Today's Discovery in Creativity

This is today's tile.  I tried several new patterns such as "purk", "paradox" and "facets".  I'm not doing so great with designs that are heavy on the squares and triangles.  That doesn't come naturally for me.  Not sure why.  So, I decided to practice some geometric designs. 

This is what I got.  I tried doing the lines differently so that it created varied shading.  I wasn't crazy about the end result.  So, I tried to do just one square at a time.  This practice was done with a Platinum Preppy inked with R&K Verdigris.   

This was the result.  Do you remember Spirograph?  I reminds me of that.  I just took a square and then made arcs from corner to corner, turning the page to draw each arc.  It's not facets.  It's different.  There is probably a real name for this tangle pattern, but for now, it's my breakthrough in perseverance and giving myself some grace.

Happy with my "outside the box" thinking with the squares and arcs, I decided to try a tile that focused on square or triangle patterns.  The square/arcs experiment can be seen in the middle/upper right.  I purposely chose an odd shape with four sides for that particular exercise.  Then, to the left of that, I tried to do half of facets, but in my own way.  I drew lines from the center to the corners.  It's definitely not "facets", but it was more fun for me.   I realize that the result does look borderline "swirly", but really it's triangles with lines drawn from corner to corner.   I used an Esterbrook with 9461 nib (dry pen) and Diamine Eclipse (wet ink) for this exercise.

And so, that's sort of where the transformation took place today.  I couldn't get the hang of "facets".  So, I attempted my own interpretation.  So, then I decided to try some other new things.  I combined "feathers", "fescu" and "sez" and made this.  You can see my humble beginning in the upper left corner.  I didn't care for the end result, so I tried again.  and I liked it.  So, I did some more.   I really like peacock feathers, and that's what this reminds me of.  This was very pleasant and made me feel as though I had a breakthrough today.  I almost actually drew something.  By myself.  I can't remember the last time that I drew something that I liked, or drew something without "copying".  If that makes sense at all.  

I was so happy that I had a little fun with Instagram to memorialize the occasion.

Tangles with Pens and Inks

I am new to the world of Zentangle, but was encouraged to do so in an effort to try and "find my inner artist".  I have always said, "I can't draw".  But, now I'm making progress.  I have only been trying my hand at this for about a week, but I am enjoying this activity, and learning to do something that I didn't know how to do before.   

I like swirly things.

This reminds me of the Death Star.  Kinda.  =)

For this tile, I decided to "tangle my name", meaning that I chose a tangle pattern that began with each letter of my name.  I think the end result looks like the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.  I laugh every time I look at it.  No, seriously.  I'm LMAO.   

This was an effort to participate in a weekly tangle challenge.  Don't think I'll be submitting it, but most of these patterns here are patterns that I had not attempted before.

The drawings above were done with a Pigma Micron and pencil.  Here, I decided to have a little fun with R&K Alt-Goldgrun.  Just because it happened to be loaded in a pen within arms reach.  To be honest, it's not one of my favorite inks to write with, but was great fun to draw swirly things with.  

I used a Levenger True Writer with medium nib, because it happened to be within arms reach.  The True Writer was very lovely to draw with, but if I were to attempt something like this again, I would use a pen with a fine or extra fine nib. 

I really enjoyed drawing in color.

Pilot Iroshizuku Tsuki-yo (Moonlight) / Diamine Twilight / Rohrer and Klingner Verdigris

*9/15/2012:  Note to reader: please also refer to my review Pilot Iroshizuku Tsuki-Yo: Revisited.

This week I decided to try a new ink in my TWSBI, so I chose Pilot Iroshizuku Tsuki-yo (Moonlight) since it's darkish, blue-black nature would be appropriate for office and otherwise. I used this ink daily, throughout the week, and was happy with its overall performance, but, in the end, I'm not entirely crazy about the color.

In particular, I have been most curious about this dark green/blue/black "family" of inks, and decided to include some swabs of Diamine Twilight and Rohrer & Klingner Verdigris. All three inks are new to me, and Tsuki-yo is the only one of the three that I've used extensively up until this point. I had imagined these three to appear so similar as to be almost indistinguishable. But that's not the case at all. I was surprised at the results of the swab test: compared to Twilight and Verdigris, Tsuki-yo almost comes across like a dark turquoise. To my eye, at least.

Tsuki-yo performed admirably for me this week, including on cheap Staples legal pads that we use at work. However, I won't be rushing to buy a bottle of this one since I much prefer a darker blue-black.

Interestingly, the R&K Verdigris went down on the paper a very greenish, blue-black but dried a dark blue with a slight violet undertone to it. Of the three, Twilight strikes my fancy because it reflects a nice balance of dark blue-black with only a slight hint of green, and also has a bit of sheen to it. Ironically, while Diamine Twilight is named after the evening sky, it really reminds me of ocean waters.