A Bouquet of Swaps

  Before anything else.... Here's my entry for the ZIA Swap #58 - "Everlasting Eternity".

  If you'd like to learn to draw Eternity, it can be found here.

  And as promised, here are the Travelling Tangles Project tiles that I've recently completed...

  First off, this was a lovely tile from Nicki Lehmann. She did Paradox, and I followed. Colours were added using watercolours, then shading was done using coloured pencils.

  This was a renaissance tile from Beth Bentz. I actually made a time-lapse video of this tile. You can watch the video here.

  Last but not least, this is a tile from Kimmy. She started off with Ixorus and Purk, so I thought to complete the tile using only official Zentangle patterns. I re-outlined her Purk using a Uni-Ball Signo Broad white to make it more opaque... Then added Hollibaugh, Betweed, Cadent, Meer, and Printemps. A few Cabbits might have snuck their way into the tile, too. ;)

  Shading outside of the gemstone was done using a blue coloured pencil to make the gem seem like it was glowing... While the rest of the shading on the tangles was done using a 2B pencil.

  Thanks for dropping by. :) I hope I've inspired you with my art, and I hope to see you again soon.

  Until next time, keep tangling!

being brave

  Let's start this blog post off with a Travelling Tangles Project tile from Åsa Vading. She used Reticula RA-I and Fragment T5, from the Zentangle Primer 1 book.

  I added Ando and a variation of Flukes. Shading was done with Polychromos coloured pencils and a bit of graphite pencil.

  I teach weekly classes at Toa Payoh Central Community Club. Today will be the second class of this month. Here's what we created last week!

  We've also had many classes at the 7F5R studio... Here are some of my favourites...

  Embedded Letters! This student spoke Mandarin, so I chose to use Chinese characters on our large tiles instead of a single letter.

  During the class, we also got onto the topic of what it means to be brave. I told her that a lot of people think that bravery means being fearless... When, in fact, being brave means being scared but still going forth and doing the thing that scares you. There's also this other saying that goes,

"If your dreams don't scare you, then they're not big enough."

  What's something that scared you, but you still did anyways?


  Having the studio has also given me the freedom to teach classes in full colours. Here's a peacock class that we did..

  The 7F5R studio is located at 33A Hong Kong Street. It is very close to Clarke Quay and Chinatown MRT. You can also see a list of all the classes we are teaching in the studio via this link.

  Lastly, I wanted to show you this work in progress that I have... The background was created by Debbie and I've slowly been adding tangles to it as the days go by. She has been in Scotland for two weeks already, and I do miss her... Thankfully, she will be back real soon. :)

  And that's all I have for you this week. I hope to see you again soon. Until then, keep tangling!

Less talk-y, more tangle-y

  Even though my daughter, Charlotte, is super cute... I'm sure most of you are here for the Zentangle art. So here's what I've been up to in terms of artsy things....

  Some class mosaics to start with. From January....

  And from this month's classes...

  I've also been slowly going through my stash of Travelling Tangles tiles.

  Here's one from a Back to Basics swap. The start was created by Åsa Vading.

And here's how I completed it:

  This one was a Zendala with a faux watercolour background and a butterfly stencil-ed outline on it, from Debbie New.... I thought about cutting out the butterfly entirely, but settled on just popping out its wings.

  Shading was added using Polychromos coloured pencils. And tada!

  A few more that I did with Debbie....

  This one was from last year. The theme was "Embedded Letters". The start was by Jennifer Moor.

  Took me a good long while to find a way to tie the tangles with the letter. But I loved how it turned out.

  This one was from Lin Laidler. Very relaxing to complete it. Reminded me of a bamboo forest.

   And this last one was from Pat Floerke.

  I liked the idea of making it into a colour wheel, but I'm not sure whether the idea worked out visually...

  I will be teaching a workshop at Jurong Town Hall tomorrow. A bunch of Certified Zentangle Teachers and I created 300 cards, each with a unique design. Here's one:

  And if you'd like to see the rest, you can visit this link.

  Like the card above says, thank you for taking time out of your day to take a peek at the creative things I've made. I hope you have a splendid weekend.

Ratoon and a gem

  So how did your Christmas/Hanukkah/holiday season go?

  We went to four different parties; three of which, Charlotte attended, too. She loved the attention, the presents, the food... Mostly the food. Cause she just started on solids, and it's been great for her.

  Here's the happy bub.

  On the creative front, I've been having lots of fun experimenting with new materials and ideas. Debbie New gifted me some pastel papers that I cut down to a variety of sizes. And since the papers are quite dark, I've taken to using my Gansai Tambi gold paints on them.

