Kit and colour!

Spent the last weekend dog sitting for my sister at my sister's place. So of course I had to pack a zentangle kit to last me the weekend right? 

I've been eyeing these hard top pencil cases at Smiggle for a while now, thinking they'd be super awesome craft kits. For the longest time I fought the temptation due to (1) price concerns and (2) concerns that a packed kit would be obstructively heavy and I would have wasted my money. 

However I finally caved for my dog sitting weekend!

The amount of stuff I managed to stuff in was amazing! 

• 2 10.5x14.8cm canson inspiration sketch books 
• 4 tortillons 
• 14 pens 
• 4 pencils (including a white pencil) 
• 3 tombow watercolour brush pens 
• 1 water brush (what I affectionately call a goldfish brush) 
• 1 box of 36 pelikan colour pencils (the only brand I know that makes mini pencils in boxes of more than 12)
• 2 erasers (1 kneadable and one normal) 
• 1 sharpener
• 1 folder with a bunch of tiles and bookmark blanks 

Yes it was heavy but it wasn't as heavy as I was afraid it was going to be. Amazing ain't it! 

And what did I do with my kit you might ask: 

Inktober day 21: meer.YAF  

ennies. indyrella 

arukas.aquafleur

Inktober day 22: yincut.ramy.drawings

Clearly I'm still with my HAVE MORE GUTS campaign. Whereas in my last post I only ventured as far as coloured pencils, I have now done some experimentation with my Tombow watercolour brush pens (courtesy of one of the classes previously given by CZT Mabel), coloured Microns (and a grey Zig Kuretake Mangaka pen) and my current favourite Zebra Super Marble Gel Pen.  

Some of it I think looks ok, others not so great. Having seen so many awesome coloured pieces online, I was hesitant to put up my recent works because I was embarrassed that they weren't great... but no! I need to HAVE MORE GUTS right?  But hey... practice makes perfect (hopefully)... and I should be proud of whatever I did right? Right?

But if they do look bad, I blame it on this:

Has anyone else tried to tangle side ways (like the table is on my right) with a dog on your lap? It was a bit of a challenge! But this sweetie was feeling crummy that my sister was away... (In case you're wondering: yes, she's wearing a flower. It's actually a cone of shame in disguise but shhhh don't tell her that!). 

Also sharing my Inktober contributions for day 14 and days 18-20 (days 15 to 17 were previously shared):

flukes.ix.hibred.hollibough  

This week's Diva challenge wasn't really on all four with my  HAVE MORE GUTS campaign... but it kinda was. I've never attended any black tile classes and have never even tried tangling on black before so yes... GUTS required!

romanancy.tipple.'nzeppel.showgirl.ramy

My first attempt at white on black on white. Not quite sure how I feel about it but I had fun doing it! Am now thinking about doing sparkly pens / pastel pens on black and see how they turn out! Am glad that pretty pens are relatively inexpensive here! 

My new mantra: Have more guts!

Spent the weekend @ Heartistry!

With a Brush Lettering workshop on Saturday (the results of which I am tooooo embarrassed to share - suffice to say I need a lot of practice) and my first ever Zentangle jam on Sunday.

I quite enjoyed the session which involved making a glueless box from two zendala tiles, taught by CZT Mabel as well as making a small booklet with "pamphlet stitch" from a couple sheets of watercolour paper, taught by one of CZT Mabel's friends at Heartistry. Was my first attempt at book binding which was kinda cool 😎. 

I also collected my nets flash pay card (kinda like a stored value card) with the Heartistry logo that I won on Heartistry's Facebook draw (woohoo!🎉). 

I met tanglers I've never met before and saw what they could do (which in all honesty did make me feel a little bit lacking because some of what I saw was amazing and I was so envious! 😭). 

We had the pleasure of having not 1 not 2 but 3 CZTs at our session. I think a lot of the online Zentangle community may be familiar with CZT Stephanie (who was the originator of the Zentangle Inktober 2017 prompts) - well she was at the jamming session too! 

CZT Stephanie shared with us a simplified way to do diva dance rock & roll and aquafleur. For those interested, the version of aquafleur taught by CZT Stephanie features on her blog in this post, and her simplified version of diva dance rock & roll can be found here. Amazing! 

Having attended the session and having had the opportunity to look at other people's work, I have decided I need more guts! More guts to go out of the box! More guts to use colours! More guts to try and experiment! More guts to be wrong! My new Zentangle mantra is therefore: HAVE MORE GUTS! 

So since I spent all my time at the jamming session working on my palrevo box, when I got home, as step 1 to my "HAVE MORE GUTS" movement, I did some coloured pieces in my sketch book to record what I learnt from CZT Stephanie at the jamming session.

