Friday, April 17, 2015

Strange Shapes...

This week's challenge to use odd traced shapes as a string was, well, challenging!  I had a few trials and it turned out that I liked the first and last ones the best. I did have a tough time finding things that were more interesting than circles to trace, but then circles can be pretty nice too!

This string was two tracings of a star shaped pin/button and one of a lip balm tin. The tangles are Phicops and Pepper with a pattern I am calling "Cobbles" in the background. For more on that check out the post from last week where I also used it.


The last one was tacings of a few leftover and recently empty Easter eggs. This one was fun! The piece ended up being rotated upside down, but I like the fact that the original string is both visible in some spots and not really evident in others. I also like the negative space in this one.



Must run, have a great weekend!

Sunday, April 12, 2015

A late Fanz entry

Well, I was on vacation all week with the family so I had sporadic hotel wifi access and managed to peek at the Diva UMT Challenge . After walking ALL day and seeing every possible sight about the only thing you can do in the evening is sit with your feet up and draw! So here are my poor attempts to use Fanz. I like some of the other versions I have seen perusing the entries better - but, these are what got put down on the paper...

I like the pattern in the upper half of this tile - it is a vacation inspired one done in a little different way. The last time we were in DC I saw the cobble stone streets and walkways, especially near the art museum and came up with a pattern inspired by that. This trip it came back to mind and I tried it out again. I like it, I think it should be called Cobbles if there isn't already one like it. I have done it up in its original conformation in the dark tile below and this is a link to the first time I posted it

This is the second tile with Fanz. It has been forever since I used Gloven and the river pattern was brought to mind by looking at old maps from colonial times where the rivers are surrounded by contours like the graduated auras. I also used a blending stump for this shading because it was pretty rough since I was doing it in the car... blend it a little and you can't tell!


 This one was done at the end of last week when I still had Flux on my mind.



Finally, this one came about from seeing all the spring blooming flowers in DC (yes the Cherry Blossoms as well as others) and seeing those cobble stones again. I really like this darker paper and the look of the white highlights it allows. So what do you think, is that Cobbles pattern like anything you have seen before? Should I step-it-out? 

Till next week, have a great one!

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

An unheard of mid-week post...

Whoa!! Wait, what? Its Wednesday and I am already posting a challenge?? Crazy!

Really I just love Flux and have used it in many forms over the years. I have a little extra step that I do when I do it Maria-style that helps me to keep it evenly spaced, but otherwise its pretty much the same. I tried thickening the lines in places in the first piece to see what that was like and ended up not really liking the effect. I haven't given up on it yet, but  this certainly isn't the answer. Anyway, here they are.