OCTangling, 2021 Begins

OCTangling, 2021 has begun and I am seeing some beautiful pieces of art being built. Don't know what OCTangling is? Each year Jake Parker holds an event where he encourages us to draw one piece of art each day. He provides prompts for inspiration and in Tangle All Around I have been adding a specific pattern for the day. Last year there were some lawsuits going on because people were using his name for their own projects. (I thought that was the implied intention.) So I changed the name of our event to OCTangling. Which we do all month long in October. So let me show you how I set up my first week. 

I recently had a birthday and Mark got me this set of watercolors I had been eyeing on Amazon for some time. What a great surprise and what perfect timing! I drew out a template with 31 spaces - one for each day of October. If you come to Tangle All Around on FB we have about ten of these templates to help you get started. Or you can design your own.

Since I already knew I was going to paint this template with watercolors, I used a waterproof technical pen from Zebra Pen to draw my template. Using a waterproof pen meant I could paint wet media all over this tile without having to worry about the black ink lines smearing. It did not help me keep the color in the right places. Hahahaha! I have been having a bit of a vision issue later in the afternoons which is when I chose to paint this tile. But not to worry. I had an idea already growing. 

My idea was to make it look like I meant for this to look this way. That I meant to make my color grungy and messed up looking. So I took my bottle of water and sprayed water all over the painted section and let the colors run where they may.

And this is dry. Now you don't notice those places where my hand and eyes weren't working together so well. As you can probably tell, I was also working on a color wheel thought. I had not used these Sennelier paints yet and I wanted to test the range of color. And that is what you are seeing in these photos. Me playing. Hahahaha!

As I added rings of color I just kept spraying everything with water. Even the ring I had already done. Then let it dry naturally. A heat gun would work, but I wanted to let the colors mingle as much as possible. 

I noticed in the larger area the colors did not mix so much as they lightened within themselves and gathered more texture.  And that's ok. I am all about texture. 

And here is my 10.5" tile all colored and ready to fill with tangles for OCTangling! Each week I give my group directions or 'step-outs' for seven patterns to use that week. Anywhere in their template that they wish to fit them in.

And here is my week one completed. Because the first of the month fell on the day before I normally post in my group - this week they got eight patterns. On my tile my favorite tangles get larger spaces so I can enjoy them. The ones I like less get relegated to the smaller spaces. Hahahahaha! And there was one I did not like at all so I substituted my go-to tangle of printemps in its place. 

Feel free to come to Tangle All Around on FB and join us. And just in case you don't choose to participate on FB - here is a little more information. This list shows you the tangle and a prompt for inspiration by the date number of the month. I try to use tangles that are new or unfamiliar to my group. Here are the eight we started with for October 1st - 8th. 

And that's it :). Easy peasy. You got this! Five minutes a day usually and by the end of the month you will have a piece of art worthy of hanging on your wall. Come join us.

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Technical Pens from Zebra Pen can be purchased here.