Gloria j Zucaro's "Summer Sloth"

That is such a funny word!  I know it is one of the deadly sins in the Bible.  It is also the animal that moves so slowly you can hardly notice(except your eyes are glued onto his terribly threatening 4 inch toenails!).  But sometimes I feel like a sloth because I think I should do a particular task, and then I think, "Oh, I will do that later, I would rather..."  So I actually didn't even realize that 4 days had gone by since I last posted!  I have had decisions on moving, conversations about finances, open house visits to possible houses, doctors appointments, scheduling for carpet cleaning, electrical fixes and more pleasurably, visits with friends and family this last week.  But now I am here and ready to show you some of the fun and challenging projects we did at The Clearing.  

Our second painting that we started on Monday afternoon was an "Egg Painting using color references from Zhaoming Wu."  I am quoting Frankie's title on our synopsis of projects.  Frankie had made many reference photos of eggs nestled into fabric.  Some were on pedestals, some just surrounded on the fabric.    We were to use these only as a starting point, but to learn from this how to design/compose a painting by placing your egg in an area and leading the viewer to it.  We were also supposed to show how the colors surrounding the egg reflect onto it.  Use soft and hard edges and most important, too, use a color combination that we didn't ordinarily use or even disliked!  Here is my pastel painting of my egg.

8" Square Wallis Paper with Terry Ludwig Pastels.

I surprised myself with being more abstract than usual.  If you notice, no turquoise!

Tuesday morning was the beginning of a really fun project!  Frankie titled it "Paint an Ice Cream Sundae".  Frankie and her husband Jay decided to stop at Steak & Shake to do research(Yeah, I bet! lol)  Anyway after taking pictures at Steak & Shake for two days in a row of different ice cream concoctions that they paid for and ate, Frankie decided it was going to be too expensive and fattening to make 30 reference pictures.  So she went on-line and got copyright-free photos.          This was my choice to paint because, of course, I was attracted, not to the banana split, but to the background colors.  Well originally I tried to put in all the squares of color, but alas, it looked horrible!  So a very abstract background using those colors is shown below with my actual painting.  

8" x 10" Wallis Paper with Terry Ludwig Pastels.

It was so much fun that afternoon to see all the different ice cream treats created by 15 artists!

More tomorrow or the next slothless day!

Gloria J Zucaro's "Thanksgiving Zinger"

Here is my submission to Paint Party Friday for this week.  Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Front

Today's' post is for the Diva's challenge of using the tangle named Zinger originated by Maria Thomas.  "Zinger" is the name of the tangle shown here that has a "stem and then a circular shapes that encircle but decreases as it flares outward.  I incorporated a Thanksgiving turkey along with the Zingers!  This is the front and back(Below) of a 5"H x 7"W greeting card and comes with envelope.  I may add some watercolor to this, maybe along the bottom and the "sky" area.   What do you think?

This is the back

5" x 7 " Ink design on Watercolor paper greeting card.

Click on image to enlarge.

May be framed in standard 5 x 7 frame.

Gloria J Zucaro's "Loop-D-Loop"

Laura Harms the hostess with the most-est over at I am the diva has introduced us this week to Margaret Bremner, also a Certified Zentangle Teacher.  Margaret gave us an example of one of her loop tangles and a link to it's introduction on her website in October.   

My example of an exterior looped tangle is below.  I drew it on a 5"H x 7"W greeting card.

Be sure to visit the Diva's site for more creative and colorful designs. 

Click on image to enlarge.

Gloria J Zucaro's "By the Sea"

Original Ink Drawing with watercolor on 5"H x 7"W watercolor greeting card.

Comes with envelope.