I'm quite pleased with how everything turned out which goes to show that I need to have more guts (but inside I'm trembling and melting like a jelly with too much water content).

So my HAVE MORE GUTS movement also extended into this week's Diva Challenge #337

diva dance rock & roll.dragonair.patience.dyon.sandswirl.printemps.leafleft.striping.shattuck.artoo

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ARTOO!

Ok so well I didn't have a lot of guts... just a little bit to give a sprinkling of colour here and there and to bring out artoo even more. I was quite pleased with the result until a bystander told me it looks incomplete... 😕 sigh... baby steps?

Also sharing:

(1) My IAST #215 tile (I was clearly still in the striping mood from last week's Diva Challenge!)

(2) My Inktober bijous for days 10 to 13 (my Diva tile also snuck in Inktober day 17!)

Inky Stripes

I was kinda mind-blown when I read this week's Diva Challenge and browsed the links to striping. I loved what Margaret Brenner did here! I clearly underestimated the tangle! I never knew you could do so much with striping!

So with my new Sakura Pigma PN (MWAHAHAHAHA the local stores didn't have it yet but my sister ordered some for me online - my sister and online shopping FTW🎉!)... 

I need to work on my light and shadows but I don't think it's half bad. I will never think of striping the same way again! 

[Mini review: the PN is very very smooth which is awesome and doesn't really leave indentations in the paper. When I have a new micron somethings the corners of the "tuft" make lines a little irregular and have a slightly jarring tactile response but not with the PN. The downside is that the line weight is clearly thicker than that of the Micron so fine line work involves playing with pen pressure. All in all, I love the PNs 😀 and will treasure and enjoy the few PNs that my sister bought (while hoping that they hit local stores soon!)😍]

Also sharing my Inktober days 6 to 9! 

ponio.rixty.twizted.hurry

As well as my last IAST submission!

paradox.etcher.betweed.beeline.hurry.cubine

[Mini review: I did this one with the Sakura Pigma Pen (aka the apprentice pen). The ink is very similar to that of the Micron. Tip width wise it's definitely thicker than a Micron 01 and I suspect,  also thicker than the PN (but I could be wrong). It seems to tend to "fluff" a little (like pick up micro-fibres from the paper after prolonged drawing) but thankfully not to an extent that it leaves a blot on the paper. Whilst it's supposed to be a cheaper option to the Micron, in my case cost-wise it was more or less the same, since I ordered them online and they had to be shipped to me. To be honest / fair, Microns are not particularly expensive where I'm from. In case you are in my neck of the woods and want to order some, I got them here.] 

Inktober!

Ok. Considering I started Zentangle this year, I've never heard of Inktober! However my sister (who is far more creative than I am) has been dabbling in inks for much longer (she's more into fountain pens and fountain pen inks) and shared the concept. 

So in case I have it wrong, I understand Inktober to be a month long challenge to draw one ink drawing per day... and the people at Inktober have even given a list of prompts in case you need an added challenge / inspiration! And then on day 3 I discovered Zentangle prompts by CZT Stephanie Jennifer. 

So why not? Since I work full-time I don't think I can afford the time to do a full tile every day (without severely sacrificing sleep anyway), so my "modified" Inktober - (at least) one bijou per day! 

Ready. Steady. GO! 

Inktober days 1 to 4!

Day 1: "Swift" using Indy-rella, before I discovered the Zentangle prompts 
Day 2: "Divide" using paradox, before I discovered the Zentangle prompts 
Day 3: Simply Knotty (and paradox) 
Day 4: Diva Dance (with a little bit of printemps)

Inktober day 5!

Inktober day 5 was a pure fluke I must admit. Was working on the Diva Challenge #335, Tint, and used Marasu before I checked to see what was day 5's challenge - it must have been a premonition! So I'm taking my Diva Challenge tile as my Inktober Day 5 (is that cheating?).  

For the Diva Challenge I tried 3 different forms of Tint. Two that I saw on the step out suggestions and one that I kinda just winged it... quite literally, in an attempt to make something that kinda looks like a peacock feather. Not quite sure if I liked how it turned out. 

This tile for me, was one of those "oh no it looks terrible" tiles when I was working on it, but after I finished shading, I thought it didn't look thaaat bad. Lesson learnt - don't give up on "oh no" tiles! 

tint.yincut.'nzeppel.featherfall.marasu.printemps

Also sharing some more of my recent zentangling activities: 

IAST #213

fassett.fassettoo.phroze

And the next in my bookmark (and laminator) adventures, a pair of paradoxes!