me to work to do on breaks and at lunch. The kids saw them and asked about them. So did adults, and then at request, I found myself showing them how to get started. Making zentangles saved my life the day I was stuck in 7th grade and "plan A" fell through. They L.O.V.E.D. them, and I figured out a way to teach more kids. If you ever want peace and quiet and are surrounded by 30 people your height who can quickly make plans on their own that you might not approve of, if you have nothing structured for them to do, I highly recommend them. The mandala is one I was able to do while the 7th graders were doing the same. The colored ones and the first two frames below are ones I did with 5th graders.

Review item for anyone who doesn't already know;  I am the product of an artist/musician father and a librarian mother, so you know what happened next. I had to find a way to organize all my favorites, and last night, a plan all came together. First of all, I am now keeping a rolodex card for each design I know, which makes a handy way to find them all quicker than digging through other things. I had the cards started a few weeks ago, but they are rightfully organized now. In true librarian style, they are alphabetized by name with a reference on back to where I can look should I need a refresher later.  Then I put the big ones in a 7X10 book I bought with paper as close to true Zentangle paper as I could find in an appropriate size. I tabbed sections for frames, mandalas, and more standard zentangles. My mother would approve, I know.

I have plans for other ones floating in my head. Ones that don't have to be as kid friendly. Paper in my Zentangle journal and news pens await.

There is one more confession. While taking a few days during the week for myself this week, I booked a trip back east to become a Certified Zentangle Teacher. I thought the certification might come in handy should I ever decide to step outside of the kid zone to teach. I am almost giddy about it.

The 100+ Scarves Update, Finally

Someday I swear I am going to figure out how my brain works and how I prioritize. I have been really busy on a million things, but I think everyone else has as well and yet they post on their blogs. A number of people asked me about seeing the scarves, so I took a few photos. Here are some. I sold enough to pay for all the yarn, but I still have scarves for next season as well since the ice skaters didn't need them all.
The first photo is at home when I was sorting them all out by style and price. The rest is at the skating competition. There are scarves with traditional ends, some with different fancy crocheted fringes and some without since I didn't think the guys and non girlie girls would like that sort of fringe. I also made infinity scarves that are a continuous loop like the Style E one in the photo, in different lengths and widths. I also made some button up ones for people that just like one around their neck and not hanging out or bunched up in their coats. I was hoping to see what the most popular was, but I seemed to sell a pretty equal number of each. I guess that's a good thing.
Warning: this is going to make me sound like a grandma, but I am. I am now making dishcloths to wash dishes with, by popular demand. It started with my niece telling me about them and wanting more, then it was one of my daughters. I was told they work better than anything you can buy, and they do. 100% cotton and all that texture makes washing things off a breeze! I haven't counted, but the pile is growing and I have already given them away to so many people!
I am also busy at work making my item that will be a donation for the Art Unraveled raffle, the item that will be given away at a drawing during the shopping extravaganza, more inchies and more hearts for the 10 of hearts class.  They are all in the works. I work and let things simmer and then go back. Sometimes I wish I could start and finish before picking up a new project but I also think things turn out better when they simmer most of the time.