SOLD

Click on image to enlarge

This painting is based on the challenge for the month of June on the "Shoot and Paint" website. http://shootandpaint.blogspot.com/    Ria Hills and Pamela White Murphy are the hosts for the site which offers all artists the chance to express their own style by painting Ria's and Pamela's photograph.  Come join us!  And Happy Paint Party Friday Also!
http://paintpartyfriday.blogspot.com/

Gloria J Zucaro's "Horse in Brush"

3.5" Square Ink Drawing with Watercolor on official Zentangle watercolor paper tile.

SOLD

This may be framed, see tab above.

Click on photo to see more detail.

The colors are off white, pale rose and pale blue/green

I had been yearning to do a horse, so I did!  Although this is not really a tangle design, I think that horses like to eat those thistles that can take over a field, so that is what gave me the idea for this design.  This is my weekly entry to Paint Party Friday hosted by Kristin and Eva.  Go on over and see what everyone else has been up to.  http://paintpartyfriday.blogspot.com/

Gloria J Zucaro's "Assunta Mooka"

3.5" Square with Original Ink Design 

This weeks Diva challenge offered by Laura at http://iamthedivaczt.blogspot.com/  is a duo tangle using only the patterns Mooka and Assunta.  I put my "string" in and then did Mooka as my featured tangle. I tried it in several different versions.  I like the larger bulbs on the top ends, so did several of those.  But I also tried them very small at the top and very wide channels at the bottom.    I added Assunta around the edges, and part of Assunta's design inside the Mooka lines. After I finished with Assunta I shaded in some of the bulbs and bases of Mooka and in between the Assunta design.

This went pretty quickly and was a lot of fun.

Gloria J Zucaro's "For Lucy" and "Aura2"

"For Lucy"

3.5" Square on Official Zentangle Tile.  140 lb. Watercolor Paper

Pen & Ink, Metallic Markers.

NFS

"Aura2"

3.5" Square on Official Zentangle Tile.  140 lb. Watercolor Paper

Pen & Ink

$3.00 free shipping for tile itself.  See examples of framing options below second design.

These two tangle designs are for Laura's " I am the Diva" challenge this week.  Last week Laura's darling baby, Artoo, was in the hospital with pneumonia, so no challenge last week.  I am so happy that Artoo is recouping at home now which is less stressful for them both as well as the rest of Laura's family.

The challenge design this week is doing auras around your basic design.  An aura is sort of like an echo, where the waves of sound keep flowing outward, or like throwing a pebble into water.  In my first design I did a tribute to my daughter, Lucy, as April 17 is her birthday.  I will frame this to give to her when we get together.  She works as an elementary education art teacher, so no nights out during the week! :-)  The design says April 17 2012 happy Birthday Lucy.

In my second design I went through my collection of designs and picked about 7 different designs and did my variations on them.  Then I began to make an aura around them.  As the lines flow outward they change as they bump into the other designs, so that you always have a change of shape.  I love the random nature of tangles because the end result is always a surprise.

An example of 8"H x 10"W Frame 

This framing option is $25. which includes two mats, glass, frame, back cover and hanging wire.

An example of 8" Square Frame,

 Available in natural (shown), darker wood finish, white or black painted finish.

This framing is $10. which includes frame, glass and hanger.

Gloria J Zucaro's "Rose Botanical"

Original Drawing on 20"H x 10"W 

Canvas decoupaged with white tissue and embellished with metallic paint pens.

                                        To see a larger picture, just click on the photo above.

I really enjoyed this new project.  I had done a drawing with permanent marker on a different canvas before and found that I thought I would like a textured surface over the canvas.  I decoupaged the 20"H x 10"W canvas with white tissue paper, then did my intuitive drawing in black marker.  I then had to decide whether to color the roses or the background.  In this instance I decided to use paint markers to color the roses, their stems and leaves., and leave the background in black and white.  Do not be fooled by the date.  i have to put an old past date to separate out my tangles from my regular oil paintings on my blog.  You can go to "All My Tangles" at the top menu bar.  I also am posting this to Jenn's Artist's Playroom for the week of June 3, even though i did this a while ago.