Alice Hendon, Artangleology

Welcome to Gratitanglez 2021. Actually, Gratitanglez is the brain child of Lisa Anderson, CZT, who is graciously letting us tag along. November is typically when we stop and reflect on the good things in our lives. The people and things we are thankful for. Thankfulness and tangling go hand-in-hand. As we draw we can reflect on our blessings. Lisa put together this list of tangles for your use this month.  My FB group Tangle All Around will be working through November using Lisa's chosen tangles and being grateful. Don't think you have much to be thankful for? Stop for a moment and think. You are breathing - right now I would like to be able to breathe without being in pain, but I am breathing and I'm thankful for that. You have a shelter to protect you from the weather? A little food to eat each day? Someone who will smile back when you smile at them? I have decided to start each day with picking someone or something specific that I am thankful for and writing that in on...

OCTangling 2021 wraps up with this week and it has flown past! Almost time to start a new month with a new challenge. But that is fodder for another post. Hahahahaha! I would like to tell you I am going to be having surgery next week. You may remember the post I made about my journey up to this point. I finally got appointments with a pulmonologist, then a cardiothoracic surgeon who will be doing some cleanup and repair work on my lung. I expect to be in the hospital 4 - 5 days so it may be awhile before you hear from me again. Prayers are appreciated very much.  In the meantime, let me give you the remaining tangles for OCTangling 2021.  And that's it! I would love to see your work for OCTangling. I hope you were inspired to create and to continue creating. 

My friend Sandra is so good with what I am calling I Spy Art. I have tried it several times and have never been successful until this piece. Sandra probably does hers differently, for me I create a watercolor background of blobs here and there and start looking for anything that stands out. Like this 'blah! blah! blah!' guy. So. much. fun!!! Let me show you what I did.  I began with these supplies. Some Ecoline liquid watercolors from Royal Talens, a couple brushes including a black tulip brush from ZenART Supplies, and a sheet of watercolor paper - also from Ecoline. Any watercolor would work, I just really love these beautiful bright colors.  I used the mop brush to cover the whole page with water. A mop brush holds a lot of water and lets you work fast to cover a larger area quickly. And I started dropping in some color. The Ecoline liquids have an eye dropper inside to make it really easy. And everywhere I dropped color into the water - it started to bloom and spread....

  OCTangling week three is underway and we are working together in Tangle All Around on Facebook. You should totally join us! Hahaha! Yes, you should! This is my giant 10.5" tile with all the tangles through week three. Looks kind of grungy, doesn't it? That was intentional. I made it happen with a spray bottle of water. Let me show you more about OCTangling.  Here is the list we are working with. The numbers represent the dates of October. The first word is the tangle for the day. The second is the prompt given by Jake. You can incorporate it into your drawing. Or you can do what I am doing and ignore it. Hahahahaha! Here are the seven tangles for the week:  And those are them. A decent variety of easy to a little harder. To challenge you and develop your skills. I would suggest if you draw these steps in your journal or sketchbook, that you include the pattern name AND the name of the designer. It is always good to give credit where credit is due.  Need a tangly p...

  What is a textured tag, you might ask. Think layers. Layers of various types. Creative Crafty Friends on Facebook is hosting a swap this month where we make a textured tag to send to another member. In return someone else will send me a tag they made. I thought 'tags' - I have tags, I can totally do this swap! Hahaha! So I signed right up!  I figured as long as I was making a tag I should make one for myself as well. I expect to use it in my daily journal one day. I used Tim Holtz' distress ink pads and a blending tool to rub all this beautiful color onto the tags. The underneath paper is my working trash page. Now you see how I get all the pretty color on my trash paper. Hahahaha! I don't know if it absolutely necessary but I heat set the color on both tags using my heat gun .  And I started thinking about what layers I could use to add texture. My first layer of texture was the color. And I have a whole bag full of little bits and pieces of scraps from various co...

  OCTangling, 2021 is off to a great start! Here we are in week two already! So many beautiful pieces of art are showing up on social media. And in my FB group Tangle All Around ! My group receives a week's worth of tangles from me each weekend and they tangle them up during the week. Some are working on templates like this one. Some are drawing a tile each day. Some are working in sketchbooks. And every single one of them are doing the project the right way. This is my tile with the tangles for the first two weeks already drawn.  Here is the list I put together for Tangle All Around . The numbers are the dates of the month. The first word is the tangle, the second word is a prompt provided by Jake and INKtober. Feel free to incorporate the prompts or not. I personally am not using them but many people are. And they are making some really cool pieces of art! Here are the seven tangles for the week. We call the step by step directions 'step-outs'. Typically the first step is...