An Adventure in water color: The teacher as student

I have not had any extensive art training. The most training and experience has been with my work with tangling and becoming a CZT. I have always been interested in art but did not think I had any skill in art.  I could doodle, as the margins of most of my notebooks from college could attest. I usually stuck with more geometric designs and use to jokingly say that if college did not work out maybe I could get a job designing wall paper.

One of the things that tangling provided me with, was an experience that allowed me to be creative in a non-threatening way. It helped me be less critical of things I did and to relax and enjoy what I was doing. I have experimented with different things since starting to tangle. Some remember that  while back I posted a water color that I started. I have not had much opportunity to take any classes on anything. Well that changed this past week. One of the local artists, that also teaches at the Gallery where I teach Zentangle® method, offered a class that I was available to take. I was a little apprehensive and waited until the last minute to commit, but I did attend.

It was an enjoyable experience but I also think that it will be helpful to me as I continue to teach classes. It reminded me of the anxiety, nerves when attempting to do something new that a lot of my students experience. One thing I remember thinking vividly is "Oh no, I have to draw something".  It gave me the opportunity to practice those things that I tell students to do like, breathe, don't be so critical, and take it one step at a time.

I was not able to finish the piece that I was working on so this will probably be a post that will continue with updates as I attempt to finish the piece. Besides not being very familiar with any other medium, one of the other things that was new was that we did not use brushes to apply the paint. We used water color blocks to apply the color and draw out the piece and then used a brush to spread it. I need to work a lot on this technique as I tended to not put down enough color and also tended to use too much water. But that is why you practice. You learn.

Here is the picture that we used as a prompt.

The teacher admitted that after doing it she used a photo shop app to add the stippling in the picture. She was just trying things and liked it enough that she left it. 

Here is what I have done so far.

I do not have any of the water color blocks so I will either be using a brush to add or blend some of the colors as I go along or I will use the Inktense water color pencils that I have. I have a small 12 pencil set. I actually did use some on these on this in class for some of the red.  If I decide to add the stippling, will probably use my Microns or an IdentiPen. I should add that on the one bloom I did a little highlighting with pastel chalk blocks. the teacher wanted to show how this could make come of the colors pop a little bit more,

Not sure when I will get a chance to get back to this but will post an update so stay tuned.

Thanks for visiting. If you made it all the way through this entire post, again thanks as it is much longer than most of my posts and it is on a subject I do not usually deal with. As always, comments are welcomed, encouraged, and appreciated.

Go tangle and create some art - using any medium.

Diva Challenge #253: "New Tangle: Molygon"

Although it was the first Monday of the month, the UMT challenge was an opportunity to focus on a new tangle from HQ. I actually got to teach this to a class before it was released to the public. I do not think that has ever happened before. I like this tangle just be cause it is open to so many variations. I have not looked at what others have done with it but am guessing there were a lot of interesting posts. The tangle is Molygon. It uses simple strokes but you can get complicated depending on what you do with it. I almost did not get this posted. I started it early in the week and then it just sat there, partially completed for most of the week. Here is what I came up with. I hope you enjoy it.

Tangles used: Molygon, and Bales. Shading with 2B graphite pencil

This is one of those tiles that has grown on me. As I stated above, I started this early in the week but never seemed to have time to finish it. It got down to yesterday and I knew I was going to have to do something if I was going to get it posted. I struggled deciding what to do and finally decided to just do something and let it go where it wanted. Was not even sure how I wanted to shade Bales. Decided to just go with some simple shading.

I hope to get to look at as many of the posts as I can. Not sure how many I will be able to post a comment on their blogs. I try to as much as I can. If you have not all ready, would strongly recommend that you go to I am the Diva and look at the great post. I would also encourage you to try it yourself, even if you do not post it. This is a fun tangle to play with.

Thanks for visiting. As always, comments are welcome, encouraged, and appreciated.

Go Tangle !!