Right now it's hot in Palm Springs. Friday it reached 118º and cooled down to, you ready? 93º. So to avoid the heat (even my dog will say no to a walk outside to pee) I paint.
After an orgy of painting to get ready for Halloween a friend suggested I do an inventory and number all the items I had created. I did just that; an inventory of all the items I have completed in the storeroom. Then those painted were logged in and numbered in an Excel spreadsheet. It was creeping up to 300 items. In the last 6 - 7 weeks I have done more than 30 items.
Tired of Halloween's black and orange and fresh off of inventorying all my items, I decided to clean out and arrange my studio yet again. I still couldn't find anything and in the process of putting books and paintings away, creating files for items I wanted to do, styles to study, I happened on a book of Zentangles, after finding page after page of them I had printed off the Internet and filed.
Looking at that book and the birdhouses I had purchased at JoAnn's, two shaped like a bird, two as teapots, I thought, why not take the two dimensional Zentangle's and put them them on a birdhouse? While they are everywhere, I had never seen a Zentangle on a birdhouse and here I had two different designs that begged for for this treatment.
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| The blank teapot. Here it looks like a birdhouse. Do I try to fool the birds? |
The challenge with any project we do is, what will we do with it? How can we design it to its best advantage? So I picked one up and started sketching on one of the teapots. Since I had already done two cutout bird shaped birdhouses, I wanted to get even more serious in converting a Zentangle. The first teapot was pretty good but I had bigger plans for #2.
The first thing was trying to decide what designs I wanted and then where I would put them. I didn't mind that they were different just that they would work together. And that is not always easy to do.
After discovering the black Sharpie pens would blur, and feather in the raw wood, I put a seal coat over everything and then sketched out the various designs. After trying several in each area with the trusty pink eraser nearby, I finally got what I thought would be attractive and create a co-hesive design.
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| Here you can see the pencil marks on top of the seal coat and the beginnings of the marking. |
The beauty of a Zentangle, no matter how complicated, is the contrast of black and white. I have however, also noticed the power and effectiveness of black, white (in this case light raw wood) and red. Playing with it as you can see to the left, this would create a strong yet attractive image.
So with black Sharpie in hand, with an ultra-fine point, I began to fill in the pencil lines listening to a James Lee Burke murder mystery audio book.
As the item progressed I added a few more lines and flourishes that brought the various parts, the spout, the handle, the body around the hole for birds more and more together.
Nearly everything I do has a heart in it somewhere and so, it wasn't all that hard to add them to the handle and around the entry to the birdhouse opening. Yet it is not paper; now and then imperfections of the wood would cause a wavery stroke.
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| Here you see much of the ink has covered the pencil outline. |
With the exception of the one red heart, all the black lines and fills were added first. Once I had a complete picture of the lines, the line weight and placement I felt that it would be easier to add another color, in this case red. It is a temptation to add more colors, alá adult coloring books but I felt a three-color palette was the way to go.
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Color makes the difference
jewels add a bit of sparkle.
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I added the hearts around the bird entry first and left only the single red heart on the handle.
The last problem was how to tie the lid and the base to the rest of the design. Since Zentangles are basically doodles, I played with the base using lines and arcs to echo the curves of the base and black and puffy paint red as lines on the lid echoed again on the base under the design above.
I tried using a Sharpie for the red hearts but it just didn't cover like the black. So with a liner brush in hand, and DecoArts Traditions Naphtha Red paint, I painted inside the lines of each red heart.
Art is alway an experiment. You get a blank surface and then try to fill it. Each time you paint or draw is an experiment even, as I saw in Shenzhen, where artists paint two, three or more paintings at the same time, of the same subject, you have one experiment even if there are multiples because we are human, no two are ever exactly the same!
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| The completed Zentangle Teapot Birdhouse |
It is this challenge that inspires the artist, the challenge to see what you can do, if you can create something that is both new and unique.
As a final touch I decided that some of the small "jewels" I had would both fit into the small holes near the entry and give it a bit of glitter. When it hangs there is a bit of sparkle that is just right ... not too much or too little.
Am I a good Zentangle artist, probably not. But I am not bad at finding a raw, blank surface and seeing its possibilities.
Finally you have the back. You can leave it plain but I felt that as this is a hanging birdhouse, the back had to have something, some color. I opted for a grey color so that it would not distract from the front ... the design, the color.
When you walk the craft aisles, be aware of the possibilities. Take a chance as I did. You might be surprised at what you can do!
Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed!
Be sure to check my ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. I am adding many new and exciting, collectible birdhouses and craft items. Many of the items talked about here will be for sale there!
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