Following the Inspiration: Part 5

Part 5: Trying it on Fabric and in Tiles

At this point I think that I want to see what happens if I combine beading and the black and white pen and ink look of zentangles.  If I go this direction though I don’t think I am going to want to bead through paper the whole time.  If I use acrylic matte medium on paper can I prep fabric to accept the pen without having to worry about bleeding and will the surface of the fabric work with the fine detail work that I would want to include?  The only way to find out was to try it.

 I used a few coats of acrylic matte medium on a scrap of leftover lining fabric from the curtains that I am currently sewing for our new house.  The medium has the advantage of keeping the fabric from fraying so I thought I would also try out the idea of making a piece that has a larger image and then cut it apart and work on the tiles individually.  This would allow me to see if I liked how this worked and looked when I put it back together.

I really enjoy working representationally more that abstractly so what did I want to use as an image?  Since Transition has been a big factor in my life these last 2+ years I decided to go with a dragonfly and since they are connected to both air and water I gave him some water and some cattails.  I also gave him some flying loop to loops that join the whole piece and further divine the piece up.  Once the pencil lines were done I cut the piece up.

I chose five inch squares for this project which pushed the size of the piece up to a total of 15 x 20 when it is together and some of my images and loops go off the border a bit so it is a little larger.

Working on the fabric was easier than I thought it might be.  A finer weave would probably be even better but I only get hung up on the weave occasionally.  I have enjoyed working on the fabric and can see where some of the tangles would look cool with some beads and others could be completely beaded.

Now I just need to come up with how I want to finish the piece.

Since we have been so busy with the house and decorating and I am behind with my posts so if you wish to see all of the photos for all of the inspirations, trials, and the start of my BJP for 2010 you can go to my Web Gallery.  You can also see photos for the building and decorating of our house.  If you want to read about any of that you can visit my main blog.

Following the Inspiration: Part 4

Part 4: Quotes, going larger

I have always enjoyed quotes and have occasionally used them in pieces of art or inspiration for a piece of art. In Sandy Steen Bartholomew’s article in Cloth, Paper, Scissors she used words and journalling with her zentangles and I thought that could be the perfect next step to explore where I could take my doodles.  At this point I also wanted to go larger.  The small size was easy to finish and fun to do but would I enjoy taking it larger?  If I was going to include quotes then I would want a larger format to explore this more.

So where do I start?  Which quote do I choose?  Since I am a bit of a Christmas music fan ( I have purchased 11 new Christmas CDs this year) and I have been listening to Christmas music on and off since July I had recently listened to a song on Windham Hill’s “Winter Solstice On Ice” which has the Jim Brickman's song “Your Love.”  I included the lyrics to the song in my post for Wayne and my anniversary.

I started out with making the strings for the piece which I placed on a 11” x 14” sheet of paper.  I used the lyrics to inspire how the strings would look.  Since it was a love song I included a heart and some stylized wings for the “You could give me wings to fly.”  After the strings were finished I added the lyrics writing them so that they followed the lines of the strings.  I wasn’t worried about the whole thing being written in order or upside right.  I did keep the individual verses together.  I contained the lyrics with lines on either side of them so that I would not put the tangles too close so that you couldn’t read the lyrics.

Then it was time to play.  Many of the tangles are just regular tangles that I had found through Sandy’s article, blog and the Zentangle website; I also let the lyrics inspire some of the tangles including feathers, flowers, rings, hearts, the sun, moon and stars.  In this piece some of the tangles are my own ideas and others are variations of the ones on the various sites.  You can find inspiration for new tangles in the patterns that are all around you in everyday life; they are repetitive patterns.

After the “Your Love” piece I wanted to try using some quotes about creativity and so I chose several that I find inspiring.

“The creative is the place where no one else has ever been.  You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition.” ~Alan Alda

“Everyone has talent.  What is rare is the courage to follow talent to the dark places it leads” ~Erica Jong

“To create one’s world in any of the arts takes courage” ~Georgia O’Keefe

More strings and words and time to play again with tangles.  I was working on this one on the couch next to Wayne and he came up with the ideas for a couple of new tangles for me.  He has since come up with a few more tangle ideas for me which is kind of fun.

Although I do not like this piece as much as my previous piece I still learned a lot and tried new things and I don’t dislike it I just don’t think it is quite as strong a piece.

