When You Lose Someone You Love

One of my favorite artist is Joanne Fink. Joanne is the author of many Zentangle books available through Amazon.

The first book I purchased from Joanne was Flowers which has inspired me to do my own creative drawing of my favorite subjects, flowers.

You can see the inspiration from Flowers specially in this drawing.

Here is a compilation of the 4 drawing I completed. I find that the time I spend creating these pieces to be very relaxing and it allows my mind to wonder.

If you aren't familiar with Kickstarter.com, it is a website that allows creative people such as artist, musicians, engineers, etc. a place to showcase their ideas and if enough people support that idea by funding it with a pledge as small as $1.00 and up. If a project is funded by pledges through Kickstarter each individual will receive finished versions of the project depending on the level they chose.  Please visit Kickstarter's FAQ for more information.

So what does Kickstarter have to do with Joanne Fink? Well, she has launched a project for her book When You Lose Someone You Love 

This photo has been posted with the permission of Joanne Fink

All of Joanne's work is heartfelt with many quotes in her beautiful calligraphy. Many of her books are meant to be colored or for the owner to complete the images with their own zentangle creations.

I encourage you to join me in supporting Joanne's project and hopefully receive your own copy of the completed book. The project is very close to being funded.

Copic Markers for Card Makers - Day 7

Today we learned how to work with difficult colors such as black and white. The reason these colors are difficult to use is because they are either under saturated or over saturated with color and difficult to give dimension to.

The first image we colored was a flower. I used red, which was the second example in the lesson. I didn't have the colors to create a white flower. Once I obtain them, I am going to give it a try and I will post them here. Because the two colors of red were so far apart on the color spectrum, I decided to blend them together on an acrylic block to get a happy medium.

The second image we colored was this cute little Robot Vampire. Isn't this just something that a child would want to be for Halloween? Sometimes it's too difficult to choose between two, so lets do both!  

This photo shows how we were able to use shades of black/gray to give more dimension to the image.  It also taught us how the use of different grays will look like completely different colors by using a warm gray next to a cool gray. 

Copic Markers for Card Makers - Day 6

In day 6 of Copic Markers for card makers we learned how to color critters. The two examples I have are dogs and foxes. 

While it's always acceptable to color a critter a natural color, I don't see why you wouldn't want to color a dog any color of the rainbow, so I did.  In the first two examples I used non-traditional colors, in this lesson we learned how to use the colorless blender to remove excess color from your project. You can see an example of that in the first turquoise dog where I used the colorless blender to make spots.  

On the last dog "Sox" I used the colorless blender to remove color from her left paw (right when we're looking at her) and I gave her snout a few freckles too. 

My ideas for Sox come from my very own dog Sox who is 15 years old, here is a photo of her at the right. I just realized, I gave her wrong paw the white sock. Ooops. I'm sure she will forgive me, specially if I give her a scratch or two behind her ear. :) 

Here are the foxes I colored, again I removed some color for highlights and color variances in their coats. They're adorable aren't they? 

Copic Markers for Card Makers - Day 5

First, I would like to apologize for not posting earlier. It's been one of those weeks and today is Friday and I have had an opportunity to catch up on my class videos and homework.


In today's video I learned about coloring people, their skin, hair and clothing.  The first image shows how I learned to combine various colors to achieve different skin tones and hair.

Here you can see the various skin tones and hair colors I tried.
















Then I moved onto practicing the hair, skin and clothing on the ballerina's to the left.  I'm very happy the way they turned out, specially since this is the first time I have tried.

Copic Markers for Card Makers - Day 4

Wow, already day 4 and one of my favorite subjects to color, flowers. 

 Today we learned about deciding on where the light will come from and tricks to figure it out.






Here is my practice sheet...


I started with the dark blue flower but wasn't really happy with how the colors blended together, or not together as the case may be.

I played around with some of the leaf colors and really liked them all. The yellow flowers blended super easy and I liked the combinations.

I also liked the purple and orange flower combo. These flowers reminded me of California Poppies, one of my favorite flowers.

I had a lot of fun with the flowers and look forward to more flower work.

Have a great weekend everyone and see you on Monday for day 5!

Copic Markers for Card Makers - Day 3

Wow! Day 3 already!  I am completely loving this class, specially because I am taking it at home, working around my own schedule AND I'm learning a lot!

Today we learned about working with gray and blending it into our colors to really extend the colors we already have. As I mentioned in my day 1 post, Copics are an investment, being able to stretch the colors really makes a difference.

