I recently accepted a friend's invitation to go through 12 weeks of journal-writing and creativity exercises together using the book The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. I'm three weeks into this intriguing process and in the third chapter Cameron discusses the idea of synchronicity, "We like to pretend it is hard to follow our heart's dreams. The truth is, it is difficult to avoid walking through the many doors that will open. Turn aside your dream and it will come back to you again. Get willing to follow it again and a second mysterious door will swing open."
I know I'm not alone when I say that this is an incredibly busy time of year. I've been busy with the usual holiday preparations but also very busy making new art and accepting new art opportunities when they arrive.
This week the Diva gave us all a second chance to try out the ideas of Reticula and Fragments. There's that door swinging open again, and this time I'm saying yes.
Diva Challenges #294 and #295
reticula and fragments
for diva challenge #294
reticula and fragments in offset grid
for diva challenge #295
I've been wishing for more chances to connect in person with other artists and hopefully meet mentors for my art learning journey. An internet search for local art classes a few months back helped me discover the nearby artEAST art center. They have a variety of classes just as I was hoping to find, but they also have opportunities for sharing studio time with other local artists. Yes!
I've already posted about the wonderful evening workshop on printmaking I took last month but I also enrolled in a colored pencil realism class that meets once a week. The class size is so small that everyone gets one-on-one time to be mentored by the instructor.
Realism takes a lot of time but I have some work in progress to show. I like how you can see the various stages and layers that each petal will go through from just the wispy beginning of an outline to fully saturated with color.
purple hydrangeas, work in progress: colored pencil
tulips, work in progress: colored pencil
I have been wanting some guidance in getting better at drawing people and places. Craftsy, a resource for online crafting and art classes, has been offering a ton of holiday specials lately. I snatched up a few drawing classes on urban sketching and capturing likenesses. Here's some of my "homework" (click the thumbnails to see a larger version).
I've been dreaming, and I've been practicing, and synchronicity has been bringing me opportunities to practice and dream some more. What are you saying yes to?
It's been a while since my last post. One thing or another took my focus this past few weeks. Today I learned some terrible news that a beautiful soul lost the battle with depression and took their own life. Seb Barnett was an incredible artist who inspired me and encouraged me. I wish I'd known you better when I had the chance. The world is less bright without you in it.
I remember that Seb often railed against the idea of artistic "talent" as something you either had or you didn't. Instead Seb championed the notion that accomplished artists were the ones who put years and years of work into honing their craft.
So here I am, back at it with blogging my progress, still at the beginning of my journey, trying to follow your lead and put the work in.
Diva Challenge #287
I started with a watercolor background, created the design using Staedtler fineliner pens, and then I deepened the color shading with Neocolor II watersoluble crayons and Prismacolor colored pencils. I learned a valuable lesson about the way that finely sharpened colored pencils can sometimes scratch through the softer, more fibrous watercolor paper I was using for this piece. You might notice that one of the abstract orb shapes looks a bit more like a pearl than the others. That one got a bit of Liquid Pearls paint to cover the damaged paper.
Windsor & Newton watercolor in Transparent Yellow and Quinacridone Magenta
Work in progress, after inking the design I added shading with watersoluble crayon and colored pencil
Diva Challenge #287 on watercolor tile Dreamcatcher, Nebel, Yincut, and Sandswirl
Daniel Lamothe's Dreamcatcher pattern is quite stunning all on it's own. Here I let it take center stage with a mandala-like circular symmetry. I used a Uniball Signo white ink pen and a white chalk pastel pencil on coal black Strathmore sketch paper. I was inspired to try my hand at the convergent shading technique shared by Lynn Mead.
It's been a week of recovery over here. We had a fabulous time with our homeschooling community down in Portland but three out of five of us came down with a cold upon our return. It's a common enough occurrence that folks call it "the conference crud."
We didn't travel far, or for very long, but it feels like the seasons changed while we were gone. Crispy fall leaves are already littering the yard and the apples on our backyard tree are almost ready to eat. I guess the change in weather went well with my need to curl up with a blanket and many cups of tea to nurse my sore throat. Feeling much better today, thank goodness!
I did manage to complete the weekly It's A String Thing Challenge #161, so that's one silver lining to being home-bound this week. I see a little of fall in this tile: russet for the maple leaves out front with hints of blue skies.
