Danielle Calabro

Over the weekend I learned two friends of mine are getting married and I am super excited for both of them. So excited it inspired me to create this: I wanted to do something with hearts, I found some awesome inspiration, this Celtic knot was perfect for the meaning. This knot has no beginning and no end just like love should be.  The back ground was painted with watercolors and then drew in the weave which was shaded with pastel pencil and the black was done with a black Copic marker. This was a true mixed media project. Watercolor, pen, marker, charcoal pencil and pastel pencil.  I got a little worried when I got farther into this project,  I decided to do the weave in the background, which was a hell of a lot harder then I expected but it was too late to back out, I had already started the lines but it turned out better then I thought it would. I decided to add some shading, everything was looking a little flat. Let me know what you think, this may end up...

After spending a while on Tangles I have decided to focus on how to handle watercolors more besides just using them for the backgrounds. I have always been a little afraid of watercolors because the can be so unpredictable, however I am finding that to be the best thing about them.  I am not a patient person so practicing is pretty much out of the question, with me, it's do or die when it comes to art. So instead of taking a scrap of watercolor paper I dove right into my new watercolor journal and sketched out my little bugs world and went right to painting it today after my hubby went to work. Of course I had to take a few breaks but it is finished.  Still trying to get the blending down but I am happy with the way it turned out. It was painted in watercolors and outlined with Microns, the little bit of white you see was done with my Uni-ball broad white pen. Of course I still don't have the right lighting so the picture doesn't do it justice. 

I originally started this garden with the intentions to do tangles on it and as you can see I changed my mind. I started with a watercolor background and used salt to add some little effects. Once the background was dry I drew out my little garden. I then painted it in with gouache, outlined and added some details to the plants and rocks. After staring at it for about 30 minutes I figured out what I was missing....some depth. To be honest I have been staying up so late lately that the last thing I wanted to do is get the paint out and then have to clean up a mess but I wanted to finish. I grabbed my copic markers and figured what the hell, lets see if they will work on top go the gouache and they did. All of the shading was done with Copic markers.

I have finished my final Zentree, as I have mentioned before I have decided to have prints made of my ZenTree Collection. There will be 4 of each for know. The first three I should have in a couple of weeks. They will be on cold press watercolor paper and printed with archival inks. I have made sure I have picked a high qualityArt printshop, I also did a walk through and I was very impressed. Needless to say I am very excited and proud of myself making this step. I know it will be an investment well made. My Etsy shop will be going through a name change and facelift over the next few days also. Watercolor, gouache and pen I let my daughter pick the colors for this one and in observation of the 4th of July she picked Red, White and Blue.  So it is on tho the next project, I have decided I am actually going to follow through with something I keep saying I am going to do. I will be creating my own Christmas cards this year. I know its a little early but I have had a habit...

I wanted to try the wave again, I wasn't satisfied with the first one I did.  I used watercolor, gouache and table salt, I made the tree a little bigger and added more palms. I defiantly like this one more then the first attempt.  *IMPORTANT NEWS*  I have decided to make prints of my ZenTrees. I will actually be going down to the print shop today. These will be high quality prints of my original artwork. For though of you interested they will be available in my Etsy store in about 2 weeks and will be reasonably priced. I am so excited to be taking the next step. Honestly I can't wait to see what they look like once completed. I know this is an investment but I know it will be a good investment. So be on the lookout I will be letting everyone know when they are out. 

Yes, I did another one, I love doing these trees. When something is not coming to mind they are my perfect fix. I went on a website last week and saw what one of them would look like on a pillow, phone case and iPad case, even a t-shirt and it looked good, I have also thought about turning some of these into journal covers, again I am not sure where to start. I would like to take this a little further but I am confused about the whole copyright and licensing part of all of this. I think it is time to sit down and do a little more research and reading. If there is anyone out there that can help point me in the right direction I would greatly appreciate it. I feel I have finally found my niche, I love to tangle and I have fallen for watercolors and gouache, the are unpredictable, that is what I love the most about them. As I am typing out this post I am thinking of my next project. The thing with tangling is it is a process, it is time consuming. I can sit down and start work...

It was a very crazy weekend and week, Fathers day Sunday, my Huddy's birthday on Monday along with my kids Karate test, which I might add they did awesome. I also had to fix my computer, I wasn't paying attention to my son while he was trying to download a computer game and I got attacked by a crap load of malware, took me about a week and luckily only a $10.00 app to clean it out, so I was not able to dedicate myself completely with this one. I have still been experimenting with watercolors, I had fun with this one. I had left over paint left on my pallet so I added a bunch of water to my paper and to the paint. Then I just added paint and got the crazy effects by sprinkled it with rubbing alcohol. Once my paint was dry I outlined where the colors meet and made my tangle string. I am not crazy about this one but it was great practice. I would like to invite those of you that visit my blog to leave a comment, what you like or didn't like, an idea or two, new techniqu...

I really enjoyed creating the Zentangle™ inspired tree a couple of weeks ago so I decided to do another. This painting was created with watercolor, gouache, GellyRoll Pens and sharpie in a few areas. I am going to focus on the background for a little bit. I tried a couple of techniques I have read about and loved the way it came out. I stared with 140lb watercolor paper, I taped it down (which I believe they also call it stretching) so the paper would not buckle. I did things a little different this time, I did not draw outlines of what I was planing, I went straight to the backgound. I spread a layer of clean water across the paper, chose the colors I wanted to use and randomly painted the colors on the wet paper (wet-on-wet technique). Here is where it got interesting and fun, I took regular table salt and rubbing alcohol to the wet paint. The rubbing alcohol repealed the water and the salt absorbed the water, leaving what you see above, a pretty cool background. ...

My estimation was correct, I finished by the end of this weekend, actually Saturday night. I have had a few large sheets of watercolor paper for a couple of months and I wanted to put them to good use. I also have a set of water colors that I purchased a couple of weeks ago and have only used them once and on a very small project. As I said before  there is no rhyme or reason to this painting. I brought two things of nature that  I love into one painting. This was first drawn out in pencil, I changed it a few times but went over what I knew I was going to keep with my Copic Multiliner 1.0, so if I had to erase I didn't have to worry about it. Once done with that step I did the background in watercolor and everything else with gouache paint and went over the lines again to finish it off. Here are pictures of the individual flowers. the daffodils are my favorite. I love how opaque the gouache paint is, I wasn't exactly careful when painting the background an...

Sometimes creating art takes a little longer then expected. I have been working on this for a few days and of course by the title and pictures you can tell I am still working on it. I drew out and erased a couple of times. I finally settled on a drawing. I went over it with a Copic Multiliner. Once that was done it was time to decide on a background, I used watercolor, I was not worried about the ink, it is water proof, also I wasn't worried about painting over the flowers or branches because I will be painting them with gouache. This part was done last night, I was able to get the background and branches painted before I had to call it a night. Still had to go to the J-O-B in the morning. I was actually a little pissed off this morning because I had to go to work when all I wanted to do is keep painting. So after my wonderful husband left for work and the kids were busy doing their thing, I went back to painting. Headphones on, good music playing and me in my own l...