Category Archives: Wonder Wednesday

Because wonder means to be filled with adoration, amazement, or awe and I’m always amazed at the things I create

~ Lifeofjoy.me

The Gift of Tangles and a Knit Dish Cloth

Over on the facebook group Tangling All Around, Alice has a project for December called The Gift of Tangles. I have been enticed to try it but I’ll be honest, my go-to when I’m relaxing is to play games on my laptop (hidden object or match 3) or Switch (too many to list ;) ).

However, having said that, she has shared a couple of tangles that I will attempt when next I feel like putting pen to paper. Walk the Line which you can find on Tangle Patterns here. The other is Frosty which can be found over on Pattern-Collections here.

The other thing I like to do is watch movies. And since it happens to be Christmastime, there is an abundance of Christmas movies available. I either play my laptop games or some kind of handwork while watching movies. I knitted this dish cloth this week.

I promise to get back to normal after the new year, although I am considering taking a hiatus and doing some major overhauling on the website in the new year. So much to think about.

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº

No Art Today; Dad’s Memorial Service Planned

I’m sorry. I have been doing so much the last week that I have not done one stroke of art. And honestly, I don’t have it in me right now.

Daddy’s Memorial service is scheduled for Saturday at 2pm. Here’s the obituary for him.

Thank you so much for your continued prayers, they are felt and appreciated. We were not ready for him to leave us and it was extremely unexpected! We just knew he would be better soon and back home with Momma.

I hope you have a great day.

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº

A Little Foil Hollis

I went with another scratch-off tile this week, except this one is the gold foil. I knew it wasn’t going to scan or photograph well, but I wanted the shine of the gold foil for the holiday. :)

One of the Gratitangles for the week is Hollis. I’m not good friends with this tangle but I thought its scrolliness would be nice on the tile. Once I got it on the tile, I realized that my curves/hooks are not as pronounced as they should be, so maybe next time it’ll be better.

I also decided that I wanted more of the gold to show through, so I started “filling” some of the Hollis lines. Some I completely scratched off, others I dotted, and others I stripped.

Then I felt it was still a bit bare, so I added in a few small scrolls/swirls. Then I overdid it. :( But it is what it is.

Here are the pictures. Of course I did this after dark on this rainy and overcast day, so it isn’t natural light. It doesn’t show up very good but here it is anyway.

This first one is the scan…it didn’t turn out at all.

From this angle it doesn’t look like it is shiny gold foil.But it sure is. :) In this angle you can almost see that it is gold. ;) Well, I hope you Americans have a lovely Thanksgiving tomorrow. Ours will be odd but I’m sure it will be good.

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº

Rainbow Rixty Scratch-Off

I needed an easy tile today, so I pulled out the scratch-off tiles. I settled on the rainbow one because I know it will photograph well and I didn’t want any struggles. :D It’s been a crazy week, of which I will elaborate on Friday, but I needed easy today.

One of the week’s tangles for Gratitangles 2020 is Rixty. With its blackened bit, I thought it would look nice on the rainbow tile.

Christmas Present ~ LifeOfJoy.me

So without further adieu, here’s the scan my tile.

I couldn’t find the scratch-off “pencil” that came with it when I started, so I used a skewer. :D And now as I write this I remember that it is in my pen case, with my other tangling supplies. :D

Here is a picture I took . . . once again, I did this after dark so there was no natural lighting. :D

You can see I have some of the scrapings on my finger. ;)

One of the things I like about these tiles is that there is no shading. :) It was fun to do and enjoy the outcome without feeling the need to shade it.

I hope this inspires you to try your hand at some drawing, be it doodling, tangling, or some thing else. It’s good for you.

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº

Gratitangle: Shattuck, Zenith, Poke Root, and Rain

The strings fir this week for the Gratitangles 2020 project were created digitally by Genevieve Crabe for Alice’s, leader of Tangles All Around facebook group, book Tangle Starts Strings. I chose the one with squares. I thought it would be a bit easier to recreate the string than the other options but it was not simple. Mine turned out a little wonky but that’s okay because it adds to the charm of it all. :Dtangle starts string squares by crabe ~ Lifeofjoy.me

Unfortunately I forgot to get a picture of the tile after I drew the string but this is what it was supposed to look like. ;) To say mine was not that precise is an understatement. :D

As you already know by the title of the page, of the seven tangles suggested I chose Shattuck, Zenith, Rain, and Poke Root.