Sharla uses a variety of chalk pastel pencils to complement the variety of ink colors. Since I have a set of soft chalk pastel sticks, I decided to try them out. The chalky pastel blends well with the graphite shading in a way that waxy Prismacolor pencils just won't. It's a technique I think I'll keep in my toolbox.
I enjoy participating in these group art adventures because there is always something I learn from working through the specific weekly challenge as well as from seeing what unique solutions are arrived at by the other artists. I have some art goals for myself in different media as well, and I was reminded of those this weekend when sharing some of my art with friends I hadn't seen since starting this blog. I really want to draw and paint people, especially figures and faces. I managed to get in some figure-sketching time yesterday and it feels good to get back to working on that goal again.
I sketched maybe a half dozen poses and there was one that I felt could go further and become a small painting study. I scanned my sketch and printed out a copy to practice painting the figure. I have to admit that drawing and painting feel worlds apart for me, at least for now. Gotta keep making those pancakes...
Tomorrow my family is heading out of town for a five-day excursion down to Portland, Oregon to gather with a few hundred other homeschoolers. This annual trip is a highlight of our year and a chance to reunite with far-flung friends and an opportunity to make new ones. Five days filled with fun for the whole family as well as sharing support with other parents for the process of facilitating our kids's educations.
In light of my weekend travel plans, you get a mid-week post!
This week the Diva's challenge to "spill it!" encouraged me to explore the intuitive process of art a little more deeply. No set string, no pre-planned tangles or patterns, just the opportunity to invite chaos and chance into my art practice and respond intuitively to what arrives.
I've been admiring tiles splashed with watercolor lately and so that's what I decided to use for the "spill it" challenge. First I splashed some watercolors and then I spilled some salt.
watercolor drips, splashes, and spills
I used the smooth side of one piece of Canson watercolor paper and one piece of Strathmore Printmaking paper because I didn't want too much surface texture of the paper to interfere with the tangling later on with my Pigma Micron pens.
I used Windsor & Newton watercolors in Transparent Yellow and Quinacridone Magenta because I really enjoy the combination of yellows, pinks, and oranges they make together and being transparent colors I knew they would blend beautifully without getting muddy.
When everything was dry, I cut both papers into ten 4" by 4" tiles.
4in x 4in tiles splashed with watercolor
I chose this tile because the long leggy drip of watercolor across an area of white space immediately brought to mind the tangle Quandu by CZT Eni Oken. That was the start of my intuitive process.
beginning to intuitively tangle the organic shapes created by the watercolor
I continued to follow the drips, splashes, and spills, filling an irregular shape with Aura-leah, another with Printemps and Flux-like weeds. When a lone Poke Leaf showed up in those Fluxy weeds, I knew that more Poke Leaf and some Poke Root would have to find a home somewhere in the tile. More of each tangle here and there, then joined by Footlites and many orbs and auras. I know that I could keep developing this tile with shading and highlights, but for now it just feels finished. I decided to listen to that feeling.
Have you ever had the experience where an art technique seems just out of your reach? I feel that way every time I see a Zentangle renaissance tile where the tangler has artfully mixed black, brown, and red ink with shading and highlights on that mid-toned tan paper. I have made quite a few attempts with frustrating results. I just couldn't seem to achieve the effect I so admired. I was feeling really stumped! Recently I remembered a technique called "copy-cat" that can be used to accelerate the process when you want to learn something new. I was introduced to this technique in the context of learning new languages, but learning accelerators are techniques that can be applied to any kind of learning. So why not apply it to art?
(Follow the links to read more about copy-cat and Evan's project!) First I gathered examples of renaissance tiles that I admired or that had an effect I want to learn how to achieve, and I saved them to a new Zentangle Renaissance Tiles Pinterest board.
Then I started trying to identify what it is that makes these particular tiles so intriguing and engaging. This was the "seeing effective performance" step. I noticed that I really liked white highlights that popped, that I liked the contrast of the red/brown ink against the black, especially when used within the same tangle, and that I liked the tiles where red/brown shading accented red/brown ink. The next step in this using this technique to accelerate learning would be to attempt to duplicate a few of my favorite parts of these tiles until I felt like I was able to recreate the results I so admired. This is a step that I can return to again and again to deepen my understanding. If you want to try this yourself, why not try CZT Adele Bruno's tangle Sand. Her step-out shows an example on a renaissance tile. A perfect way to get started!
