30 Tiles Zentangle Challenge (coloured version)

  About three weeks ago, I showed you guys the 30-tiles Zentangle Challenge project that my mum, Joni Toh, and I did. (If you haven't seen it, you can click this link to view it.) And as promised, we're back to show you guys how the coloured version of the project turned out. ^-^

  I used Derwent's Inktense bars, which I love love love. However, I noticed when I was adding tangle patterns on the tiles, that the colour did choke up the Sakura pens and I had to run them over a scrap piece of paper every now and then to get the ink running again. No biggie, though. Just a mild inconvenience.

  We used paper from the same paper mill as the ones Zentangle® uses for their original tiles.

Here's how the paper looked like after laying the Inktense on it.
I left a white border around the entire paper.

After adding water, plus using some tissue to blot some areas to add visual interest.

After drying, plus adding strings to the entire piece.

It was messy work. My fingers got all dirty.
Everything washed out really easily, though.

And here's the work after we finished all the tiles:

I didn't reduce the picture's resolution, so if you'll like to see the patterns we used, you can just right-click > open image in a new tab.

  The project was so much fun to do, and we're both really happy with how it turned out.

  What are your current favourite Zentangle patterns? I'm trying to find new and/or old patterns to learn. When I first started learning Zentangle, my favourite pattern used to be "Paradox". I've really liked working with "Diva Dance", "Undu", "Onion Drops", "You Are Here (YAH)", and "SharlaRella". I'm currently in love with "Pixioze". Let me know your favourites in the comment section below!

I'm making a coffee date with you today.

Too much Monday, not enough coffee.

  It's International Coffee Day tomorrow. My mum, Joni Toh, and I created this Zentangle® inspired card to commemorate the day. I'm posting it today, cause the slogan wouldn't make sense tomorrow.
  ... Unless you live in America or Canada, or some place half-way around the world... It's Monday in Singapore today. But if that's not the case where you live, then Happy early International Coffee Day! Tell your friends and make it an excuse to ask someone out for coffee tomorrow. ^-^

All that glitters is not gold...

  All that glitters is not gold... It's actually acrylic paint. hahaha

  This was a late night project that my mum, Joni Toh, did.

  She bought a wooden box and then painted it warm golden with acrylic paint. I didn't get a photo of how the box looked before being painted, but...

... this was what it looked like after.

  And then she drew lots of pretty Zentangle® patterns all over it.

Featuring Munchin, Tripoli, and Printemps...

... And Diva Dance on this side.

  I think her lines are getting a lot cleaner. And she has started to learn more patterns. I've been trying to push her to do more projects, so I'm glad she did this one. ^-^

  Leave some nice comments below to encourage her!

Commas show that it's not the end.

You probably have seen this before if you follow me on Instagram.
This was a collaboration between my mum and I to celebrate International Day of Peace.

Today is the official First Day of Fall. And even though we don't get four seasons in Singapore, it won't stop me from doing a tile to celebrate the day. ^-^

For Diva's Challenge. This is a mix between last week's and this week's challenge.
Last week, we had to use stripe-y strings. This week, we had to draw on an unexpected surface. I used a scrap of paper I had from my craft box.
My mum says the tile looks too busy. I agree, too, but I'm still posting in the spirit of the challenge.

Punctuation Day is tomorrow. My favourite punctuation is the comma, so I did a monotangle of "Pixioze" on a Bijou tile. Pixioze is a wonderful tangle pattern to work with and I will definitely use it again soon.

  I know it's an odd thing to ask, but what's your favourite punctuation mark? ... Full stop? Comma? Exclamation point? Quotation marks? Parenthesis? Hashtag sign? Ampersand? Question mark?
  Let me know in the comment section below. ^-^

It has been a slow week...

  ... in terms of my art, because I've been busy with completing my part of the 30 tile challenge. I'm currently on my eleventh tile (our of fifteen), so I should be completing my part of the project soon. My mum us on her tenth tile, if I'm not wrong. Great progress. ^-^

Here are the tiles I've already completed.
I'll show you guys the full project once it's completed.

Here's my tile for this week's Zendala challenge.

And a postcard for my god mother.

  I'm currently listening to "Colors" by Halsey.

You were a vision in the morning when the light came through... 

You were red and you liked me because I was blue

You touched me and suddenly I was a lilac sky

And you decided purple just wasn't for you

I'm positive that you're going to have a good day today.

