Perfectly Imperfect

I woke up this morning to the sound of rain, perfect!
I slept well past my normal time, perfect!
This past weekend the Palm Resaca Players put on the musical "Oliver" and they were perfectly Imperfect!
I was lead to the poem, The Pond by Mary Oliver  http://www.panhala.net/Archive/The_Ponds.html   about being satisfied with imperfections.  It was perfect.
I did this little drawing in my mini journal, far from perfect, but perfect anyway.
And I tried to write out the poem in my drawing but ran out of space.
Sorry, I'm not perfect.

Learning to felt

There is a great little shop on South Padre Island, Texas called the Art Space.  https://www.facebook.com/SPIArtSpace  It's an Artist ran shop with room for members to do their work and sell their wares but the part that I really like is that they bring in all kinds of instructors and teach a huge variety of different art related classes.    Yesterday I took a class from Nancy Algrim, owner of the Black Iris in Mission, Texas and a fiber artist extraordinaire.  Here is a link to her web site. http://iristex.com/.

Nancy was incredibly generous with her time and supplies and we made three different felting projects.  First was felt beads, then we made a Nuno scarf and finally shaped the wool into a felt flower and embellished it with some beading.

Here is a link to  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuno_felting if you want to learn more about it.  I found it very interesting learning how to make the felt fabric and have it turn out so thin and drapy when traditionally felt is thick and stiff.  There is a real technique to the laying on of the fibers and the agitation to get the felt to turn out just right. I'm not sure I have mastered it but I brought a few ounces of wool roving home so I can try it again.

I loved handling the wool, it brought back so many memories for me.  Back in the 90's I had a couple spinning wheels and was making scarves on a big loom with my hand spun wool.  I loved working with mohair and angora so got my self about 50 Angora rabbits and one big, mean Angora goat.  That was all a life time ago but the fiber covering the table yesterday made me think fond memories about that time.

I love learning new crafts and the artists that teach them are so generous with their time and usually don't mind sharing their skills.  I get to dabble in so many different mediums that way and benefit from all the years of practice and often expensive education that the instructors had to endure to learn to master the craft.

What's New?

It's a new year, I'm learning a new way to draw and I have a new journal to fill. That is a great start. How about adding a new attitude and a few new responsibilities? Nothing wrong with all that, unless you still have your old forgetful mind. I think I need a new day minder. Maybe my new Ipad has an App for that. Then all I have to do is try to remember to fill it.....

Lets get back to the new journal. I bought a cute little one this time. It's only 3.5 x 5.5 inches, has an elastic strap to keep it closed and a pretty red ribbon to mark my page. It's going to be fun filling it. I can toss it in my purse and take it any where. Drop a few pens in with it and I have all the art supplies I need to fill a few minutes while waiting for an appointment or while himself shops at Harbor Tools and I wait in the truck.

Following the prompt from Cindy Angiel's drawing web page http://rainbowelephant.com/ and the line weaving community site http://lineweaving.com, I'm will be thinking of the word Inspire while filling this little book.

Inspiring others to do something creative is part of who I am and I love showing others that there is creativity in all of us. Back in another life, I taught flower arranging, wheat weaving, even bow making. Now I have a great time teaching a weekly arts and craft class in the retirement park I live in during the winter. I look forward to that class every week because I get such a kick out of showing them something new and watching the students get excited about how well things turn out. This winter I have been teaching some tangle or repeat line drawing patterns and those classes have been outstanding. It's so nice to see that I'm not the only one getting inspired to try something new.

The line weaving community, and they are all over the world, are a great inspiration to me as well. As far as I can tell this phenomena started to really catch on in the past year or two so it's really in it's growing stage. Painters like me are moving towards repeat line drawings, scrap bookers are also finding it fun. Quilters are doing tangles with their sewing machines and embroiders are designing new repeat patterns for their stitching.

It's really amazing what some little lines with a pen in a little journal can do.... inspire a whole new movement of creativity!

What inspires you to create?

News Year, New Art

It's been a wonderful tangled adventure these past few months, the months since I stumbled across that strange word, Zentangle, googled it and watched my monitor explode with hit after hit. I was intrigued, fascinated and inspired. I searched web sites, found patterns, drew patterns and designed tiles. I drew so much that my thumb went numb for days and I had to go see a chiropractor to put my neck back into place. I have now learned to relax while drawing, to take a few minutes to stretch and to really find the Zen in the tangling.

Then I stumbled across Joanne Fink's you tube video about Letters and Patterning and things took off for me again. This time with more drawing and adding tangle patterns to my drawings. I have also been trying to get better at lettering. Never in my life did I care to learn good hand writing but now I see it as an art form and it's got a whole new meaning to me. I bought Joanne's book "Zenspirations" and another one by Marci Donley and DeAnne Singh called "Hand Lettering". Both stay right beside me now as I learn lettering.

For Christmas Bernie bought me a set of Tombow watercolor art pens and I think I am finally ready to take everything I have learned these past months and put it into a new art form. Drawing, watercolor, ink, tangles and some inspiration from the flora and fauna around me and lets see where it will go!