Next I gave myself a whole page in my tan sketchbook to create some tangles, make mistakes, and hopefully discover some successes, continuing to try to copy-cat the techniques I observed but applying them to a variety of patterns.
In this practice page, I want to especially call out the El Prado by CZT Maria Tovar because here I am using a version inspired by The Ragged Ray. Copy-cat two ways!
My practice page helped me see what combinations of ink color, chalk pencil, and graphite or colored pencil shading I liked best out of my experiments. So I continued to practice those combinations in this week's challenge tiles. The Diva's Weekly Challenge #281 This week the Diva challenged herself (and us!) to get more familiar with the geometric tangle ING. I filled the triangular spaces of my ING spires in different ways and put a Fleavy-inspired background behind it.
Diva Challenge #281
ING, Fleavy
It's A String Thing Adventure #159 This week's challenge was to use Printemps, Partay, and Palrevo in a double-lined spiral string. I decided to use the aura'd variation of Partay that CZT Margaret Bremner showed when introducing the tangle and to mix it in with the overlapped Printemps. I used the grid-based Palrevo in the spaces created by the double-line of the string. I think it looks a bit like a layer cake!
IAST #159
Printemps, Partay, Palrevo
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It's been a while since my last post due to a busy few weeks filled with travel and visits with family and working on some DIY home projects. But here I am, back just in time to help celebrate the third birthday of CZT Adele Bruno's It's A String Thing blog challenges. I haven't had much time to draw, paint, or tangle during this busiest part of our summer so I admit it took me a bit of time to warm those artsy muscles (both mind and body) back up. Here's my take on it using the string framework of three candles with a shot of the linework before shading and the final result.
O, Onomato, Orbs-la-dee, Opus
linework before shading
I really like how the rough surface of the mixed media paper I used gave a texture to the stones of Orbs-la-dee when I shaded them. If I had chosen the smooth bristol paper I sometimes use instead, the result would have been smoother, possibly even glassy looking stones. Every little choice creates opportunities for new discoveries.
Happy 3rd Birthday to It's a String Thing!
Last post I wrote a bit about expressing grief through art and art that has a voice, that speaks out, art that is powerful. Last night my oldest child and I had the opportunity to attend an art reception for photographer Jess Dugan’s project To Survive on This Shore and acrylic paintings and mixed-media artwork by the Trans Teen Art Project in Seattle. The photographs were part of a project that combines photographs of transgender and gender-variant people over the age of fifty with interviews about their life experiences in regards to gender, identity, age, and sexuality to provide a nuanced view into the complexities of aging as a transgender person. The paintings and mixed-media works were produced during a project to: support trans youth in Seattle with a safe space for creative self expression, build community into the future, and develop public awareness of the Seattle trans youth community. It was a beautiful and inspiring display of self-expression, of giving voice to identity, and I felt honored to be a witness.
I haven't posted in a while. There's been so much tragedy here in the US in the last few weeks, and again in France and Turkey in just the last few days. It weighs on me heavily. I'm going to be mentioning tough subjects in this post. If you're deeply empathetic and easily triggered by reading about tragedy and injustice in the world, you may wish to skip this one and come back next week. Take care of yourself. I'll understand. Enjoy this photo I took at one of my favorite places to go when I need to feel a little peace in my soul.
I learned an awesome new technique from artist and instructor Eni Oken. It's called Glow on the Dark and it focuses of making 3D Zentangles shine with a metallic gleam and an effect of soft, glowy backlighting. I spent a whole weekend pouring over her ebook and trying out the techniques, learning how to make my ordinary white ink on black tiles into the realm of "Ooh, shiny!"
initial experiments 3.5" x 3.5" with Eni Oken's Glow on the Dark technique tangles: Zing Zing variation and Raindotty
I don't want to give away too much of Eni's technique because I hope you will go visit her blog to find out more! So for now, just more pics from me. Enjoy!
testing my materials and practicing Eni Oken's technique Glow on the Dark tangles: African Artist and Teenos
monochrome experiments with Glow on the Dark tangles: Zander and Kaurikunda variation
Glow on the Dark with color tangles: Zing Zing and African Artist
Then when this week's It's a String Thing Challenge #151 included a tangle that reminds me of fireworks, right before we in the USA celebrate our Independence Day, it seemed like a good fit to apply this new technique to the challenge. Happy 4th of July to all who celebrate!
