UNLEASHING MY INNER PICASSO!

I bought another Daily Boxed Calendar.  I decided to pass on the quilt one and settled on DOODLE A DAY...unleash your inner Picasso!
I am not much of a doodler but I thought this would be fun way to practice some of my pattern designing.  If the prompt suggests a figure or face, I am going with that.  Otherwise, I am dividing the space up and filling it with various patterns.  I am trying to remember to photograph the initial squiggle.  You will have to guess where it is in the first doodle.  The hand came out a little lame,  but the rest came out satisfactory.  This should be a fun project.

SETTING GOALS NOT MAKING RESOLUTIONS!

I do think there is a difference between setting goals and making resolutions for the New Year.  Each day flows into the other in a seamless stream but there is something about a fresh start, a beginning point.  New Years is a good time for that.  Especially, after the crazy rushing around in December, it feels cathartic to be still and think about ideas and goals for the coming year.  Focusing in on a few things helps me to learn, grow and be more creative, and this is actually my true goal which doesn't change from year to year.  Working in a series, each successive painting growing out of an idea from the last helps me to delve deeper into an area of interest.  This year I have decided to work with the figure, explore pattern, and experiment with acrylic materials.  I have exhausted my interest in self portraiture ( I am so sick of my own face) but still am intrigued with collage and the potential of working with a grid.  Lastly, I want to explore color using Robert Burridge's color wheel based on Munsell's color system.  This gives me lots to work with.

I have had very little time to paint since I returned from Israel but I did find a fabulous new way to create
a stamp for my exploration of pattern.  This stamp was created on a sheet of colored foam.  This is a very inexpensive material found in craft stores.  It is usually in the children's craft section.  The beauty of this stuff is how easy it is to cut into shapes and can be incised with a ball point pen to create a pattern. Even better is this nifty tool I bought at Michael's Craft Store.  It is a wood burning set PLUS a soldering iron, all in one.  All you have to do is change the point.  This set has quite a few tips.    The one I have used has a good point on it so you can do precision work.  I not only used it on the foam sheet, but I used it as a stencil cutter on clear contact paper.  Fabulous!!!  I used my 40% off coupon, making it a good value!

Since I am not a doodler, or natural pattern designer, I have found Zentangle to be a wonderful resource for pattern ideas. http://tanglepatterns.com/  has lots of patterns organized alphabetically by name.  Each pattern is shown step by step.  I am keeping my eyes open for other pattern ideas.  They are everywhere when you pay attention.

I hope everyone is off to a good start on their 2011 goals!

ZEE FRENCHMAN IS ZENTANGLED UP!!

Along with the graphite drawings yesterday, I discovered a website called Zentangle. You can click on the blog heading and it will take you there. Basically, it is an organized way to create intricate patterns. It works like meditation on your mental state and is very fun. The couple that developed this idea have taken it to the ultimate marketing heights! I kept looking for directions but it seems you have to order a kit for $50 to get the lowdown. I wasn't going to do that, so, after looking at everything, I discovered that their archived newsletters had different patterns explained and showed variations. Aha!! Now I was in business. I sat in front of the computer and drew all the patterns I could find. Now that I have the hang of it, I could look at some of the examples and figure out some of the different ideas. I did 3 3.5 square Zentangles in my sketchbook.

Today, I wanted to get back to my Frenchman with some ideas that were in my head before they disappeared into the black hole that sometimes masqeurades as my mind. I traced each of the 3 stylized Frenchman on separate pieces of paper. Using my sliding glass door as a lightbox, I taped two up and played around with overlaping images. This idea works best with a very simplified drawing. When you use the same design but draw it freehand each time you get interesting effects. You can choose which lines to keep and which to ignore. There are endless possibilites with this idea.

For this image, I reversed one of the drawings and positioned it so the the middle eye will work for either face. It's strange but intriguing to me. I was curious how the Zentangle patterns would look on it. I told myself 5 times "It is only a piece of paper" before I started playing with the patterns. With these kinds of ideas, there is no way to know how it will look without doing it. Each pattern changes the entire look. I was sorry that I colored in the red squares. They are too strong. Maybe I can think of a way to lighten them. I plan to add watercolor to it tomorrow. There are a few places where I messed up. No way to fix it and too laborious to redo. It's so busy, it is hard to find the errors, anyway. This is an example of pattern as texture. I decided I wanted lines more subtle than black ink so I used a fine red pen on white paper. The photograph has been adjusted as best I can. Not quite right but you can get the idea.