Danielle Calabro

Day 10 of #inktober2016 Zentangle, I never heard of this until about 2 years ago, had no clue what it was but I loved it.  Of course I wanted to find out more so I looked it up and found that it was created as a form of therapy. You are not to use an eraser, at first I thought, that is absolutely crazy, I have to have my eraser, what if I mess up? but what this teaches you is, don't throw out something you are working on just because the line goes in the wrong spot, work with it and make it work for you.  Happy Inking my Friends

Well, we survived the storm. No damage to the houses, except to the guy who drilled wood into his house to cover some of his windows. He was crazy, these are new houses and they make clips for that, No way would I have done that. Anyway, as I said before I had plenty of time on my hands so I used my time wisely. So for Day 8 of #inktober I choose to do a pumpkin. It is a little darker then I would have liked but I am still learning how each pen works. I also grabbed the few grey Copic markers I have to do the shading. I think it came out fine but the grey's I have were not close enough together so you it is not a gradient shading that I was going for. Which is ok, I have some warm and cool grey markers coming in on Tuesday so I will just have to be patient. So, how many people have their pumpkins? We do, we got 2 already. I would like to get a couple bales of hey too, I am hoping that some of these local farms will sell some, time to start calling around. Just before the sto...

Well Hurricane Matthew is getting closer, we are expected to get the rough stuff around 2am so I don't think I will be sleeping very well tonight. We have decided to have the kids sleep in our room tonight since this is their first hurricane. Honestly, the last hurricane we were in wasn't nearly as bad as this one and it was 12 years ago, so I do have a little worry. In the mean time we still have power and I have decided to have a little fun while we wait for the inevitable. Say hello to Matthew So for day 6 of #inktober I took my hubby's advice and had a little cartoon fun with Matthew. I used my copic grey markers but I am limited on the ones I have so I will have to remedy that.  So for my Friends and Family that will have to endure this beast, please stay safe and those that are watching from afar, keep us all in your prayers especially those on the coast. Happy Inking

Painting done with watercolors, Ph Martin colored India Inks, Ph Martin white India ink and Copic opaque white ink. 

Well after months of talking about moving it has finally happened. We have been in our new house for about 3 weeks now, we are mostly unpacked except for the stuff that isn't a necessity. I was finally able to set down and draw on paper for the first time in over a month and it was great. I can honestly say I missed it. With all the moving and getting settled I was having a little block so I just drew out the same things I had on my tablet. I was going to use watercolors or inks but had to stick with my Copic Markers, the area where I have my art desk was a complete mess. All-in-all, I like the way this came out, it was just a cute little doodle to get me back into the flow again. I also invested in a better scanner specifically for scanning my artwork, very satisfied with they way it scanned in. It may be slow going for a little while, while we settle in a little more. We have lots of boxes in the garage still and smaller ones lingering in the house and as much as I'd lov...

Staying true to what I love to draw I have yet another page of flowers.  Still doodling my way through life, after the kids are in bed and the hubby is off to work this is my way of shedding off the stress of the day. There was no planning to this, I went straight to paper with pen. This took about a week to draw out, and a few days to fill in with Copic Markers. I am trying to make sure I am creating everyday, in between work and life I am staying on track. there are days I only get in an hour but more often then not I am going at it for a few hours. I have learned a great deal of patients doing more pen sketches, and it has trickled over to outside of my art. I have said this before in other post, I am not a patient person by nature but over the last few months doing more tangles has taught me to slow down, evaluate then execute.

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...

Doodle done with Copic markers, multiliners and pencil Last Friday I did a little shopping, got paid and needed to (wanted to) pick up a few things.  One thing was a smaller sketchbook, something that could fit in my purse. I always have to get the first page done right away so above is page one of my new compact sketchbook. I was hoping it would stand up to my Copic markers but unfortunately they bleed through a bit. I will be trying out  watercolors next to see how it stands up to the water. You should be able to check that out in a few days, that is if the kids don't come home with loads of homework every night.