  The 13th of September marks "Positive Thinking Day". And no, I am not making this up. You can look it up on Google if you don't believe me.

  With that, here's a little card I made to commemorate the day:

It has a little window, and you can see the word "Dream" through it.

And then when you open the card, you see pretty Zentangle patterns, and the quote adds "... and anything is possible."    ^-^

The entries for this week's Joey challenge were all so good.
I couldn't even think of all those ways to present "Nzeppel"...
I did a very basic wavy grid with some shading; on a bijou tile.

This is, I believe, last week's pattern for thebrightowl's Zendala challenge.

And this is this week's one.
I'm pleased with how it turned out, but I can think of other ways I would have completed it now that I'm looking at the finished tile.

  This week was a little rough for me... But the weekend turned out better. I watched "Inside Out" yesterday. It was wonderful. I also made a new friend. And for a socially anxious potato like me, that's a good accomplishment. (Why potato, you ask? Well, no reasons in particular. I just picked "potato" and it has stuck with me, and it became a joke that I would tell my friends. I'm telling you now. So we're friends. I don't make the rules. That's just how it works. *laughs* )

  Anyways.

  What's one nice thing you'd like to remind yourself today? Is it that you're loved by your family/friends? Is it that you're glad for the fact that you're of good health? Is it that you love the art you produce? Let me know in the comments section below. Happy Positive Thinking Day, friend. May your life be filled with many more positive things.

Cretacolor Monolith vs Derwent's Onyx

  I recently got a set of Cretacolor pencils, and I wondered how they fared against Derwent's Onyx pencils. To make the comparison fair, I pit Cretacolor's Monolith Woodless pencils against Derwent's Onyx pencils because they're both graphite.

   Cretacolor's Monolith uses graphite formed into a 7 mm solid stick with a protective lacquer coating.

  Derwent's Onyx comes in two tones, medium and dark, but it is easy to build up darker shades if you need them by increasing the pressure.

  Here's how they compare:

  (I realise here that I misspelled "monolith" the first time by forgetting an "o", but shhhh~)

  I did a basic swatch test for each of the pencils; then I tried going as dark as I could with the dark Onyx pencil and the 9B Monolith pencil; and finally, I did a smudge test.

  I think the Onyx Medium and the 2B Monlith pencils are comparable, but the 9B Monolith pencil is ever-so-slightly darker than the Onyx Dark. They're all wonderful pencils, though, so I guess it's really down to availability, and personal preferences.

The Search for Some Sparkle

  At the 21st CZT Seminar, they gave us some Zentangle® products and also some Sakura products. Amongst the many pens they gave us, I fell in love with one in particular– the Sakura Gelly Roll Stardust. It's not a silver pen. I would describe it as having a clear ink with sparkles suspended in it.

  I quite happily created many art work using the pen... And then one day, someone asked where I had purchased the pen from. (Iwona, this post is dedicated to you.) It was then that I went on a quest to find a place that sold the Sakura Gelly Roll Stardust pen....

  My first stop was of course, Art Friend. Apparently, they just brought in a new line of glitter pens by Kiarina. (The particular line they brought in is the Kiarina Wink line, and I do have the intention of trying them out.) However, I had no luck with finding the Sakura Stardust...

  Next stop; Popular.

  I had no luck, though...
  However, I did find a good alternative.

  Being sold at $1.75, meet the Uni-ball Signo Sparkling:

Top is the Sakura Gelly Roll Stardust. It has a pretty shooting star printed on its cap.
Bottom is the Uni-ball Signo Sparkling.

  I have a Uni-ball Signo in silver, but that's completely different from the Sakura Stardust. The Uni-ball Silver's ink is really bright and solid. Comparison between both pens:

Top: Silver
Bottom: Sparkling
You can tell the difference from the pen's exterior.

  And of course, the obligatory ink test...

The Sparkling has ink that is very much like the Sakura Stardust.
The only difference being that the Stardust's sparkles are of a warm-toned silver. You can even say it has a gold hue. Whereas the Sparkling has a true silver tone.
As you can see, the Silver is opaque and looks nothing like the other two pens.

  So there we go. I haven't found a place that sells the Sakura Stardust, but I do think the Uni-ball Sparkling is a great alternative to it. I would still like to find the Sakura Stardust, though, because the Uni-ball Sparkling's glitter does shed a lot more than the Stardust... But we make do with what we have.