Shattuck is the first one chosen as I figured i could make it work in the spaces provided. However my shattuck seems to be a cross between shattuck and crescent moon. ;) Originally I had planned to only use two tangles but after starting to tangle shattuck, I decided that it needed to stop after one quadrant.

Rain surprised me. I wasn’t sure if I could make it work in the space but I like how it turned out. And because I liked that, I went ahead with Zenith. I have not used Zenith very many times. It’s not been one I’ve really liked but using it on this tile, I liked it and it is very straight forward too.

The last one I used was Poke Root. Admittedly, not my favorite tangle but other choices were Betweed, Auraknot, and Mooka. Although I have made friends with Betweed, I couldn’t see me getting that one on this string without frustration. Auraknot and I have not become friends yet, although I can tangle it but I couldn’t see how to do so in the space provided. Same goes for Mooka. So Poke Root won in the end, by default. :D

Here is the scan of my tile before shading.

With it being autumn and back to normal time, it gets dark way to early for this procrastinator to get natural light pictures. So here is a picture I took inside with a flash. ;)

Then I did some shading. I used my mechanical pencil for some of it because the spaces were so small that I wanted that fine point to get to them. ;)

First the scan then the pic.

I like how it turned out. However looking at it now, I can see that it would have been cool if I had just used one tangle throughout the whole tile. Hmmmm . . .

I’m very thankful for my hubby! He has put up with me for over thirty years. :) Our lives are a lot like this string, looped together and connected to other family. I guess, I’ll have to add the word HUBBY to the bottom of that tile; it is Gratitangles, after all. ;)

Well, that is all for me today. I hope you are taking time to be creative at least a little throughout your day/week. I’m very glad for this day on my blog because it forces me to actually DO some art. I love it but I don’t always take the time to DO it.

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº

Gratitangles 2020: Fife

Well, clearly I did not do Inktober! :D It’s okay though; I’m not going to beat myself up about it. However, I remembered that Alice from Tangles All Around facebook group said she had some new project for November, so I decided to check it out.

Turns out it is the yearly Gratitangles by Lisa Anderson CZT. I’m not going to be legalistic with it though. I’ll do at least one a week. ;)

Oh, the suggestion is to put something for which you are thankful on the tile. Mine today is Family. :) It is always the first thing for which I am thankful and then when I think of the next thing, I remember I am soooo very thankful for God and all Jesus has done for us.

So on this first #gratitangle2020 I am using the suggested tangle for November 3rd: Fife. With the time change, I didn’t get my tile done early enough to take any pictures outside. :( So I did the best I could.

I decided to write Family across the middle. Unfortunately, I started it a little to close to the center and it went too close to the right edge but it works. No family is perfect. :D

 

Then I put in the dots for Fife and started connecting them.

 

And then I realized I hadn’t finished the tangle. :p

Then I searched for some Fife examples and and realized that I really like it with blackened sections. Here’s the scan of the finished tile.

I added a bit of shading. I like how it turned out but I probably could’ve added even more shading. I seem to be a bit light-handed where shading is concerned. I guess I’m still afraid of ruining all my efforts. ;)

Here are some pictures of the completed piece.

I truly am very thankful for family–all of my family! I’m so blessed with a wonderful daughter-in-love who enjoys spending time with us and makes every effort to ensure her son knows, loves, and enjoys his grandparents, in spite of them living two hours away. I love you Lauren and am thankful for you and all you do. :)

Well, that’s my art for this week. It felt good to do some lettering and tangling again. Tiffany and I are wanting to do another Bob Ross painting. We thought we might do one yesterday and even talked about it as we drove to our polling place but I enjoyed talking with Lauren and Liam when we got home and Tiff and I never did get around to that painting. :D Maybe tomorrow we will.

I hope you will do something creative–it’s really good for you.

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº

Art Supplies from an Unusual Place

When I’m just learning a new art form, I’m not real picky about my supplies. Sometimes that works out okay and other times not so much. ;)

Every time I go into a Ross store, it takes me a long time to get out because I love the entire store. I’ve gone in to look for clothes but I have also gone in just to look at their housewares. Did you know that they sell a pink Himalayan salt, very reasonably priced most of the time?

I love looking at their art supplies too. One of the things I have gotten there (but haven’t used yet) is canvases. Now I know they are not professional quality but then again, I’m not a professional. ;)

I saw these nine 4×4 canvases for just $5.99 and think they’ll be great for some Zentangle style art. :)

I also found this combo pack of three 8×10 canvas frames and three 8×10 canvas panels and $4.99 was the unbelievably low price.Tiffany also found some nice sized canvases there.  This 10 pack of 9×12 canvases as well as this 6 pack of larger 16×20 ones were both just $12.99 each. Pretty good prices!

