Tag Archives: watercolor pencils

March Classes Starting at The Alcazar in Cleveland Heights

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I’m so excited about my series of Zentangle classes starting at the Alcazar in March!  The classes are every Thursday (see details below) and are at such a great location — if you’ve never been to The Alcazar, it’s worth stopping in to see what a beautiful building it is.  It was built in 1923 and its Spanish/Moorish design was inspired by the Alcazar and Ponce de Leon Hotels in St. Augustine, Florida.  Early residents of the Hotel included Cole Porter, Johnny Weissmuller and Bob Hope.  Bottom line: it’s a very cool place and I’m thrilled to be able to offer classes there!!!

Dear readers — please drop me a line (ellendarby@gmail.com) if you have a special art item (brush, paper, pen, music that inspires) that you love and would like to share on this blog.  C’mon, don’t be shy.  It’s always fun to learn what others love to use.

Below are class dates and times for the month of March:

March Schedule of Classes

(All held at the Alcazar):

Thursday, March 1, 6:30 p.m.

Zentangle 101

Cost: $35.00 per person + $6.00 supplies fee

Description: This is the perfect way to be introduced to Zentangle. You will learn an assortment of tangle styles and create three Zentangle tiles of your own.

Thursday, March 8, 6:30 p.m.

Zentangle 101

Cost:  $35.00 per person + $6.00 supplies fee

Description: This is the perfect way to be introduced to Zentangle. You will learn an assortment of tangle styles and create three Zentangle tiles of your own.

Thursday, March 15, 6:30 p.m.

Zentangle 101

Cost: $35.00 per person + $6.00 supplies fee

Description: This is the perfect way to be introduced to Zentangle. You will learn an assortment of tangle styles and create three Zentangle tiles of your own.

Thursday, March 22, 2 p.m.

Zentangle 101

Cost:  $35.00 per person + $6.00 supplies fee

Description:  This is the perfect way to be introduced to Zentangle.  You will learn an assortment of tangle styles and create three Zentangle tiles of you rown.

Thursday, March 29, 6:30 p.m.

Zentangle 201 (Beyond the Basics)

(prerequisite: Zentangle 101)

Cost:  $35.00 per person – please bring supplies from Zentangle 101 class

Description:  This workshop is designed to help you create more advanced tangles.  We will discuss ZIA (Zentangle Inspired Art) and discover how to use your individual tangles to create expressively unique art pieces.

Maximum of 8 persons per class.

Please reserve space by calling me at (216) 526-2809

I accept Master Card, VISA, American Express and Discover.

Inktense Water Color Pencils

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Hi Everyone,

Welcome back!  Or . . . welcome for the very first time!

As promised, each blog post is going to be about an art “ingredient:” a paint, a brush, a pen, inspiring music . . . whatever gives you joy when you are creating.

I recently discovered Derwent Inktense colored pencils, a relatively new pencil and I really love them! (nope, not working for Derwent!)

Afraid of watercolor?  Have you ever tried it and been discouraged?  I have.   Watercolor can be very unforgiving and therefore intimidating.  But now there is a very cool way to do watercolor drawings and paintings on watercolor paper, other paper including your sketch book and journal . . . and even fabric!!!

Inktense pencils are no ordinary watercolor pencils – they are actually “ink” pencils and are super easy to use.  They allow very intense colors and are especially unique because once the pencils dry, you have a permanent, waterproof, intensely brilliant and beautiful ink color.  This means you can apply other product on top (wet or dry) and don’t have to worry about smudging or having the color lift.  Nice, eh?

I’ve been playing with them and experimenting with different ways to use Inktense.

I thought using hearts in the examples below was appropriate since Valentine’s day is just around the corner but mainly because . . . I love drawing hearts!

These are quick sketches using the just the Inktense pencil:

Humm, how did that shadow get in there?

1-2-3

This next photo shows the steps of covering an area with pencil, then applying water and watching the magic!

You can also wet your brush and pull the color directly from the pencil.

Brush in water

Capture ink with brush

Fill in heart

Here’s another way:  Lay down the color on a palette (a piece of paper will do) and then use this as your watercolor “paint block.”

Scribbling on paper palette

Wet brush in palette

Filled in heart

You can also mix colors!!!

First I laid down Poppy Red on the paper.  Then covered it with Sun Yellow. Yummy!

Fabric!

OK, how about fabric!  I experimented and Inktense is excellent on fabric.  But we really need to do a very easy prep first.

On the left is a piece of heavy muslin that had white gesso painted over it.  Worked great.

This is a very lightweight muslin with no prep.

Whoops — much

bleeding from the ink.

This is the same very lightweight muslin on which I applied clear gesso.  Quick & easy!

And it worked beautifully.

Bottom line:  Inktense pencils works great on fabric — just lay some gesso down first (clear gesso if you want the color of the fabric to show through) and let it dry.  Then have fun!  I can’t wait to keep playing!  I understand these pencils also work well on silk, but I haven’t tried that yet.  I’m more of a muslin kind of girl!   :)

Love!

OK, I think I’m in love.  Some organic apples in the kitchen (from Whole Foods of course!) just caught my eye because of the red and yellow colors and so decided to draw one with the red and yellow pencils I’ve been using for the blog.  If I had tried this in watercolor, I would have been in tears.  But it was so much fun with the pencils.  Yup, definitely in love!!!

Please contact me if you have an art product you love and would like to feature on this blog.  This is what the blog is all about – sharing, inspiration, discovery!

And if you haven’t visited my Zentangle® website yet, please stop by!!!

And hitting “Like” on my Facebook page would be very cool and much appreciated!

Until we (he)ARTagain,

ellen

Welcome to my new blog — all about art, artists, art supplies and Zentangle!

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This is so exciting — my very first post.  Thanks for stopping by!

I began this first post on my flight back to Cleveland from Seattle, Washington where my two amazing friends, Relaena and Kim, marketing and design gurus (not to mention: very cool women), miraculously sifted through and made sense of the multitude of photos, art, text and ideas I brought with me from Cleveland in order to create my web site, tanglewithzen.com, and get me started on my new, exciting adventure.

First step in this adventure is the offering of Zentangle® workshops (details found here).  Look for other workshops to be offered in the future — workshops in journaling, collage, photography and more.

But . . . let’s get to the intention of this blog.  I LOVE ART SUPPLIES!  I love using them, buying them, researching them, comparing them, experimenting with them, even watching others use them.  I love hearing what supplies others love, and this is what I want to share with everyone on this bog.  My intention is to reach out to other artists, find out their favorite art ingredients (brush, paint, paper, pencil — hey, even music that inspires creativity) and share this information with the world.  Well . . . with all who read my blog that is.   (Interested?  Let me know!)

I am in the process of creating my next post which will be on Derwent’s Inktense watercolor pencils which I recently discovered and am really enjoying.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

ellen