Danielle Calabro

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.

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.

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. 

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...

Well it took me a little over a week and half but I have finally finished it. I wanted to put my tablet to good use for what I originally wanted it for, sketching. I was at a stand still, I have this huge piece of watercolor paper that I want to use for a large Zentangle™ project and I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do. I grabbed my tablet and just let it flow. I wanted to test out patterns and that is what I did.  I will admit, I think I would like this even more if I had added color. I am not advertising for Samsung, but I will say the Samsung Note Pro 12 is a great tablet. If you can not afford or just do not want to spend over a $1000 for an actual artist tablet (I am not talking about the once you use with your computer) then this is the next best thing in my eyes. I love traditional art, nothing is compares to it. There is so much in a piece of art that was created with a paint brush, pen, ink, etc. But the sad thing is a lot of things go digital. How long will...

I decided to give a full page Zentangle™ a try this weekend. This time I did it with no planning what so ever, no string line, I just let it flow. There are some parts of this page I really wish I had not added but then there are also a lot that I really do like. I think for my next one I will try to do a little more planning. I used my Micron and Copic pens to draw out everything, with a few I did use pencil first. Once I knew the ink was dry I added a little color with watercolors. I am still a little rusty with the watercolors but I wanted to add a little shading. After a little more practice should be no problem. These are a couple of close-ups of the page I really liked the way the two larger flowers came out and the look of the simpler tangles. I took a chance on a couple of more complicated tangles and think I could probably benefit from practicing them. All in all, I am happy with the way this came out, especially since it took a total of about 5-6 hours to comp...

In my attempt to find my niche I have used many, many different mediums. I have used acrylic paint, oil paint, water color, gouache, markers and pens. I know I am not finished finding my own way but I think I am getting a better idea of what I enjoy most. I love to paint and I love to draw so I have started to mix them. In this piece, my Zentangl™ Tree, I did the background in watercolors, the sketch in archival ink pens, the tree with black gouache and the tangle with a white gelly roll pen.  Here is a close up: This change in my creative focus has helped me in more ways then one. First, it is so easy to just grab my sketchbook and my pencils and start working on an idea. Second, it has simplified my life a little, I can take it anywhere with me, go to a cookout, take the kids to the park or outside to play, I just shove everything I need in my bag and I am all set. Can't do that with a canvas and paint, but like I said I still love to paint just on a s...

As a Mother I try to encourage my children to do what they love to do. Sometimes I will, of course make them try something even if they are too scared to give it a chance. Sometime they love and other times it's a flop. So what is my point? As a parent, sometimes we scared to push our kids a little or a lot in some cases. My two children are so different in so many ways. Since I have started painting again both of my children have slowly become more interested in what I am doing, sometimes it is a pain in the neck, most of the time it makes me so happy. I do not push art on them, however I think any type of art (music, dance, painting or drawing) is important for children to learn. Both of my children assumed its so easy to paint or draw but when they can't get a drawing to come out like they want they get so pissed off. I try to explain to them it takes time and they have to practice, and I try to show them a different or new way of doing something. As my husband always says...

Still feeling like crap today, actually took the day off from work because I have lost my voice, I am on the phone all day so it made no since to go in anyways.  This is an update from the last post I did, I have finally finished my little Zentangle® art.  It only took me about 3 days because I was sick but I am trying to make sure I make time everyday to create, even if it is as small as finishing a small painting. I have learned over the course of a year (when I first started to get back into art) that I can not get any better with out the practice and that is the one thing I have not been giving myself time for.  I am still having some difficulties with the blending, of course I don't think this was the right piece of art to test it on, the areas were to small. Well I hope you all enjoy. 

As I have said before when I have painters block I will doodle, sketch or Zeltangle®. Well I have had painters block for a few days because I have been under the weather, of course that doesn't mean I haven't try to throw some paint on canvas, just means I don't like whats on that canvas...:) So between the coughing, sneezing and everything else that goes with a nasty Florida Cold I have been working on this: As you can see it is unfinished, I am using gouache to put color in it. I love Zentangle® it is a great outlet when painting isn't going my way. I would really love to incorporate it in an actual drawing of a landscape or something along that lines.  At the moment the only thing that is finished is the orange going around the outside. I am hopping a feel a little better today to at least get half of it painted. I can't wait to update this when it is finished.  Tell me what you think? 

I received my new gouache paint and paint brushes today and of course I couldn't wait to try them out. This was a small set as you can see to the right of the painting it is only 5 mixing colors. I have never been one for mixing colors unless it was a color I didn't have but this is a nice set to start with, the paint brushes I also ordered are great, a set of 6 Red Sable (Wesel Hair) mix filbert brushes by  magic touch , I got both of these off  Amazon.  However I have some  Turner Acryl Gouache  coming on Tuesday from one of my favorit places to shop,  Jerry's Artarama,  they had an awesome sale on their site. I love doing large paintings but it does get a little price to keep buying the canvases so I have desided to take a little break from the larger paintings and scale it down a bit. I am not one for creating realistic art, I plan on working on faces for awhile in my quest to creat more artwork and as you can tell it is not proportionate, I...

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 ...