This week the Diva told us how she accidentally picked up a red pen in the middle of creating a black and white Zentangle tile. She challenged herself to push past her first reaction of "It's ruined!" and to keep going to see what would happen. Allowing herself that freedom of exploration, she ended up creating one of her favorite tiles. From that grew Diva Challenge #272, where we are asked to add some red to the traditional black and white motif, to have fun, and to leave some room for exploration. I started my tile this week by exploring a new to me technique for shading using hatching strokes with my ink pen. I used a very smooth bristol paper for this tile, which really let my pen flow over the paper with a minimum of drag. Delicious!
work in progress
Julie Bazuzi (c)2016
Next I added some graphite shading, which is a whole new experience on such a smooth paper. The first layer of 2H graphite went down so smooth and buttery it felt like cheating! But after that I struggled a bit with my HB layer. I am used to having much more tooth to the paper. There is a learning curve, to be sure.But I followed the Diva's example, and I kept going to see what would happen. Then lastly, it was time to add that pop of red. Wow!
I wanted to keep up this spirit of exploration when I was working on my tile for the It's a String Thing Zensquicentennial Challenge, so I picked up that coal black drawing paper and my white gel pen and headed back into unfamiliar territory. I can see myself making progress with each new pancake!
IZA, Teenos, and Uncorked for It's a String Thing Zensquicentennial Challenge Julie Bazuzi (c)2016
We've all heard people talk about the power of positive thinking and keeping an open mind. When the Diva resisted that first reaction to the accidental addition of red into her black and white tile, she made a conscious choice to keep going and see what would happen. She was thinking like an artist. I like this list from the Amphitheater Art Instructors' Blog about learning to think like an artist: I think the ideas on this list can be applied to so many parts of our lives, not just when we sit down to draw or paint. So the next time you take on a challenge, will you think like an artist?
This blog is primarily about my journey to learn art-making in adulthood and I've talked a bit about using focused practice to build skills. But what do you do when focus seems impossible and practice sounds tedious and boring?
What happens when you burn out?
I was just chatting online with a fellow artsy friend who was feeling down and uninspired. She was still drawing and keeping up with group art challenges, but it felt like a slog. She didn't like the way her work was turning out, though the rest of the group saw wonderful passages in every piece and a new fluency overall in her technique. I could absolutely relate. I've been there. SO many times. As zen as Zentangle can be, the intense, up-close focus on tiny, tight, little details can get mentally wearing.
Two small drawings less than 5 inches square, with fineliner Micron pen for size.
We spend so much of our lives focused on the space right in front of us, heads tipped down, shoulders drawn forward and in, chest closed, breathing shallow as we drive, use our phones, read a book, work on our computers, chop veggies and cook... Even the way we hold our pencil when we write -- close to the tip, upright, almost entirely controlled by fingers and wrist. And it's more of the same when we use technical drawing pens like the Pigma Microns for Zentangle.
Upright hand position, close to nib, used for drawing with technical pens.
Our bodies need moments and movements of expansion to counteract all that time spent in contraction. Our bodies and our brains need us to look up, gaze at far off objects, open arms wide, and take deep, full breaths that re-light the fire in the belly. Our art needs the moments of expressiveness that come from larger arm movements using elbow and shoulder. It needs us to step back from the paper or canvas for a wider perspective on ourselves and our world. And it doesn't hurt that our art benefits from the cross-body movements that activate more of our brains. In fact, according to artist and educator Dan Nelson, the part of your brain that controls your arm is a better artist than the part that controls your fingers. So when I'm feeling sluggish and uninspired, when focus seems unattainable, or when the brain fog sets in from being in the highly focused zone of minute detailfor too long:
I need to stand up,
get out juicy color and fat brushes,
use larger arm movements,
and loosen up for a while.
One of my favorite contemporary painters, Robert Burridge, talks a lot about loosening up in painting and letting the art viewer see just how much fun it is to be an artist. In fact, he has entire books and DVDs on loosening up as a painter. So if you're feeling burned out, shift your body to shift your outlook. Stand up, throw your arms out wide, lift your eyes, and breathe deeply. Try something different and make it about play, about experimentation, about adventure, and looking outward, and discovery.
