art.again.

Highlights and shadows on midtone Strathmore Artagain paper, ink & watercolor. This isn't for a challenge or anything; I just happened to rediscover a stack of precut midtone paper I'd forgotten about (and I broke my no-coffee-after-three rule today). :oD

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feel free to visit me here!

collecting color.

Hi, tanglers!

Remember those coin collector pages I posted a few years back, that I used to organize tangle patterns? I've been using them to sort watercolor swatches. The name of the color and the manufacturer are written on the backs. There's also room for the pigment code, lightfastness ratings, granulation and staining info on the back (unless your writing looks like mine did in seventh grade).

The benefit to sorting paint swatches this way is that they can be pulled out and grouped so it's easy to figure out what colors should go together for a particular project. I'll be doing this with my Inktense pencils too, and then put them in a tabbed binder by medium. And then colored pencils... and my Sparkling H2Os... ooh, I think I'm gonna need more tabs! Where's my paper punch??

FYI, CropStop has started selling pocket pages similar to these in clear acid-free plastic that won't yellow over time. I have the pages for regular tiles and I'm happy with those, so I'll try out the little ones and see if they're lighter and less smelly (not even kidding). If anyone has experience with the pocket pages for two-inch tiles, I'd like to know whether the tiles are secure or if they slide out. Can't have my swatches jumpin' ship!

• ❃ • ❋ • ❁ • ✿ • ✽ • ❀ •

Thanks for stopping by! 

Feel free to join me here, 

where I frequently share artsy things that inspire me, 

invite tanglers to share art,

crack silly jokes, 

and offer up the 

occasional 

tangle 

prompt. 

:oD

❀

sunny on the inside

Back in December, I was inspired by some painted ceramic suns hanging in a local Mexican restaurant, so I got a few photos so I could play with the idea later on. At that point, I hadn't taken Sandhya's Zentangle class and didn't really know what it was. I just knew I had a thing for color and really intricately detailed ink doodlin'. I also hadn't started playing around with watercolor yet, but Santa knew I wanted to try it. :oD Santa knows everything! Especially if Santa is either your husband or a friend (formerly your boss) who has been around you nearly every day for about a third of your life. Yeah, I'm lookin' at you, Linda!

 A few weeks later - Arches cold press watercolor paper, a technical pen, and soot black india ink :o)

I didn't realize it was going to take me a week to finish this... it was a pretty ambitious project for my second painting ever. I learned a valuable lesson here: Just because you think your watercolor paper is dry does NOT mean the color's not going to bleed like gangbusters, even if the paper is just a TEENY bit damp. If freshly-painted watercolor paper feels cool to the touch, it's not dry yet. If you're as impatient as I am, save yourself the agony and use a hairdryer on it. For an hour.

For a while, I actually thought about leaving this black and white. I don't know what I was thinking. The color is just so happy. This thing matches every jordan almond* in the box ;o) I framed it today with a pristine white mat but since there is a micron pen in the vicinity I doubt very much that it's going to stay white for very long.

There is now a sky-blue (well, okay, according to Winsor & Newton it's cerulean) background with a little of the color lifted off with a damp sponge for an (accidentally) awesome cloud effect. I thought I had a finished picture of it, but since I'm an obsessive deleter, I'm pretty sure I know what happened to that.

*speaking of, if you ever stop at Buc-ees, go get a bag of their 'no sugar added' jordan almonds. All the yummy and half the sweet. (and thanks to my sister-in-law for cluing me in.)

CADENT

Cadent study with watercolor. This is a good example of why we use ink instead of pencil... if I had been able to fix my mistake, I never would have discovered the variation on the upper right. Which I love.