I wonder if my acrylics are getting lonely?

Challenges

Since I have started drawing tangles/ repeat patterns/ Zentangles I have found some wonderful people that share their time, lives and tangle patterns with anyone interested enough to go find them on the internet. Not only do they take the time to post some amazing pictures they also organize drawing challenges and supply prizes. I was a winner of one of these and very excited when I opened the package containing 7 pens and a copy of Tangle Journal 2012, created by Genevieve Crabe.

I have entered the Diva's challenges, http://iamthedivaczt.blogspot.com/, a couple times and the last one was #52 Give, create a Zentangle and give it away. Well I tangled the snowman at the top of my blog, turned him into my Christmas cards and gave many of them away so I think that should qualify for an entry.

I have also entered the Grand Opening Events at http://lineweaving.com since I found Cindy http://rainbowelephant.com. Go there to see all the wonderful art if you like.

Christmas Eve Message

It's a quiet day. I cleaned up my studio/spare room/ office space yesterday and it looks nice so I'm not in a hurry to mess it up right now. I organized my craft supplies with an assortment of plastic salad containers. You know the ones you buy with "spring mix" or "baby spinach" in. Well they make great places to stash all my stuff. I can see into them and they stack really nice one on top of the other. I should make cute stickers on the front telling what's in each of them, I'm sure Martha Stewart has a template for that. She has one for everything else.

Since getting to Texas I have been keeping busy crafting and drawing. I took a pottery class at the South Padre Island Art Space and made a bird house using a slab roller. I would love to do more pottery but without handy access to a kiln it's something I will have to save for special occasions. I'm heading back to the SPI Art Space on the 6th of Jan to learn how to make a scarf by felting on netting. Sounds interesting and I know nothing about felting so will be a great learning experience for me.

I also lead a fun Arts and Crafts group in the community I live in. We meet every Wednesday morning and I try to come up with something interesting to do with the group. We started by learning some tangle pattern drawing and then got a little Christmas spirit going by making a felt wine bottle cover and then recycled advertising fliers into a little table top tree. I have 12 more Wednesdays to teach so will be busy looking for other interesting arts and crafts to do.

I'm pretty pleased with how my drawing is progressing. My "Zentangle" obsession has continued and expanded. I am trying to incorporate the tangle patterns into actual drawings and so far am really pleased with the results. Palm trees, sea turtles and tropical fish have joined the snowmen, ornaments and pine trees in my portfolio and everyone of them is decorated with swirls, bubbles, dots and crosshatches.

My winter of crafting is going great and I have lots of ideas for future projects. Living here in Brownsville, close to all the hobby shops really helps but I'm also having fun shopping on line for art supplies. I don't have those options back home in Saskatchewan during the summer so I plan to make the most of it. I will try to keep you posted as the winter moves to spring and if you have any ideas for my classes of for something you would like to see drawn up and tangled then leave a comment.

I would like to wish you the very Merriest of Christmas's. I hope that you are surrounded by family and friends, get at least one of the things you asked Santa for, eat lots, drink a little less than you eat and find peace and fulfillment this holiday season.

Lori

Crafting Season is starting!

How many Craftaholics are like me and can hardly wait for winter so we can settle into a cozy corner and try out the new craft ideas we saw during the busy summer?

With company, kids, cabins and cucumbers there just is no time during July, August and September for much crafting, but in October we can start browsing through the internet or craft shops for the newest and most exciting ideas to try when things finally slow down. Slow down...hmmm.

Well it's finally November and it's time to start crafting! And if we need an excuse, we have Christmas to prepare for. That means wreaths to hot glue, mittens to knit, scarves to crochet and cards to make. Have you seen that amazing new yarn called Ruffelina by Bernat? I saw a scarf made with it this summer and it was beautiful. Mary Maxim has it in pink for a Breast Cancer fundraising campaign, item # 1406732 but I have not seen it in any of the big craft supply stores yet. I will keep looking and keep you posted.

Scrap booking started being popular a long time ago and except for a half-hearted attempt at making some memory books for my 3 kids when I wanted to clean out some boxes of photographs I have never really spent much time doing it. Now that I have become obsessed with Zentangle patterns I have started paying more attention to scrapbook paper, pens and stamps. I have to come up with a purpose for all the Tangles I create. Maybe I will sent out some Handmade Christmas Cards this year.

Lurking through the internet looking for zentangle ideas often leads me to discover new artists. The things they do are amazing. This isn't the old "sticker and ribbon" type of scrapbooking either, what they make are called Art Journal pages. The pages are beautiful works of mixed media art. It's not unheard of to find paint, ink, fabric, stencils, stamps and amazing lettering all on one page. Check out Julie Jei-Fan Balzer at http://balzerdesigns.typepad.com/ . Her work is something else and she has lots of You-Tube instructions to view as well. Maybe she will inspire you to try something new, too.

So between my painting, tangling, knitting, embroidery and hopefully trying my hand at some quilting and art journal pages I think winter will be great fun and maybe even over before I know it.