All of Derwent’s White Pencils

  Debbie often pulls out bits and bobs from her cupboard at the studio… Little trinkets… Inks.. Pens… Coloured markers… It keeps things interesting and keeps the ideas flowing for us at the studio.

  A while back, she took out these wooden cabochons that we then glued to blank tiles. I tried to make mine into a cartouches.

  And here’s a postcard-sized tile that I did just for fun. Gemstones are a great way to jazz up your art.

  A gemstone also sneaked into one of the tiles I did during Tea & Tangle session. Debbie was very ambitious- we had three “tangle of the day”. They were “Trinity”, “Ratoon”, and “Drawings”. Here are the tiles I created. (The tinting of the tiles was done in advance.)

  We've been adding small canvases to the studio recently. Debbie painted some of them, and we found an accidental art on her plastic palette after. 

Pretty!

  Inspired by Debbie’s post on which white shading tool is best for black paper, I decided to make my own discoveries on which Derwent pencil was best for black paper.

  I had six contenders…. The Tinted Charcoal, Coloursoft coloured pencil, Graphitint, Inktense, Lightfast coloured pencil, and Pastel pencil. Of the six options, the Graphitint and Inktense are water-soluble.

  I tested them without smudging, with smudging, and with water added (when applicable).

This was a black card from a scrapbook that Debbie bought from Daiso.

  The results were that the Pastel pencil produced the brightest white, but it also created the most amount of fallout. The Lightfast coloured pencil laid down really smoothly- kind of like butter. I like the Inktense when wet, but it’s difficult to control the consistency of coverage once you add water…

  The Graphitint is lovely, without creating nearly as much dust as the Pastel pencil. So it has become my tool to use for black tiles.

  Debbie gave me tiles from Alicia G. Rey, Zen Pig, and Strathmore to try, too. My tests on those tiles produced similar results to the one on the Daiso card.

Alicia G.Rey's tile.

Zen Pig

Strathmore

If you live in Singapore (or are visiting) you can buy Derwent products from Art Friend.

It’s fun playing around with new materials and figuring out what works best for you. What new and interesting art materials have you played with recently? Let me know in the comments.

Peacocks, and owls, and cats... oh my!

  It’s been a busy week. There were days when I felt overwhelmed with how much work there was to get done, but Debbie has taught me how to prioritise and do what’s most important first. My planner has been my best friend. Otherwise, I don’t know how I’d remember everything there is to be done.

  It’s a learning process. And in between, I find the time to recharge with art. Most of the past week has been spent preparing for our June classes. Here are some sneak peaks for what’s to come.

  I’m not sure how to explain this new “Rotating Riddles” class but you’ll get to see how fun it is by watching this nifty little video of how the tile looks like as each side is rotated.

Available Sessions – Pick one:

Saturday, 8 June 2019, 1:30pm to 3:30pm

Saturday, 22 June 2019, 1:30pm to 3:30pm

Price: $65

  The beginnings of my "Blissful Butterfly Techniques" class.

  Let your creativity soar with this enchanting, advanced tangle techniques class. Building up from a larger tile, you will experiment with tints and colours and proceed to create an enchanting layer of tangles, before finally finishing off with a brand new technique from our Certified Zentangle Teachers. A magical class that is suitable for both adults, and kids aged 7 and above.

Available Sessions - Pick one:

• Sunday, 9 June 2019, 1:30pm to 3:30pm
• Saturday, 15 June 2019, 10:30am to 12:30pm
• Sunday, 23 June 2019, 1:30pm to 3:30pm
• Saturday, 29 June 2019, 11:00am to 1:00pm

Price: $65

  I won't be starting the new term of my weekly classes at Toa Payoh Central Community Club this week because it is a public holiday (Hari Raya). Classes will only resume next week. 

  May was a great month. So many good vibes, and such creativity. Here's what my students created.

  I especially love this mosaic. My tile is the one in the middle.

  Perhaps you'd like to join me for next month's classes. We'll be creating a peacock, an owl, and some fishes!

  Last week, I also taught a workshop at Fuji Xerox Towers. A one-hour lunch workshop…. So quick that I blinked and we had already put our tiles together for the class mosaic. (Alright. Maybe it didn’t finish that quickly… But it sure felt like it.)

  At the end of the workshop, I was making small talk with the organisers of the event... One of them pointed out that I was carrying a Jujube bag, which is technically a diaper bag, but it's hardy and I love the print of my bag (it looks so tangle-y) so I carry it everywhere... I told her that I have an eleven month old baby and she said "Oh! You don't look it." hehe

  I've only lost half of my pregnancy weight but I feel good, and I think that's what's most important. Slow and steady we will go. Otherwise, I have no complaints. Motherhood has been treating me well. I'm still learning to balance all of my responsibilities... Being a daughter, a wife, a mother, a teacher, a business partner/owner.... Such is life, though. We all will adjust accordingly, eventually.

  The little bubbly is now 12.7kg (27.9lbs). Still smiley as ever.

This is her favourite monster.

Coconut tree

Before haircut...

After haircut!

  7F5R is selling collar charms to help support Project LUNI. Project LUNI helps street cats in Singapore with TNR (trap-neuter-return), feeding, fostering, socialising, and rehoming of kittens.

  We have brought in a range of stainless steel collar charms for your pets. The charms come in ten beautiful colours. So there’s a perfect colour for even the pickiest pet. With each purchase, a portion of the proceeds will be donated to Project LUNI, in support of their work.

  Here are pictures sent to us from a customer. This is Yoshi...

... and this is Ginko.

  If you'd like to support the cause, click here to buy some of our collar charms.


  We also held our first class in our new studio. It also happened to be our first Airbnb experience. Our student, Luiza, flew in from Brazil. Here’s what she and I created during her Zentangle 101 class.