Here is what I worked on today:

First the mugs, I really thought I would enjoy working on these, after all I love my coffee...

In the first green mug, I only used variants of green to do the blending. In the mug next to it I used two colors and added in a gray tone to give depth to the shadow on the left side. 

I didn't have the colors I wanted to use in the pink mugs and found the colors very difficult to blend. You can see on the right most mug that I really had to saturate the paper to get them to blend despite using gray. As a result the ink bled outside the lines of the picture.

I had better luck with the umbrellas. 

The both of these umbrellas I used the same colors, but added gray for shading on the right umbrella. I really like the difference it made in the final picture.

For this pastel umbrella, I started with one color and added a lighter shade of gray,  it worked well with the BG11 and B41, but the Y02 could have used a darker color.

My final umbrella, in my favorite color red I tried an experiment. I first colored all three panels in the same color R29. On the left panel I used N2 to shade, in the center panel I used R39 and the right I used N4. I think I like the right panel the best, what do you think?

Today my daughter is having surgery to repair a torn retina in her eye, so my post may have to wait until Friday. I hope you check back to see my progress.  In the mean time, please let me know what you think of my practice sheets and feel free to give some input. 

Thanks!

TC

Copic Markers for Card Makers - Day 2

On day 2 of class, we learned about blending colors that are from different color families, how to blend tip to tip (who knew that doing this would not ruin my Copic markers!?!?) We also learned how to combine colors using an acrylic block.

We practiced on bird images first:

I have to admit, I'm not a huge fan of birds and I think it reflects in my coloring, but the techniques I learned are invaluable.

I also colored some butterflies which I really enjoyed coloring.  Each of these I had a difficult time limiting myself to 3 colors, so I didn't.  I really liked the way these came out and I am looking forward to putting the techniques to use on cards.

Tomorrow, on Day 3 we will be working on shading using gray. I can't wait!  :)

Thanks for visiting and I hope you return tomorrow.

Copic Markers for Card Makers - Day 1

Yesterday I started taking an online class called: Copic Markers for Card Makers. I will give more information about the class below, but first I'd like to share about Copic Markers.

Copic Markers they are wonderfully markers with a paint tip on one end and a chisel tip on the opposite end of the barrel. They make blending colors and adding shadows pretty easy once you know some of the tricks.

Another benefit of Copic Markers is that the nibs and ink can be replaced/refilled, therefore once you have purchased the barrel, the markers are yours for life. I have to admit, they are an investment initially, but I have found that some of the scrapbook/craft stores in my area will refill the markers for you for $1.00 - $2.00 and they last a very long time.

On Monday I started The Copic Markers for Card Makers. After watching the videos, which are available for me to return to after purchasing the class at any time. I can return in 1 month or 2 years later and still have access to the videos.


 I started out filling in my Copic Marker color chart so I could see exactly which colors I have and what they look like on the paper I am using in class.

The next video I learned about Copics numbering system and what the colors mean, how they can be used together, etc.  I found this extremely helpful.

Next I viewed the videos about blending colors, color combinations that are known to work well together and was also encouraged to try my own combinations.

Here is my worksheet. I didn't have the exact colors being used in class, but that wasn't a problem, with the information provided to me on how to read the color numbering system, I was able to come up with my own combinations. I was very pleased with the out come of my worksheet.

Above my worksheet, you'll see strips of white paper that I tried my combinations out on before adding them to my worksheet.  This is a great way to make sure that the colors will work well together before making a mistake on your actual project.

Tomorrow I will post about day two of my class. 

Welcome!

I have been dabbling in paper crafts for years and put it all away for a while when I got interested in making jewelry, then into lampworking (melting rods of glass over a mixed fueled torch onto a stainless steel mandrel coated with bead release to make glass beads).  The photo at the left is a necklace I made. The colorful flowers and leaves are made of glass then they were wire wrapped onto copper foundation forms to make a bright statement necklace.

Recently my family has gone through some illnesses that require me to be able to drop everything and attend to them at a moments notice. Unfortunately glass work requires uninterrupted time to finish a bead before it can be placed into a glass kiln to be annealed.

With paper crafts I am able to leave immediately, then to return to my project when I have time. I have found that I am getting a lot of joy out of creating cards and some free-hand drawing. 

It's just mid-September and I am already done making my Christmas Cards for the year. Here is a peek of one of my prototype Christmas cards.

I still need to address them and write to friends and relatives who live far away, but I am confident I will have time to get them done in plenty of time.