Things have been going…well, I guess just going here Iately. Father’s Day is tomorrow, and I have lots of feelings, but I don’t feel compelled to write about them. I decided I’d try the Divine Dove Zentangle.
I’d rather Zentangle.
So, I wasn’t intending to, but I accidentally got the June 2021 “Ethereal Desert” subscription box from Archer & Olive. (Get 15% off at A&O with my link.) The box included an A5 notebook with kraft paper in it. There’s no grid or lines printed on the pages, so I thought maybe it would be a good art journal. A place for me to test things, make notes about what I like, have a little therapy time without the burden of posting and editing video, and come up with some ideas that I might turn into my own tutorials for Patrons.
Wanting to put something down on the toned paper immediately, the first thing I drew was some Zen-scribbling with a white Gelly Roll pen when I was feeling all moody about cancer.
And the second thing I drew was the Divine Dove by TangledYogi 333—a tangle she designed that is a celebration of life. Fitting for me in this moment. I think I have mentioned this before, but I have been really into her YouTube channel since I took the Jesse Lane art class last month and learned more about using my Prismacolor pencils because she tends to color instead of shade everything with graphite.
In the tutorial, she colors the background between the dove and the flowers where the random tipple orbs are floating. I opted to leave that section untouched. I do love using the white colored pencil to highlight and add dimension relatively effortlessly.
TangledYogi 333 works on a hexagon tile. So I sketched in a hexagon lightly with pencil and later erased the guides. (Tip for creating a hexagon: draw a circle, mark points on the circle every 60 degrees, then draw straight lines connecting those points to close off the hexagon shape.)
I used the colors she uses in the video, but it’s neat to compare the difference in the appearance of the colors on the white paper she used versus the kraft paper I used.
The lighting is weird, but this is the color key I drew in the same notebook, so I could easily refer to them if I want to use them again for another tangle. (Btw, I have a colored pencil board on Pinterest if you’re looking for inspiration for your Zentangle art. Some of the pins include reference pictures with the specific Prismacolor pencils used—which is super handy.)
Outer space is beautiful, isn’t it? Today I wanted to take a stab at cosmic doodle coloring. I used my Bianyo dual-tipped alcohol markers, and a 3-in x 3-in tile to see what I could whip up. I like how this turned out, and drawing it on such a tiny square kept me from getting too overwhelmed. Blinking cursors on a blank page haven’t intimidated me for a long time, but picking up tools to draw always scares me a bit. I’m usually worried I’m about to waste a perfectly good piece of paper.
Before I met Dan, I wasn’t really into much space or science fiction. It’s not that I disliked it, I just wasn’t in the habit of watching it. But after I met Dan, we started watching science fiction a lot. The first show I remember really enjoying was Stargate: Universe. I remember watching a couple of scenes from the observation deck of the Destiny and just thinking to myself how breathtaking it would be to see space from a vantage point like that.
I also watched the Cosmos series with Neil deGrass Tyson and started listening to audio books about space and astrophysics to lull me to sleep each night. Thinking about the vastness of space was a comfort for a lot of reasons, including that it made brain cancer seem so small and insignificant by comparison.
Anyway, from there I became interested in space photography and the art in science fiction and I thought: I want to try drawing something cosmic. And, well, here we are. I hope you enjoy the video.
MATERIALS
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I hit the the 50,000 word threshold on the memoir last week, and then I put the manuscript away. It’s very nearly ready to hand off to Dan for structuring feedback. However, there are a few reasons I’m waiting:
I’m not “feeling it” at the moment, and pushing forward before I’m ready will only result in wasted effort. (Ask me how I know.)
I want to print the manuscript, because I need a tangible thing to craft at this stage. But my printer’s out of ink, and it’ll cost about $25 to print the current MS at Staples or Kinko’s. So, next paycheck.
While the memoir is on hold, I’m working at making videos for my YouTube channel.
Sometimes I can’t tell if things are genuinely hard (and would be for anyone) or if my brain is slower because of the cancer and treatment. For example, it took me three long, crank-filled days to figure out why my phone kept forcing videos to record in portrait mode instead of landscape.
Anyway, if you’re interested in looking at the progression of my work, watch my videos on coloring and Zentangling. They’re going to get better, I promise!