Make art with your whole body.
Painting work table with an array of paints and a work in progress.
Tea for Two #1 acrylic on paper Julie Bazuzi (c)2016
My heart has been heavy this week after the tragedy in Orlando, Florida. Many people I hold dear identify as LGBTQ including my oldest child, and I stand in solidarity with this community.
love knows no limits
This week, the Diva's Challenge #271 focuses on Beads of Courage, which she tells us is "an arts in medicine program that helps kids with chronic or life threatening illness tell the story of their medical journey." This program is a bright spot of positivity for these kids and thinking about it helped me remember the kindnesses we humans are capable of creating, even in the darkest times. Here's my tile with color using the "hefty hack" and the linework before shading. It seemed fitting to keep with the rainbow theme.
Beads of Courage, a Zentangle Inspired Artwork ink and watercolor
I added the color using watercolor markers from Letraset for the color and did some subtle shading with a set of gray Koi watercolor brush pens.
Beads of Courage Zentangle Inspired Artwork Julie Bazuzi (c)2016
Just a quick post tonight for It's a String Thing Challenge #148. I'm using a Strathmore Bristol Drawing Pad for the first time. It's very smooth and quite a bright white, so it marks quite a change from my usual materials which are usually more textured and more of off-white or ecru color. I enjoyed exploring Fengle in my sketchbook and brainstorming complementary patterns to pair with it. I chose Narwhal to fill the space where Fengle often has inner auras and I added a thickness to the Fengle arms. Here's my linework before shading.
linework for IAST Challenge 148
Fengle, Narwhal
Julie Bazuzi (c)2016
Next I started in with the shading and added Snailz to the orb shapes at the end of the Fengle arms.
I definitely like where this is going, but I think it needs something more. Maybe some cast shadows to ground it? Maybe some more patterning along the Fengle arms? Maybe more patterns drawn behind everything that's there already? I'm not sure, but I think I'll let this one sit for a bit and come back to it later with fresh eyes. In the meantime, you might give a listen to this renowned Professor of Psychology, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who has pioneered the current understanding of the relationship between creativity and happiness.
I've had a Strathmore Coal Black Drawing Pad in my stash for a while now and using it is a really different experience than drawing with dark mark-making tools (pen, graphite, charcoal) on white paper. Recently I tried my hand at tangling with white gel pen and white pastel pencil on this black paper as a way to overcome artist block and it worked.
But one drawing only gets me so far. That's just the first pancake. You know, the tester pancake that gets a little overdone on one side but is still gooey in the middle as you fine-tune the temperature of the griddle and the thickness of the batter. That first pancake is usually edible but it's far from the fluffy, golden brown flapjack you were envisioning. If my goal is learning more, making better and more meaningful art, I can't stop there. I need to keep making more pancakes.
One way to dig deeper is to do some (kind! compassionate!) self-critique to assess how well I've been handling the elements of art and the principles of design. For this post I'll stick to the elements of art which are the visual building blocks used by an artist: line, shape, color, value, form, texture, space.
Up until recently, my approach to tangling on black paper relied heavily on the art elements of line, shape, value, and texture (through pattern).
Abstract black and white drawing created through intuitive composition and the meditative application of repeated line, shape, and pattern. Julie Bazuzi (c)2016
Drawings like this one can be fun to create and interesting to look at because of the varied and complex patterns arranged in whimsical ways. I notice though, that it is missing the representation of dimension (form) and depth (space) that I've been learning to add with graphite shading to my drawings that start with a light background. Artist and instructor Eni Oken calls it "shading fearlessly"and her instructional materials and mentorship has influenced a huge improvement in my work.
Drawing of a sphere wrapped in ribbons on tile-patterned background. Julie Bazuzi (c)2016
Unlike Zentangle, which relies heavily on outlines, classical drawing techniques use changes in value and negative space to indicate the edges of an object and to render the illusion of a 3D form, like this sphere.
High contrast drawing of a sphere showing a three- dimensional form with bright light and dark shadows. Julie Bazuzi (c)2016
So my challenge for myself over the next few weeks is to figure out how I can marry the two approaches together to create lively, three-dimensional drawings in the Zentangle style on dark paper. What are you going to challenge yourself to do art-wise this week? My advice to myself, and to you, is to try something new and then try it again and again.
