Blending with Watercolor pencils
A question I get asked often is “Can I use watercolor pencils in your books?” My initial thought based on the fact that it is 60lb paper I wouldn’t recommend it. Traditional watercolor paper is at least 90lb and most artists use 130lb paper. Still being of a curious nature I decided to give it a try. I used my favorite watercolor pencils by Lyra. They are so smooth and once the water activates them they are so vibrant and creamy looking. I used a plastic sheet under the page to prevent any bleed through onto the page below. I used a very light hand and as little water as…
Digital chalkboard
I absolutely love drawing with chalk…with one exception. The dust. No matter how hard I try I still manage to get it everywhere and it makes me sneeze constantly. So I was so pleased to learn I could create the same look with my iPad. I have purchased several different chalk brush sets and they are amazing but for today I chose to use a few of my own. I just love that I can almost hear the sound of the chalk scraping on the board and smell the distinct chalk smell while creating these pieces. Even better that I am not sneezing every 30 seconds. This method of…
Pointed Pen Calligraphy
Pointed pen calligraphy is one of my favorite techniques. I just love watching the ink flow from the nib. I haven’t had much time to use this style since late October when I was making cards for my fall craft shows. Needless to say I am a bit rusty. That and my ink consistency was a bit off. I still enjoyed making this quick video. The ink I am using is a custom blend. I find myself creating a lot of custom inks. It opens up so many more possibilities. I am using one of my Mega pens from ErikanXpressions fitted with my favorite Leonardt 33 nib. This particular pen…
Zetangle Alphabet
Today’s Technique Thursday topic is something that has facilitated me for several years. Traditional Zentangle is quite an art. There is a specific training required to teach this style. It is quite popular amongst the Scrapbooking crowd. Personally I just don’t have the patience to do something as intricate as a Mandela or a large piece involving many types of tangles, however I could draw zentangled letters and hearts all day long. One of my favorite books is “Zenspirations by Joanne Fink” she also has a book on Dangles which is as the name suggests the long dangly elements in the letters below. I also recently purchased “The Art of…
A little bit about my process….
The most popular question I get asked is “How long did it take you to write your book?” For my first book that is an easy answer. It took me well over 300 hours to complete. This is what one particular sketching session looked like From this point once I had all the sketches inked onto tracing paper, I then scanned them and imported into Illustrator to convert them into vector images. The vector images can then be scaled up or down without becoming pixelated. I then inserted the word images and floral images into each page in Microsoft Publisher. Once that step was completed and all the pages…