The next piece was also 11 x 14 but no quotes this time.  I wanted to see what happened if I took some stylized images and combined them adding strings to join the images and further divide the piece.  With Christmas approaching I thought I would try using a theme. I also wanted to see what happened if I added some selective color to the piece.  I made a circle to represent a wreath and a Christmas tree with a star on top.  Some of the tangles here were representative of the season like Christmas lights and poinsettias and other were just regular tangles.   I really liked how this piece turned out.  It has a graphic feel to it.

Following the Inspiration: Part 3

Part 3: Playing with Details

It would appear that I am not the only BJPer who has discovered Zentangles and is considering using them for the 2010 BJP.  A shout out to Robbie who has been experimenting with zentangles as well and has already combined them with her quilting,  very cool.

My first couple of Zentangles were just small pieces of paper with simple strings.  Zentangles are easy to do.  You start with a piece of paper, the website suggests a quality paper that they sell but to start I used what I had on hand that was heavy enough to not bleed with the pen work going on it.  To start all you have to do is put small dots in pencil about 1/2 inch in from the corners and then join them with pencil lines (they don’t have to be remotely straight. Yeah!)  After that you draw in what are called strings; these are just lines to divide the area up.  (imagine dropping a string onto the paper and drawing those lines onto the paper with pencil).

Now you just grab a fine permanent pen and start making tangles.  These are mostly repetitive patterns that end up looking fairly complicated but usually consist of repetitive parts.  You can find several tangles on the zentangle.com website in their newsletters and in their starter kit which includes instructions for quite a few tangles and all the supplies to get you started.  Sandy Steen Bartholomew has some on her blog and there are also ones that you can find elsewhere online including YouTube.

Here are a few tangles for any one who wants to try them.

This tangle is actually pretty fun to make and looks harder than it is.  Start with a zig-zag line near one side or bottom of your area. Add additional zig-zags to connect to these.  The additional zig-zags can be completely free of the previous ones, or like these connected on the down strokes.   One of the nice thing about connecting them is that it is quicker and gives it a more organic look.  I like mine to curve a bit to give them more movement.

Originally inspired by a leaf this tangle is very versatile; with some variations it could look more like buildings or parts of a bridge or....   Start with a dashed line (sort of looks like the lines in the middle of the street) and then add more lines that radiate out from this center,  these can be very organic or very structural, thin or thick, or whatever you can think of to do with them.

Inspired by peacock tails this tangle starts off with lines of connected "P" shapes.  Fill up your space with roughly parallel lines of these "P"s.   Fill in each loop of your "P"s with a smaller teardrop shape.  This can be colored in if you like.  add radiating lines out from each line (sort of like the veins of a leaf.)

This pattern has been around for a very long time and can be found on tiles and other media from years ago in part 6 I will mention where I found this pattern and where you can find other patterns to inspire you.  You start out with horizontal lines in twos and then repeat with vertical lines.  Color in the boxes at the intersections and then make elongated teardrops around the center point of each of your squares.

Following the Inspiration: Part 2

Part 2: A New Inspiration

Whenever I get a new issue of a magazine I give it a once through and then read the articles as I have time for them. I seldom read any of the articles the first time though. When the November/December issue of Cloth, Paper, Scissors ( this is one of my favorite magazines) came I started to do this as well but got stopped in my tracks on page 80 with the article “Add Pattern to Journals with Zentangles and Transfers” by Sandy Steen Bartholomew.
I have always been a detail person and I love to doodle and this was doodle art. I read the article and then reread it later that night and found some paper, a pencil and pen and got started. Hey I can doodle with the best of them. I thought hey this is great fun, maybe I should find out more so I went to Sandy’s blog and read some there and then went to the Zentangle website and read their newsletters where I found more tangles to use and saw many more ideas on how others had used the techniques and how it had inspired artists to push it in new directions. The original idea is abstract and all in black and white with some shading but people where pushing it into including color and some representational images.
Since I am really enjoying the process which is really relaxing and fun I think I will see where I can take this. Could I use this and combine it with beads? Some of the images remind me of patterns in embroidery (with or without beads).

Following the Inspiration: Part 1

Part 1: Introduction and Unformed Ideas

Have you ever wandered how other people come up with ideas for projects? Wanted to creep into someone’s head and watch how one little bit of inspiration morphed and joined with other ideas to eventually become a piece of artwork? I have always found the creative process fascinating and know that for every artist how they follow this path is different. I have decided to try to share this process for my 2010 Bead Journal Project with those of you who read my blog.

