Drawing, Drawing, Drawing and Lettering

Two years ago I Google'd "drawing programs" and headed into the direction of Zentangle drawing. "Why," you ask? My answer is, for three very important reasons:

1. I never doodled as a child - never!  I know this doesn't seem possible, but I didn't adulterate the sides of my papers in school.  I have wondered if it was discouraged or if I got into trouble for having done it.  I don't really remember, but anything that did not lead to concrete eduction was discouraged.  Things like art and music were set aside in favour of math and science.  I think my mother was trying to create something, and she did, but it wasn't someone who would follow the artistic path.
2. I wanted to learn to draw characters.  I was (and still am) heavily involved in creating cards with lovely digital and rubber stamped images of people and creatures.  I love to place them in interesting settings and colour with Copics or Tombows.  I thought that it would be great if I could create and sell my own unique characters as digital images. If I could only draw!
3. Zentangle looked cool!

Fortunately for me, Barb Round from Campbell River was teaching a beginners class in my town within 2 weeks.  I was delighted!  Finally I would learn to draw!  I took her beginner series of three classes and then took two more she offered over several weeks.  I embraced Zentangle wholeheartedly making dozens of tiles and finally deciding that I wanted to be able to teach this method to others. In November 2013 I flew off to Road Island for Certified Zentangle Teacher training and became an official CZT.

I love Zentangle!  It has opened my mind to other creative techniques such as using colour in Zentangle and even creating what we call ZIA - Zentangle Inspired Art. My hand - eye coordination has improved as well as my handwriting.  I finally feel free to be creative and draw - freely draw with no constraints.  I feel that Zentangle has opened my creative mind to be more artistically expressive.

There is just one problem!  I would still like to learn to draw things such as trees, animals, landscapes and people. This is a long background story to tell you that I was back to the Internet and found a couple of online courses for drawing and lettering that I would like to share with you.  Actually, this little journey started after viewing one of my favourite YouTube friends, Sara from My Serenity Crafts (check her out!).

First, Jane Davenport from Australia has a wonderful set of classes - very low key and fun, on supplies and drawing, including drawing faces.  I absolutely love her style and happy, colourful presentation.  I started with her supplies class because I don't very much about all the different types of paint, markers and watercolours.  She goes into depth and makes us students try them out to see what they do - very experiential.  Here are a couple of pics from the early sessions ......

We are cataloguing all the art supplies that we have on hand.

Gelly Roll Pens on Black Gesso and cardstock

Then she has us drawing our happy place. I am looking forward to comparing this drawing to a future version. My happy place is in the tall grass around the tall trees in my grandfather's apple orchard when I was 4-6 years old.

The second class that I am taking is actually a book and book club on Facebook.  Joanne Sharpe's book The Art of Whimsical Lettering is amazing and helpful!  We are currently working on sampling alphabet styles.

And we have tested some of them ...

I have a long way to go and I am very much enjoying the journey.  Please check out the links above and see if these classes are of interest to your creative journey. I will be sharing more as the weeks progress.

Have a great day!

NancyD