Danielle Calabro

I have never been a big reader, I hated reading until I picked up one book in particular. I had a friend tell me about a book that had been out for about 8 months at the time, "Fifty Shades of Grey." Yes I was one of those women that read them all, and I love Ellie Goulding song, "Love Me Like You Do," her newest album is great too. I will admit, I was not impressed by the movie, of course most book to movies rarely are as good as the book. So in one of my moments where I was having a block I played with some lettering and tangling, here is the finished result: I wanted to add a little color so I used watercolor pencils to add color to the word bubbles. I am very happy with the end results. I still find it amazing, you can finish one project and think it's just ok then go back to it a few days later and love it. 

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. 

Watercolor Pencil and Ink Well, here is another Zentangle™ I did, what should have only taken me a couple of days to finish took me about a week. Here is what I have learned with this little piece of art. I decided to use watercolor colored pencil to add color, which by the way is not the norm for a Zentangle™, from what I have read anyways. I drew out the basic area that I wanted to tangle then used the watercolor pencils to color the area in then used water to turn it in to the watercolor. I used regular watercolor paint for the larger background color. Which I think I may upgrade to the tube watercolors, using the smaller pallet watercolors can be a bit time consuming. So here is the problem I found when using watercolor pencils with your regular multiliner pens. Apparently the watercolor pencils still keep that waxy film even when it is diluted with the water.  Don't get me wrong, I loved the pencils and I think they will be great with other projects but not so much wit...