blackpenny's other world

[blackpenny]

Yesterday I went to a Day of Crafts class, and these are the projects we did.

Book: We covered pieces of chip board with aluminum foil, drew designs with a stylus, painted on black craft paint, removed some of it, and dabbed on alcohol inks. I have plum coloured ink around one fingernail, but I did get all the black paint off. I'd like to do another one, if I can find some chip board the right size with holes already in it, and letters already cut out.


Styrofoam plate printing: We cut out the flat part of Styrofoam plates, drew designs with a ball point pen or stylus, and printed them using block printing ink.
 

Gift box: We wrote with whatever pens we wanted on brown paper, crumpled it, tore it in pieces, and covered a box and two paintbrushes. I used pens with gold in them, and my hands were covered with gold and glue by the time I finished. We're supposed to give it to our best artistic friend. I've decided to be my own best friend.



We also did Zentangles, based on this: zentangle.com/about-what-is--1.php
I didn't get very far in my attempt, I was trying to wrap my mind around using an actual pen instead of the computer. I do want to finish one just to say I did.

These are the pencils I bought. They write with different colours as you turn them around. Once I saw them, I had to have them.
 

[venicet]

Blackpenny.... oooooOOOoooooo paper crafts! Until I found this site it used to be my favorite thing to do LOL Scrapbooking, cardmaking.... love it. Have a small room downstairs literally bursting with supplies that are starting to get dusty LOL

Love the pencils. They look like fun to use. Coloring with them would bring some pretty interesting results I bet.

The book looks pretty interesting. Looks like something you could do with a photo album to personalize it.

The styrofoam plate printing looks too much like stamping. LOL For some reason I don't like stamping although I have a rolling cart of stamps, inks and embossing powders. Wish you were closer so you could borrow some! LOL

The gift box is pretty. Kinda looks like something I did with tissue paper, sparkle glue and 3d foiling on glass to make candle holders. Messy but fun! Good idea to be your own best friend! Sounds like something I'd do LOLOL

Zentangles are still kind of hard for me to understand for some reason. I guess I'll have to see an actual picture. was it fun to do once you figured it out?

[blackpenny]

Venicet, how did you live in Calgary and not join the calligraphy guild? It's been going for thirty years, I've been a member for 16 or 17 years. We do all kinds of paper crafts, and the instructors are so talented.

I've done things similar to the torn paper too. I'm not crazy about stamping either, I sold a bunch a year ago, but kept a few to use with polymer clay.

I'm not sure I have figured out Zentangles, but there are decent pictures on the site. Mine look like crap, but I was happy just doodling. What it reminded me of is this drawing exercise: www.nitaleland.com/project/linecolor.htm. I've played with it a lot, and it's really fun. The other projects are great too, I could spend hours there. www.nitaleland.com/projects.htm

[venicet]

I didn't live in the city 30 years ago. It's been about 33 years since I lived there. LOL and I was in highschool and had just learned calligraphy in art class. I went to Bishop Grandin if you live in the SE part you might know of it.

You use polymer clay too?? gosh I wish you lived closer! LOL I have all the toys and haven't even started using it yet. I'll check out the website after work tomorrow night. I just spent a couple of hours glamorizing a photo for a friend's friend and blurring out the background so all you focus on is her. Whitened her teeth, got rid of blemishes, colored the eyes to make them browner, put lipstick on her, dulled shine on skin from the flash, and fixed her eyeliner that was starting to smudge. LOL it was fun. I just did a bit of that on a pic of myself so that the pic hardly even looks like me...

[barbieq25]

Glad you posted the results of some of your efforts here. The book cover looks fantastic! I sure wished I lived near you gals too.

[blackpenny]

Ha! 33 years ago I was in high school in Ontario, actually just graduated. We didn't have an art class. I didn't learn calligraphy until just before I joined the guild, and my handwriting is still abysmal. If you lived here I'm sure you would join and be at all the workshops.

I think the most fun part of the workshop was seeing the people I haven't seen in ages, and meeting the people I hadn't seen before at all. I've been dormant for a while, but I'm slowly drifting back in. Still, I like it here because I don't have to clean up anything.

Oh yeah, thanks for the comments! It would be great if we all lived near each other.

[Helen]

Thank you for sharing such goodies! Love different types of crafts, especially paper crafts. For some reason, I never had a liking to scrapbooking, but it's probably because I feel sorry for the photos if they're cut up or drawn on. I know. It's weird. The pencils are so cool! I used to own a pack of similar ones, but that was way back and I wish I had some right now.

