Bright and Beautiful Colors

"Never be afraid to try something new because life gets boring when you stay within the limits of what you already know."    Unknown

For a while I've been a fan of Dyan Reaveley - her art and her products, sold under the name of "Dylusions". If you're not familiar with her, just google her or go to YouTube and you'll find LOTS! What attracts me to her work are the vivid colors and whimsy. I own most of her ink sprays, and have used them to make colored tiles. However, things tend to get quite messy when I use them, and there is lots of cleanup, especially on my hands. And one thing you should know about me is that I am a clean artist. That's one reason why I love Zentangle so much... there's no mess.

Some time ago - I'm not sure how long it's been - she came out with a line of "blendable acrylic paint." I was reminded of the paints recently, and started looking into them some more. With some advice from other CZTs, and armed with lots of info I found online, I decided to order them. They come in 12 colors, I think, and I ordered 11 of them (I'm not a big fan of brown). There are white and black, and the rest are beautiful, bright colors that match her ink sprays. 

Dyan's video that I watched and loved is here. She uses baby wipes and her hands to paint with. That sounded intriguing, and since she kept saying how easy it is to wash/clean up, I decided to give it a try. 

I cut up various papers into rectangles approximately 3 x 5.5 inches. I gathered my paints, baby wipes, and paper towels and got to work creating a number of "tiles". As in any new endeavor, I didn't love them all, but did end up with several that I liked. Here is the first one I decided to tangle.

I created the small black circles using a stencil, and the larger ones using a small sponge dauber. Then I added my tangles.

 Patterns used: Crease and Frosty

I was going to let the shades of paint be the only shading, but I decided to give it a try with graphite. First I had experimented with colored pencils, which is normally what I would use to shade a colored tile, but didn't like it. Here's the little bit of graphite shading I added. I'd be interested to know if you really notice a difference, and if so, which you like better. 

On the next "tile" I added the border using a stencil of flames along the edges.

And then I tangled and added shading.

Patterns used: Olb, Arukas, and Tipple.

I had to fight with myself to leave that space in the upper right corner open, without tangles. I love open space but find it hard to leave it that way.

Final verdict? I LOVED working with these paints, for all the reasons Dyan points out in her videos, and more:

• the paints are smooth and liquidy
• the colors are beautiful
• I love the striking contrast of the colors with my black pens
• they spread amazingly well with a baby wipe - no streak marks
• quick drying so I can tangle on them right away if I want
• they blend very well (and yes I did use my fingers for that purpose)
• they wiped up off my craft mat with a DRY paper towel
• they came off my fingers mostly with just soap and water, and a quick swipe with my craft scrubbie
• they were very neat to work with, compared to sprays

Is that enough reasons to convince you to go out and try these paints if you haven't already? I think so. And if you do, let me know what you think.

Gelli on my Plate

"Creativity is piercing the mundane to find the marvelous."  Bill Moyers

A few weeks ago I got a  Gelli Arts printing plate as a Hanukkah present from my husband. It wasn't a total surprise since it was on my short wish list, but nevertheless I was very excited to see it. I'd read all about it and seen many videos and pictures of prints that people had made with it. I was intrigued and figured there must be lots of ways to incorporate Zentangle with these types of prints.

For those of you who aren't familiar with a gel printing plate, you should check out my link above, but in a nutshell, it is a printing plate made out of a gel-like plastic. You apply acrylic paint to the surface and then add and subtract color and designs using many different kinds of tools, stencils, brushes, etc. Then you lay paper on top of it, rub with your hands, and lift the paper off with the print on it.

A couple of days ago it was time to play. I pulled out my small supply of acrylic paints, a pile of white cardstock, some stencils, and some wedges (the wedges were a gift from my daughter). I won't explain the process here since I certainly don't claim to be an expert, and there are plenty of videos to watch online of people who have a better idea of what they're doing. But I will say that I went through lots of paper, and was not happy with most of the prints I made. Here's a picture of one of only a couple of prints that I liked.

 
I used a tulip stencil from Joggles, a wedge, and another flower stencil from Crafters Workshop. I painted, brayered (to roll the paint over the gelli plate), stenciled, and printed, then painted some more, brayered some more, stenciled some more, and printed again. Adding layers gives it lots of depth, but unfortunately I was not always satisfied with my combinations. In the above picture I got the results I was going for - white tulips to tangle with a colorful, layered background.

So next (after lots of cleanup) it was on to the tangling. At this point (probably a little late to be thinking about it), I wasn't sure how my Microns would work on top of all the layers of acrylic paint. I've worked on water color before, but never acrylic. Luckily I had no problem with the pen. When I was done tangling I wasn't so sure whether or not they looked like tulips or just lollipops! I outlined the petals which helped give them more definition....still not sure if I should grow them or eat them.

Then I decided to try some pencil shading, not so sure how that would work on top of the paint. But again, like with the pen, I was pleasantly surprised at how well it turned out. I don't know if it's really visible in the picture below, but the shading did help to give the flowers some more definition.

Admittedly, I need to do lots more playing with the Gelli Plate to get better at it. There's always a learning curve when trying a new product. I have a couple of ideas up my sleeve for next time, in an attempt to make the tangling stand out more. I'll let you know how it goes.