  After the class, she went back to her hotel and did a few more tiles. She really took to tangling like a duck takes to water.

  Here's to the first of many more classes to come. :)

mother's day gems

  Hello lovelies~ How has your week been? Half of my household is down with the flu right now. My husband and I are still going strong, thankfully. I've planned for us to go on a date to a board games cafe today. :) Very excited for that.

  Here's what I did for this week's Zentangle challenges. Joey wanted us to use the tangle, "Friendship". The Diva wanted us to use auras in our tiles. In the top tile, I used Friendship as a border tangle and added Featherfall. With the bottom tile, I echoed the gemstones of Friendship, and used Tripoli and Diva Dance Waltz.

I really like finding ways to join tiles together in a sketchbook.

  For Mother's Day, I created some paper flowers, inspired by the lovely li.la.o on Instagram. It was great fun, and I might just do a video tutorial on the project some time in the future.

  Even though I'm currently seven months pregnant, it didn't feel very Mother's Day-y for me... I'm guessing perhaps it'd feel more real next year. I did spend a lovely day with my mum. We went out shopping and for tea.

Done with Peerless watercolours.

  If you haven't seen it already, I posted a flip-through video of my Givetangle/Gratitangle 2017 sketchbook...

  I'm working on my spiral-bound Fabriano sketchbook. It contains drawings done using ballpoint pen or Neocolor. Here's one page I completed recently. It is a study done of a painting I found in an instructional book. I really like the colours. Looking at it on screen, I would darken the darks, though.

Neocolor II, used without water.

  And that is all I have for you this week. Thanks for stopping by.

Draw-wings

  Here's my sketchbook page for this week's Zentangle challenge. The Diva wanted us to create a tile to celebrate Earth Day, and Joey wanted us to use the tangle "Spoken". I tried to make my page colourful and resembling a sunset.

  Here's a page that I did just for fun. Featuring Fant-ik, Ilac, Diva Dance Waltz, and Printemps. I'll be teaching these patterns in my May classes.

  And here are some envelopes I created for the Travelling Tangles Project.

  I added some wax seals on the back of these envelopes.

  Pretty, isn't it?

  And here are some tiles that two of my students created last week. They are eight and twelve years old.

  Also, if you haven't seen it already, I posted a "How to Draw a Pink Gemstone" tutorial a couple of days ago.

  Thanks for dropping by. I'll see you next week. :)

How to Draw a Pink Gemstone with Tombow Markers

  Here's a video tutorial on how to draw a simple pink gemstone using Tombow's dual brush markers. I used colours from the set of ten, bright.

Cold Weather Tangles

  Last week, Singapore had its coldest weather in a long time. Temperatures dipped to 22°C (72°F). Usually, our days hover at a warm 27°C to 35°C (80°F to 95°F).

  Here's what I've been up to lately...

A Bijou tile from Yvette Campbell for Travelling Tangles.
I used Flux, Printemps, and Tipple. Then added shading using Derwent's Coloursoft coloured pencils.

  I also completed some tiles for last week's weekly challenges.

The Diva asked us to do a duotangle tile using Phicops and Huggins.
My tile ended up looking like a seashell washed up on the beach. So I added Peerless watercolours to further push that image.

Joey wanted us to use Ta-Da and a string.
I really liked her tile for that challenge.

  And here are my tiles for this week's challenge...

Joey asked us to use the tangle "Didada" (which was new to me) and string #237.

The Diva asked us to create a string using found objects. I kept it simple and just used a scissors. You can see the initial string in pencil on the left of the picture.

  And here's one last tile for Travelling Tangles. A beautiful tile was sent from Raye Burnett (she drew the gem) to Debra Huff (she added the bezel. The tile was the sent to me. I added the blue background and echoed Deb’s lovely striping.

  And that's it for this week. Thanks for popping by. :)

sketchbook pages

  Let's kick it off with a tile I did as a Draw With Me video. I really am growing to love my Tombow markers. Featuring Abeko, a hit of Flukes, and Fe-Ba in the background.

  For this week's challenge, Diva (home) and Joey (a star string). I decided to combine them in a tile that features my tangle, Singapore Sling. That's as home-y as I can get. I literally used a tangle that has my home-country's name in it. hahaha If you'd like to learn how to draw it, you can click here.

At the bottom of the page, I did a tile for "Zentangle: Tangled & Journaled, Too!" group on Facebook. They're doing a summer project and even though we don't get a summer break in Singapore, I am following along on the prompts.

  Here's another page. It's not complete yet, but I really like how the gemstone turned out. It was done using Tombow markers, too.

  And here's one more page, in full black and white.

 

catching up

  Here's the second workshop that we had for the collaborative art work to be completed for Bukit Batok East CC.

  It was truly so much fun.

  I'm playing catch-up for weekly challenges. I've been distracted by the Summer project under "Zentangle: Tangled & Journaled, Too!" on Facebook. I've also did personal projects, namely; two small canvases for my living room. They were done using Identi pens, with highlights added using a Signo Broad pen. The gold of the canvas comes from a spray. I did this first one on my own.

The edges have Diva Dance Waltz on it.

  And then did this pink one whilst teaching my niece to do a gold one on her own. We had a great time. The pink was done with neon acrylic paint.

  Here's what my 7 year-old niece did.

  In other news, I will be teaching my first online course. I will be teaching alongside seven other teachers. In my video, you will learn how to merge tangles together. I will be posting a picture of what you'll learn in another post really soon. Until then, there is an early bird special going on and the price of the course is discounted. So if you'd like to check it out, you can visit it via this link to find out more.

  Thanks for dropping by. I hope to see you again soon. :)