  Hope you found this post informative.
  And if you know a place in Singapore that sells the Sakura Stardust, let me know in the comment section below!

Some Art; Some Selfies

  It has been really hazy for the last few days in Singapore... It's made my sinus really bad, and I've been having rashes too..... :(   Hopefully, it'd get better soon.

  However, I've been doing quite a number of Zentangle tiles, and here are just some of them.

Zendala with soap stone background. I then used a black pen to add the flourishes after.

I'm actually really proud of this tile. It's an Apprentice tile (larger than a regular Zentangle tile) and I actually prefer the smoothness of this paper.
Also, the glitter pen used on this tile is not the regular Sakura glitter pen I usually use. I'll be posting about it some time this week, so look out for that. :)

Monotangle of "Onion Drops".
Does it look like onions, strands of hair, or yarn?

   And here are some selfies:

Pretty blue hat.

I went to Art Friend yesterday.

  Oh and remember the postcards with the coloured backgrounds that I prepared? Yeah... I spoiled them, of sorts. :/  I don't know if I'll ever find a way to fix them, or if eventually I'll change my mind and think that they don't look all too bad. But I am working on making new coloured backgrounds.

  Also, I bought paper for the coloured version of the 30 Zentangle-tile challenge. I'm very excited to start that project. I also bought some paper cards to do mini Zentangle projects, and I'm sure that'd be fun too.

  And that's about it for now. Till' next time~

30-Days Zentangle Project

  I have an exciting project to show you...

  Basically, after the exhibition started, my mum and my artistic creativity started to slow. So to combat that, we thought of a project to do- a 30 days Zentangle project. The idea was to do at least one Zentangle tile a day.

  We got one large sheet of paper. Drew out 30 Zentangle tile-sized squares onto it. Drew many many strings onto it. Made sure to number each tile and indicate which way was the right way up. And then cut the paper into the individual tile sizes. 

  We finished the project before the 30 days period, because on some days, we did more than one tile. After finishing all the tiles, we placed the tiles into their correct places, then glued them onto a larger paper. My mum also did a calligraphy of "Everything Is Art" on the left side of the paper. Here's what the final piece looks like.

I didn't adjust the size of the picture this time. So if you want to see all the pretty details on each tile, just right-click the picture, and select "open image in a new tab".

  We thought the project was a great success and also created a coloured version of this challenge. You can see it via this link.

  If you do get around to doing a 30-tiles Zentangle Challenge, do leave us the link to your blog post in the comment section below. We would love to see what you did. ^-^

"The Boy Who Spoke to the Earth" Review

  "The Boy Who Spoke to the Earth" is a book by Dreamling Books. The story is told by Chris Burkard, while the illustrations are by David McClellan. I bought the book via its Kickstarter, and the book came with its very own Certificate of Authenticity.

  The book tells a story about a boy who asks the Earth where he can find happiness.. The Earth brings him on a journey to the most beautiful places it has to offer. However, the boy soon realises that happiness is more difficult to find than he initially thought. Where will the boy find happiness? You'll have to read the book to find out.

  The story is beautifully illustrated; the colours are vivid, the sceneries depicted are epic; and this book is exactly how a children's book should be like. I would say the story teaches its readers to seek out their own adventures, and to see life with an open heart and mind. I highly recommend watching the above video to understand why I'm gushing so much about the book, and if you end up liking the book just as much as I do, you can purchase your own copy via this link.

  Below, you'll see some of the many wonderful animals hidden within the pages of the book...

(Note: I am not affiliated with Dreamling Books, nor was I paid for this review. It really is an honest review, and I'm sure you'll agree it's a gorgeous children's book that deserves a place on anyone's shelf.)

Joey's Zentangle Challenge: "Maryhill"

  Before I got to know about this week's challenge, I already had drawn two circles on a Zendala tile, hoping to do something interesting with them as a string. And whatdayaknow? This week's challenge was to use "Maryhill" which is a tangle pattern in a circle. ^-^

I added a couple more circles to the composition, and also thought it'd be cool if I did a "cut-away" portion in the overlap.

Pens used were Sakura 01, Derwent Graphik in grey, and a Zig Writer in black to fill in the background.

  "Maryhill" is a really fun tangle pattern to use. It's also another one of those patterns that look really different after adding shading to it. Looking forward to seeing what you guys do for this challenge. Happy tangling~