I really love this set of four triangular canvases that Tiffany got for only $5.99 for the set.

They also have great priced journals and sketchpads and so many other things. Of course, none of them are professional quality but if you or someone you know is interested in trying out something new, this is a great place to get some art supplies. Then if it turns out to be something you enjoy, you can get more expensive supplies from Michael’s or Hobby Lobby using their weekly discount coupons. ;)

I hope you’ll check out the many areas of the Ross store. :)

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº

NOT Inktober: Waybop

When I started Inktober, I wondered if I should do on piece sectioned into 31 different pieces. I talked with Tiffany about it and thought I’d like individual tiles better. Some of my best tiles (on display) are ones I did in daily challenges, so I envisioned some of these being as good and replacing them in the display frame.

But then things fell apart and I realized that I’d made the wrong decision. Daily inking is not happening for me this year.

Yesterday I did some Christmas shopping with my sister and daughter. I was gone most of the day. By the time we returned, I was exhausted! I’d intended to take some pictures at Ross for my blog post but was so tired by the time we got there that I didn’t remember to do so.

Consequently, when we got home I had to figure out what to do for my blog today. I glanced through the tangles and saw Waybop. I really like this tangle so I decided to tangle it on one of my stained tiles. But I was so tired that I was unable to even pick a tile. :D I had Tiffany pick one.

She picked one, then another, and then a third one. Finally she settled on the third one.

These are all the same tile. I made them back in August with my friend as we played with my Lindy’s Magicals powders (see that post here).

I decided that I wanted to have a Waybop centered around some of that lovely shimmer. So I opted to draw several waybops on the tile. Eight seeds is my preferred number but I also did one with just six and then in the corner I used just three.

I took a few pictures so you could see the lovely shimmer, as well as the tangling.

I opted not to do any shading because I’m just too tired, which is also why there are no scans. (I don’t know, I might feel up to scanning it later today and adding it.)

Well, I hope your inktober is going better than mine. :D Happy inking!

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº

Inktober Week 2 Doodah and Cadent

Well, my Inktober is not going well! It’s more of a Movietober. ;) We’ve been watching a lot of chick flicks and very little art has been done. But I did get one piece done using two of the week’s tangles: Doodah and Cadent.

I’d originally planned to use some of my inks and my calligraphy pen. I started with a bristol vellum tile but then decided to just use a black inkpen.

Here’s the scan of my tile before shading.

Here is the picture I took of it in natural light. :)

Here’s the scan of the tile after shading.

The sun had gone down by the time I got it shaded. So I had to take this picture the best I could.

I liked both the process of doing this tile and how it turned out.

I hope your Inktober is going better than mine. :)

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº

Inktober 1-6 2020

Well, I didn’t exactly do some art every day. :( But I did create three pieces.

The first is day had the prompt tangles of Flux and Jester from my first two lists and then #doodlewashoctober2020 had the prompt of night. So I decided to use a black tile and a white gelly roll pen.

Day two I incorporated all three tangle prompts: Jackstripes, Snelly, and Ondalina. I wanted to try out my shimmery inks I got for Christmas last year and my dip pen too. I chose a blue one because Ondalina looks like waves.

This is my first ever attempt with this pen, so the tile isn’t that great. AND I didn’t feel like doing any shading that day. I am very happy with the pen and nib. The letter “class” I took at the beginning of the year was very helpful in using it. :)

I loved the weighted lines on the downstrokes of the waves. :) I may go back and add some shading with something later because I’m not liking how it looks very much. That might also be why I didn’t do another tile over the weekend. ;)

Here’s the scan. You can see I struggled with using the ink a bit but that’s okay.

Here’s a picture taken in natural light.

Over the weekend I did not do any art, nor on Monday. So yesterday I decided to combine the tangle prompts from Everything is Art (the first list I found) for days 3-6. So the tangles included are Anthem, Unbirthday, Pepper, and Henna Drum. Unbirthday was the new tangle for me on this day. I really like how this tile turned out. :)

Here’s the scan before shading.

Here is a picture I took outside while the sun was shining nicely, before I shaded it.

It was nice to go back to my comfort zone of black ink on white tile and pencil shading. :)

Here is the scan of the tile after shading and the picture taken outside.

I enjoyed shading with a regular pencil once again. :)

Looking forward to continuing with inktober.

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº