Tangled Guitar

I found an old beat up guitar at a  yard sale for $4.00 and snatched it up last fall. Then last month with forest fires all around in CO I found time to work on it.  Had to stay indoors due to smoke, but put on a mask long enough to sand it down.  Wish I had taken some before pics, as this guitar was really a mess!
After sanding, staining and sealing I stamped several images from various stamp companys (including my own).  Then got out my permanent ink Sharpies and drew more images (eyes, etc) and started filling in the blank spaces by doodling some zentangles.  Bought some strings and lo and behold, it can actually play music!  I'll be taking this to the festival with me instead of my "good" guitar.  Hope no one laughs at it too much.  What do you think?  Sorry the pics did not show the drawings very well today.

4X4 Flower Book

I've joined a swap on one of the yahoo groups I belong to.  Yes, I ended that sentence with a preposition. It's a 6 week swap, swap a page a week and the lead time was over a month. I have finished the pages ahead of time.  Here are the details and my pages:

Week 1: Just a page with flowers (stamps, hand drawn, etc)  - I used the sunflower/ladybug stamp from Wild Frog Creations.

Week 2 – Zentangle your flower - Easy enough

Week 3 – Steampunk flowers - Tough one for me. I have no gears, wheels or steampunk items.  I looked up the defination, looked at steampunk art on the web, decided I was not going to participate after all, stewed for several days and came up with this using  the sunflower/frog stamp from Wild Frog Creations and adding an eye to the center of the sunflower.  Found the background as a freebie printable on the web.

Week 4 – Flower child - Again, easy enough.  I used the Pansy Woman stamp from Wild Frog Creations.  Colored, reduced in size for the center, same size for the background and popped up a few pansys around the face.

Week 5 – Flower journal page (use your favorite quote, or just add your thoughts) - Roses are from the Rose Woman rubber stamp sheet from Wild Frog Creations. Background paper is a skytone pink and does not show up in the scan.

Week 6 – YOU, the artist, are a flower (self portrait!) - Crap, really?  Ok, drew myself in less than 5 minutes, decided the original was good enough, colored with pencils, used a sheer purple ribbon as the frame and glass over the picture, added some Iris from the Iris Woman sheet of stamps from Wild Frog Creations.  Then realized it does NOT look like me.  She is the spitting image (where does that phrase come from?) of my granddaughter.  Seriously.  I would have to go back and redraw, adding wrinkles, under eye bags etc, lol to have this actually look like me today.

I made 2 of each page.  One for me, one to trade.  So after the trade is done I will have a total of 12 pages for the book.  I still have to make the covers and do the binding after all the pages arrive.  I will post the finished book around the end of April or beginning of May.

Zentangle Bird Woman in Color

Finally got some free time to color this one.  I used water color pencils, but have not done any of the actual blending yet, just the dry pencils.  What do you think?  Looking for honest criticism.  (Yes, you can be brutal)  I had a rough time with deciding how to color the birds and don't quite like them.  Maybe after I get the colors blended they will look better.  The pic is pretty large, so you should be able to click it and see it much bigger.  Images used in the zentangle are stamps from Wild Frog Creations.

Zentangle Journal Page

As many of you know, I've been working on a Zentangle Journal for well over a year.  Just off and on between other projects sporadically.  Here is my most recent *unfinished* artwork.  Unfinished only  because I intend to color this one.  That's why there is very little black and no shading at all yet, however, I still think I could call it done if I wished.  Hopefully will get the colored version up soon.
The images are stamps from Wild Frog Creations Rubber Stamps.

I am entering this artwork in:

1. Gingersnap Creations "Words Of Wisdom" challenge.  The words of wisdon on the piece are: "You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus". 

2. Paper Creations Ink Challenge 19 Show Us Your Style

3. Smudgy Antics "Wicked with Wings" Challenge

Floral Zentangle

Here is an 8 1/2" X 11" zentangle that I made for my large journal.  I've done several of these recently and this one was made very quickly in free minutes here and there over the course of about a week.  I don't think I ever worked on it for more than 15 minutes at a time.  It's certainly not my best, lol.

If you'd like to see some of the other zentangle pages posted previously, check the sidebar links  with the label zentangle.

Dragonfly Zentangle

Sorry about my long almost 2 week absence.  Unfortuneately, I became addicted to a silly game called Farmville on Facebook.  My sister called and needed a friend, talked me into playing and I was hooked from the start.  Jumped to level 30 in under 2 weeks.  Anyone else addicted and need another neighbor?

Enough babbling, onto my latest zentangle for in my zentangle journal.  I'll show the entire journal when I finish the picture pages.  This one is done around 3 images from Wild Frog Creations Rubber stamps Mosaic Frog Sheet.  The page is another 81/2" X 11".  Whatcha think?  I believe if you click on the picture it will take you to a larger image.

Zentangle Goddess

Way back in last May I posted a page from the Zentangle Journal I was making and promised to post more pages.  *heavy sigh* I have so many unfinished projects.  I used to be good at finishing what I started, but when I have too many ideas and projects I get behind.  So anyway, here's another page of the someday to be completed journal. (Just stumbled across it again, lol)  I used the Sunset/Sunrise Goddess stamp from Wild Frog Creations Rubber Stamps as the center image, the added zentangles to it and around it to create a frame of sorts.  Click on the pictures, then again when it opens to enlarge them if interested.

Just noticed I scanned it crooked.  Oh well.  In case you missed the post last May or don't remember, I'll save you the trouble of searching back for it and repost the photo here:

This one also uses a rubber stamp from Wild Frog Creations as the center point and I like it much better than the other.  Less structered.  I have 2 other pages (both in progress) for this journal and I hope to someday this year to finish it all and put it together with a piano hinge. Time will tell.

Thanks to Juliet who asked about the size of these!  They are the standard 8 1/2" X 11" cardstock.

Metal Zen Bookmark

Here is a bookmark a made for a bookmark challenge.  It is made of metal.  I love embossing metal for craft projects, but have never purchased the tools to do so.  I simply use an old ball point pen.  Rubbing the metal with waxed paper helps my pen slide smoothly. 

After the piece was completely embossed and my fingers almost entirely useless, I heated it with my heat gun to make the colors emerge.  It has lovely shades of copper, red, orange, silver and blue.  Hard to see in the pics.

Zentangle Woman

This is a cover I made for a large 8 1/2" X 11" journal.  I do not have the journal finished as yet.  Will post pics of completed project when it's done.

Several of Wild Frog's stamps have zentangle like doodles included in the images and I decided to play with adding more.  This one includes the braided woman medallion.  I stamped the image in the center of the piece first, then began to hand draw the zentangle around it.  Turned out well, I thought.