Tag Archives for doodles

It’s A String Thing 278: Ratoon

I’ve been doing my best to keep up with the weekly ‘It’s a String Thing’ challenge. Last week was the 278th challenge organized by Adele Bruno. The pattern she chose for us to work with was Ratoon, which was also to be used as the string (the guidelines) for working on the tile. Ratoon is a new to me pattern that was tricky for me to learn to draw – as patterns with loops and curves often are for me.

Difficulties aside, as soon as I saw it, I knew I was going to use colour in whatever it led me to create. I decided to work on a larger tan tile (4” x 4” or 10 cm x 10 cm), which presented so many options for colour combinations. This challenge also presented an opportunity to use fine line coloured pens and coloured pencils I hadn’t used in ages. I settled on a deep shade of red for the main pattern and added more shapes with a colour that reminded me of butterscotch.

I’m happy with the results; considering that Ratoon pushed me out of my comfort zone and I had to put quite a bit of thought into which other patterns to pair with it.

For anyone not familiar with Ratoon, it’s the pattern drawn with the red pen toward the center of the tile. The lines and dots in the center circle of my completed tile are not part of the basic pattern.

 

To see my completed tile for challenge 277 click here.

 

Love Affair With Lines

I’ve grown to love drawing lines.

I’ve written many times about how relaxing it is and how it can take on a meditative quality because it requires very little thought; but also one’s focus is completely drawn to drawing lines.

When I’m feeling stressed or overwhelmed by pain, grabbing a pen and my art journal/sketchbook and just drawing lines is one of the things I do to calm my thoughts.

If you’re looking for something simple to help you cope with stress, go grab a pen (or pencil) and a piece of paper and focus on nothing but drawing lines for a few minutes. You might even surprise yourself and create some interesting patterns.

I hope this is helpful for even one person.

 

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It’s A String Thing Debut

I’ve been doing the “It’s A String Thing” challenge organized by Adele Bruno on her site Tickled To Tangle on and off for the past few years. However, I have never – until this week – sent one of my completed tiles to Adele for her to post it alongside other participants’ tiles on her site. I felt awkward about the idea that my tile would be judged in comparison to others – especially those that look like mini-masterpieces of art – and that thought kept holding me back. That is no longer the case.

I sent Adele my tile for the last challenge: number 276 in the series. She posted it on her site for the whole world to see it. Judge it. Compare it. Critique it. Like it; or not like it. Whatever anyone might think, I’ve decided not to allow that to be a deterrent to my full participation in the challenge.

Going forward the only constraint that will apply to me sending Adele my tile will be whether it’s finished by the weekly submission deadline. Period. I’m looking forward to reading the lovely observation notes she makes about each tile, especially the notes about what she sees in mine.

To see the tiles from other participants in “It’s A String Thing” challenge #276 you can click the link above or on the image of my tile.

As I explained to Adele, in the accompanying message I sent her with my completed tile: both patterns in this challenge were new to me. Before I could get to work on my tile, I had to teach myself how to draw each of the patterns. So, as I do with each new pattern I learn, I worked them out in my pattern sketchbook. Surprisingly, neither of them was as difficult as they first appeared to me; Sistar specifically, which has quite a few separate elements does require some patience, but wasn’t too hard to figure out.

If you want to try your hand at this challenge, but you’re not familiar with the patterns Adele chose, here are the pages from my pattern sketchbook that detail how I drew each of the patterns.

 

I hope you have some fun creating your own mini-masterpiece!