I must admit that I have never been one of those people who suffer from artistic blocks. I usually have more ideas than I know what to do with and since I do a variety of types of creating I find they feed into each other or that I can switch the media I am working in to refresh my creative energy.
I think that a good start will be to look back at what my last two years ideas were. For the first year (2007-8) I chose to combine my photography with beading using at least one photo per piece that was 4” x 6” or larger. That year I explored many techniques that were new to me and seeing what happened when combining photos with beads and stitching. For this past year’s (2008-9) BJP I got more ambitious and although the overall piece isn’t finished yet the individual monthly blocks are. I chose to do a self portrait symbolically using mixed media and bead embroidery. This time I included collaging, painting, thread and bead embroidery and have tried many more new techniques.
Looking back at the two years I have found out much more about myself and have discovered that I really enjoy mixing somewhat disparate techniques and balancing them to make a piece that is uniquely my own. I have enjoyed trying new things and finding the deeper meaning in what I have done.

As I registered for the new (2010) year of the Bead Journal Project I started to consider what I wanted to set as goals and parameters for my next 12 blocks. I knew since we were getting ready to close on our new house and that I would have moving, painting, helping lay hardwood flooring, and have many other projects to accomplish in the next year that I could not take on something that was too big or time consuming. I had tried 8” x 10” individual blocks and 4” x 6” blocks on a larger format. I figured that I would not want to go much bigger that 4 x 6 blocks. So what would happen if I went square instead of rectangular for the individual blocks? Maybe joined blocks or tiles so that the individual blocks were part of a larger whole piece? Robin Atkins included a post about a bead quilt that individual beaders were each given a block of that had lines that were part of the whole picture and when the individual blocks were put back together they formed an over all picture even if the beaders used different colors, images, etc. MMMMMMMM.....

Crystals and a Special Offer

Recently I ordered some Swarovski crystals from Artbeads.com so that I could play with some new stuff and to try out some of the crystal that my LBS doesn't happen to carry. I made a small order and wanted to choose things that I could relatively quickly turn into finished pieces with the crystal and supplies I already have.

Artbeads.com has a pretty impressive collection of Swarovski Elements and keeping the order reasonable was pretty challenging since I wanted some of everything. One of the nice things is that they have free shipping on all orders in the USA or $1 to Canada. (More money to spend on crystals.)

The top photo is my order all wrapped up in purple tissue paper which I think I will have to use in a collage once my studio is up and running. The photo below is all of my goodies laid out. What did I order? 100 each of the 3 mm and 4 mm Crystal Heliotrope bi-cones, 12 mm rivolis in Crystal Copper and Crystal Vitrail Light, 14 mm rivolis in Amethyst, 10 mm rivoli buttons inCrystal Meridian Blue, 2 of the brand new Fish Pendants in Crystal Golden Shadow and 2 of the smaller 16 x 26 mm leaf pendants in Topaz.
With my order I got a Share the Savings Card that I would like to share with anyone who would be interested in checking out Artbeads.com for themselves. Although I just purchased crystal this time they have lots of other goodies. With the code I am including you can get 10% off your order through the end of the year. The code is SCF10P-ARTBEADS-0424. Now to figure out what I want to get next? Maybe some seed beads for next years Bead Journal Project which starts in January? MMMM.........

Go to my Artistic Kreations and Passions blog in a few days to see what I have done with all of these yummy crystals.

12 Months Finished

Although it has taken me a while to put this photo up I have had all of the the 12 blocks for the year done for a while. I won't be able to find the time to work on the background layers until sometime next year. I am still planning on joining the new years BJP that starts in January but will try to keep it to a more manageable size so that I don't get behind since I have this one that still has many hours of stitching left to go. Registration is still open for the 2010 BJP for anyone interested. I am really glad that I chose this and am still really excited about where it is going and how it has pushed me to try new things and grow artistically.

For those who have been keeping track you can check out how the house is going on my web gallery and read more about it on my Artistic Kreations and Passions blog. I am knee deep in fabric working on getting the curtains for the new house started. I doubt I will have all of the curtains (18 panels) and roman shades (6) that I am planning in the first wave. That will cover most of the windows I am going to want done in the first few months.