Back after a lengthy hiatus: Some things that have been working on.

It has been quite some time since I have posted anything.  Life sometimes has a way of forcing you to deal with things.  Besides dealing with the death of a sibling also rotator cuff surgery and the rehab for that and working full time. The rehab will go on for a while but am doing well with it.  Just working on the range of motion behind my back now, and strength. Hopefully I will not be AWOL for a while.

I did get some things entered in our local art show this year.  received 2nd and 3rd place ribbons for my Paradox Turtle and Whale Tail. Sure that I posted pictures of these earlier but here they are again so you won't have to scroll through old posts.

I have continued to do some wood burning.  Would like to do a little more. Have done some as pendants an others as key fobs.  Here is one the is a pendant.  I have also done a few more crosses. Here are some examples of those.  Some have probably been posted before.  

Don't have pictures of some of the rectangle key fobs that have done, but you get the idea.

Most of my time recently was on preparing things for a class.  Have a group of ladies that have taken a number of classes from me and am always looking for new things to do.  Wanted to do some things with string theory so began looking at different ways to do strings. Was looking for some color.  Borrowed some things from my days in elementary school as well as from some of the postings on acrylic pours.  I used string and acrylic paint in different ways. On some I put the paint on the string and on others I put the paint on the paper.  Here are some of the examples where I put the paint on the string. 

These were both done on 9 x 12 paper.  I had the paint in a small paint bowl that I picked up at Hobby Lobby.  Cut a long length of string and put in the paint. I did not thin the paint but this is something that could do.  On the second one it was still one string, but I had two bowls next to each other and put part of the string in each bowl.  After folding the paper in half, I unfolded it and randomly put the string on half of the paper.  I left two ends sticking out on different sides, refolded the paper and alternately pulled the strings until it was all out.  On the top one I used a piece of cardboard from an old sketch pad to press down on the paper as I pulled the strings. Think that is why there is so much coverage.  On the second one I just used my hand. 

One the next one I did similar process but instead of putting the paint on the string, I put it on the paper.  Here is the end result and I will explain the process after the picture.

There are separate pictures as I cut the paper apart before I took the picture.  On these I drizzled the paint on the paper directly from the squeeze bottle that they were in. I only put paint on half of the paper. It was the same size as the other.  before refolding I randomly placed string on the side with the paint and after refolding it, alternately pulled the string until it was all out.  

The last one I only used half of the sheet so is  9 x 6.  Here is how that turned out. 

The process on this was a little different. I again drizzled the paint on the paper.  Instead of using a long length of string, I used a shorter one.  I used a method that I had seen someone use on an acrylic pour to spread the paint.  I used my thumb to place one end of the string on the paper.  This became a pivot point and I moved a length of the string over the paint. I did not thin the paint but even if I had, need to watch how much paint is building up on the string and if it is too much, you just raise the string a little.  This created a little more texture but I also used a braided string. As you can see I did not spread the paint all over. You could.  As I was experimenting for a class I did not.  The advantage of this method is that you can see what is occurring and you can either change what you do with the string or add a little more paint.  This is the only one that I used white and I did add a little more in a few spots. 

Couple of things that I should mention.  Pulling the strings out can get messy so put down newspaper of a drop cloth under you paper so you do not have a lot of paint to clean off your table. You can also wear disposable latex gloves so it helps with clean up.  With the first two methods you are not sure what you are going to end up with.  I was not sure what I was going to tangle on them.  I started out just putting Tipple in some of the negative space. I stopped and kept looking at it and it finally apparent to me.  Of course now I cannot unsee it.  I have only had a chance to work on one. but here is what I did with the yellow one.

I am not aware of anyway I could have planned this.  It was a happy occurrence. Kind of reinforces the Zentangle® tenet that there are no mistakes just unplanned opportunities.  

If you got all the way through this lengthy post, I appreciate it.  Don't think that posts in the future will be this long. Unless I have another long AWOL, then it could happen.

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

Go Tangle !!