  Here's the white gold on a dark brown paper, that I then tangled on:

  And here's the yellow gold on a lighter grey paper, with my tangle "Naida" on it:

  Debbie New also lent me her set of gem and pearl colours... I had this idea in my head where I could create blobs and then colour them in, and have them look like stained glass. The results weren't quite what I had in mind... But here it is:

  In that same watercolour sketchbook, I created this beauty:

Lovely colours, if I do say so myself. ;)

  In mid-December, I found out that Pat Floerke, a close Zentangle friend of mine, had passed away from a tragic accident. We were asked to create tiles to send to her family. This was my contribution...

  I chose a Zendala tile because the first tile that Pat sent to me on Travelling Tangles Project was a Zendala. I splashed some watercolour on it, and added some gold paint...

  Then tangled, shaded it, and added some white highlights.

  Pat will be fondly remembered and dearly missed.

  With Travelling Tangles, I also completed this tile from Kim-Geck Lim. Debbie New had taught a Whatz-Itz class, so I applied what I learnt to that tile.

  Love the red accents.

  Zentangle HQ also recently released a new tangle to Certified Zentangle Teachers. They've called it "Ratoon". Here's a tile I did featuring it with a gemstone.

  Thanks for popping by to take a look at what I've been up to the past few weeks. Perhaps I'll see you again soon. :)

What I've been up to lately....

  This is going to be a long post with lots of pictures, and honestly... this kind of blog posts are my favourite. hehe

  My Certified Zentangle Teacher friend, Debbie New, taught a closed-door class on Whatz-Itz. It's a technique that she came up with that teaches students how to layer tangles in an easy-to-understand manner. The participants who attended this class were all either CZTs, or were going to get certified next year. (My mum attended, too. Hi, mum!) The class mosaic was amazing. Mine is the one with the most amount of tangles on it, cause I like to draw so big. hahaha. My mum's one is the one with the curvy Diva Dance.

  And then I got home and completed my tile... Very pleased with how it turned out.

  Debbie also got me to join a Whatsapp group hosted by Alicia Rey, a CZT based in Spain. She hosts a weekly challenge called "retomindandtangle", and I've taken part in it for the past few weeks...

  Here's #136, which also is a Travelling Tangles tile with Debbie New. She started the Cabbit and Flux, plus the Borbz. I did the rest plus the shading. Still not sure whether I like this tile. Sometimes I think it’s great, other times I think it’s meh.... Ever had a tile like that? I like that I used blue for some of the shading, though. Gives it a nice contrast against all that pink.

  This was for challenge #138. The string was the challenge. The tile's colours were done by Debbie and I wanted them to shine through, so that’s why I stuck with something simple. Just Flux.

  Debbie asked why I always use Flux... I think it’s my “comfort tangle”... The tangle I go to when I want to draw something but don’t want to think too much. Do you have a comfort tangle?

  And then this was this week's challenge... #139... Featuring the tangle "Palrevo". I had this idea pop into my head about cutting out the areas that would have been filled in, and using my surroundings as the "colour" for those areas... Here's how that idea turned out:

  Quite cool, if I say so myself.

  And then I did some tiles just for fun. A tiny Bijou with pretty colours... With Flux drawn in a slightly different way...

  And a tile I did to test this black paper, and try out Debbie's Whatz-Itz method again, I added the gold on a whim. I just wanted to do one aura, but then it was so fun that I kept going until I filled the entire tile. The gold is Kuretake's Gansai Tambi gold paints.

  Every once in a while, I draw something realistic just to benchmark how much my art has improved. I find it interesting that creating Zentangle art has an effect on my general art skills.... Because you wouldn't think doing abstract, non-representational art would make your realistic skills improve... but it does!

  Here's a study of Gustav Klimt's "Judith II (Salome)". I know it's not an exact replica, but that wasn't the point of this exercise... I wanted to capture the energy in the piece. I used a ballpoint pen to do the base drawing (no erasers! no try-agains!) and then used Caran D'ache's Neocolor II for the colours. I then burnished the colours using a large tortillon so that the white of the paper wouldn't show through so much.

  It was really fun to do. I might do it again soon. :)

  Then last week, I had brunch with two of Alex's cousin- Isabelle and Rafael. They're my daughter's godparents, and are lovely people all around. We ate at Wild Blooms. The food was great. Very hipster cafe. Here's a pretty selfie I took while there... The windows were tinted blue and pink, which made for very interesting shadows.

  And then after that, Rafael went off to donate blood (he's a saint). While Isabelle and I went back to my place to have an Introduction to Zentangle class. Here's what she and I created:

  So that's been my past two weeks... Next week is going to be a little more quiet for me, before we actually enter Christmas week. I hope you're having a wonderful start to your weekend, and maybe you'll create something lovely this week.