Diva and doodles, and links to all sorts of places...

Here's face 17 for 29 faces ....Izzy Plum
She's an attorney and she's the DIVA of the court room. She carries a pistol on weekends and she has a huge belly laugh that has gotten her into trouble more than a few times. She is not afraid of the dark but she is afraid of squirrels.

I'm submitting this to InspirationAvenue as their theme is Divas this week.

And here's a few doodles in my Book of Days where i've been trying to write things that make me happy, small pleasures, things I'm thankful for ... if I end up writing something negative I cover over it,.... some things I was thankful for this week...

chocolate covered strawberries
red lobster crab legs
a quiet evening
sweet walter red
not having to testify
and zentangles...

This last one was for a challenge to add the four diamonds logo to your zentangle over at this site. Go and read her story about this fundraiser...
I zentangled till I ran out of pens,

And I did some blind contour drawings from Carla sonheim's book, Cameron at paint myself pretty is working through the book and inviting us all to join so here's my blind contour drawings. This is hard not to look at your page or your hand, and only at your subject.... but fun anyway...

 then here is the mandala I made last week, I didn't finish one this week...

Happy paint party friday

and BE HAPPY!

Day 3 and the TONS of art I promised...

For those of you who haven't been following the 29 faces over at Ilike2paint... here's my 3rd of 29 faces, one a day in February. This is Thistle. She's tall, she's lanky and good at ice skating and soccer. She doesn't like to read but is a huge movie buff. Hoosiers is her all time favorite.

and... if you saw my post on tuesday you know I promised a ton of art due to 2 new obsessions...

I've known about zentangles before, it's hard not to, they're everywhere on line but I hadn't really checked it all out completely. Once you do you are addicted. I love the look, I love the relaxing way they just sort of flow out of your pen. I love that all the little patterns have names, and you can sort of collect little cards with the patterns on them for when you need inspiration, or you can make up your own. I did both. The book I did these in is great! I won it through the sketchbook challenge and the paper is so thick that my sharpie didn't even bleed through to the back, and it took watercolors too. I wish I knew where to get more. Here's  some of the sites I've been watching videos on and /or checking out for patterns...

the creators
a great site for patterns

 and on to my second new obsession: Mandalas

Sorry my photos of these aren't the best, not enough light... I watched a free mandala video here,just love making them!
And another big surprise to me but will be a shock to noone else: there are hundreds of mandala art videos on you-tube. I had only ever watched music videos on you-tube but there are just sooooo many great art tutorials. I know, I'm so slow to catch on. I thought it was my own original idea to combine the two: zentangles and mandalas  in my latest piece, but NO, I found tons of them online after I did it and even a whole book devoted to the two! Once you start you just want to make more....

then on to my book of days...

I haven't even finished writing in my lists of small pleasures in the last page yet. I'm running out of time or I'd give you the links to about 4 sites that offer free art journaling videos each week.... next week I will
Happy paint party friday and you know you need to go check out some of these sites and some videos!