I have wanted to do one of these for a while, I always see these really beautiful Mandala's on Pintrest so I figured I would give it a shot. The one thing I learned with these is a compass, ruler and protract are a necessity. I am not a patient person so the first part was the most painful for me. Finding the center of the page, marking it then using the protractor to set my ruler lines. After that drawing out the lines I grabbed the compass and drew the circles. Once complete I got to work.  I was a little afraid of putting color on it, I didn't want to use too many and mess it up. I tried to reuse colors through out the whole thing. I started this bad boy on Sunday, and I have to say I am very happy with the way it came out. Here are some close ups of the detail: Unfortunately I will have to put my art off for a few days, we have to finish a summer time school project that apparently will be graded (and yes, I did say Summer time project). We get to make a t...

There is a place in Orlando, FL called Leu Gardens , it has been well over 10 years since I have been there but I remember it like it was last year. It is magnificent, I remember walking around there for hours. When I was younger I would go there to photograph the flowers. Sadly I have lost touch with it, talking about it makes me want to go again, take my kids to one of the movie nights they have there. Go during the day and photograph some of the flowers all while listening to my children tell me how hot and bored they are, it's great to torture your kids with a little fresh air. Honestly I'm not sure how they will act bit hopefully they would enjoy it. I sat down last weekend and started this sketch and I finished it up last night, it reminded me of the times I use to go to the garden. I sketched this out in pencil then went over the sketch with my Micron pens and color was added with Copic markers. I am sure you have heard me say this before and I am going to say ...

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.

My art has changed over that year since I have started. I started with acrylics and have moved to smaller more detailed art. I still like playing around with the acrylics but I am still trying to find myself as an artist. I love doodling, I love watercolors and I love mixing them. I also love working with my Copic markers. I purchased a new compass last week and I wanted to put it to the test. I am not sure if any of you remember from an earlier post I had started a page with just the rectangle and had a bunch of white left. I decided to add to the page and this is what I came up with. I used Copic and Micron multiliner pens and filled the tangles in with Copic Sketch markers. I am not sure if this type of doodling will get me anywhere but it is defiantly a way to keep my creative mind flowing.  What do you do to keep your creative mind flowing?

We are have now made it to negotiations with the bank for our new house, hopefully they do not come back with a ridiculous counter offer. Then it is one to running the numbers then inspection. If everything good good then hopefully we will be moving in a couple of months. Then my poor children will get pulled out of school to start a new one, wish this would have been finished before school started but I have lost hope with that. So I have been a little stressed and have hit an artist block again, painting is being forces so it is time to step back. Instead of forcing an idea I have turned to my trusty sketch book and doodling. My way of keeping my creativity flowing, when I can't focus. I do plan on starting the next painting I am going to use for a Christmas card, that should be one of the next couple of post so look for it, think Carrot and coal.

In my attempt to stay focused on creating artwork I did a full page Zentangle™.  I started with this one, of course this left the entire bottom of the page white  and I couldn't have that so...... I got my ruler and draw out a couple of lines and just let it flow. It was a nice  break. These were colored with Copic Sketch markers, love these markers and even though I have around 30 or 40 of them, there are plenty of colors I wish I would have had. 

Every artist knows you have to keep your creative juices flowing, I can not always find the time to paint so I doodle or draw. I have been interested in Zentangle for a while, I think it is a very interest form of art. Now I can't say I dont use an earaser (you are not suppost to) I am too much of a perfectionest not too. Anyway, for me this is a great way to get your creative juices flowing. I would like to share some of my skeching tools with you. When I find a product that I love and I know works I want to share them. I will admit, some of my tools can be pricey but I have used trial and error and found that spending a little extra money on a great product makes a big difference. These are my go to sketching tools: Blackwing Pencils - they are so smooth to draw with Copic Multi liner pens - Great to use with my next tool, they do not smear when used with markers. Copic Sketch Markers - they are alcohol based so the blend beautifully Prismacolor colored pencils - these ...