[venicet]

Yikes. I'm going to hijack your gallery for a bit blackpenny to talk to Helen. LOL

Helen, I had that problem at first too. I spent a few years just learning techniques and how to use all the toys and making cards which were less intimidating and not as costly to abandon. LOL
I finally started printing up copies of pictures and not actually cutting up any originals. The more I do, the more I come to realize that cutting up the pics is good. You just see the important stuff.
Actually, the main reason I ended up here was to do photo retouching of scanned photos and somehow got sidetracked into digital art!! Geez, just figured that out tonight LOL

[blackpenny]

No problem, venicet! I like when we have these discussions, because there's always something to learn. Besides, I'm used to going off-topic.

I'm not crazy about scrapbooking either. I took one class and brought copies of my photos because I didn't want to cut them up. Of course with digital it's not so much an issue because the originals are on the computer. I even made a title page for a scrapbook of my dog's pictures, but didn't get any farther than the page I did in the class.

My reason for being here was first to resize and adjust images for a newsletter and website. Then I was following HTML tutorials and wanted to make a background image. After I found the plugins and tutorials, that was it, everything else didn't exist anymore. ;D

[venicet]

haha, that's funny. I wonder how everyone else ended up here? I suspect the answers are as varied as there are folks here. It's amazing how easy it is to get addicted to this stuff. I wish I had found this BEFORE I spent all that money on scrapbooking stuff!! LOL

[blackpenny]

The weekend of November 17/18, I went to a calligraphy workshop. The instructor posted pictures on her blog.

www.lisaletters.blogspot.ca/

At the far right there is a link to her Flickr site. Click Sets under her name at the top, then Nov 16, 2012, and you get a page of thumbnails.

The ones I did are "chaos" in white on black, "wonder" in gold on black, "harmony" in pencil, a bunch of "D"s. Some are just lettering. It was loads of fun. Great to be with everyone and inspiring on another.

The third page has pics from the Monday / Tuesday class - Bali Lanterns. I didn't take that one, but it looks like fun too.

ETA - fixed link, I think.

[Helen]

It says, "Page Not Found." Maybe you can load another link? I really want to see it!

[blackpenny]

Well, that's annoying. For some reason the links to Flickr don't work, so I posted a link to her blog, and from there you click her link to Flickr.

You can either click Sets and Nov 16, 2012, or go page by page from the first page. The first 4 pages are Bali Lanterns, the lettering starts on page 5. All the ones with the date Nov 22 are from the two workshops and around Calgary.

I've been doodling a little since then, playing with my different pens and markers. I also bought a copy of her book.

I told her about Paint.Net and she seemed really interested.

[Helen]

Aha. Got it. The link is working. You've done some nice writing! I like thicker calligraphy and it's awesome how you have different styles.

[barbieq25]

Wow, BP some lovely things you've got going on here

[blackpenny]

Thanks Helen & Barbie! I don't do my best work in workshops, I'm more comfortable in my own space. But I've been playing with some of the ideas.

I've also been reorganizing my pens and markers, checked them out yesterday and tossed the ones that don't work anymore. They're all spread out on the dining room table. Good thing we don't use it much for dining.

[Helen]

I work better at my own workspace, too. Like in high school I remember drawing in class and everyone was done with their assignments and I wouldn't be. I had to take it home and then complete it there.

[blackpenny]

A couple of weekends ago I went to a calligraphy class - the Letters of the Saint John's Bible. This is the Saint John's Bible. We looked at the lettering and tried to replicate, with our own style. Here is a sampling of what I did.

[Goonfella]

Very nice BP. I like `inebriates' for some reason!

[blackpenny]

Thanks Goonie. It was fun trying to figure out how all the letters were done.

Check out the real Bible, it is awesome.

[blackpenny]

A couple of weeks ago I went to some calligraphy workshops with an instructor from England.

The first workshop, on Saturday and Sunday, was called "Love and Joy About Letters". This is some of the lettering we learned. I was having problems with the ink bleeding and blobbing.





Monday and Tuesday was "The Spirit of Invention". We did ABC all day Monday with different tools. I used a ruling pen for the first one and a pointed brush for the other two. My pointed brush work didn't suck as much as I thought it would.



On Tuesday we worked with a quote of our choice, over and over with the letters intermingling within the lines. My quote was "Life is trying things to see if they work" by Ray Bradbury. Around 3 pm - the workshop ended at 4 - I did this. LOL!