Play Day

Thirteen of us met yesterday to play with the Zentangle concept and it was a fun kind of day. We first got to know a little bit about each other and I  shared some of my explorations, several people shared some  books that they had , there were a number of sketches and doodles,which were all pretty impressive. We talked a little about supplies and then we all traced our hands and doodled all over them.

I did get a new camera and spent an entire afternoon figuring out how to get the pictures from my camera to my computer. Then......I did not take one photo at our get together. However, one of the ladies sent me a picture of the one she did. She drew it  right on the fabric and then colored it with markers. I am not sure what kind of markers she used but I am pretty sure they were something new that she was trying out. When we get together again I think we will all exchange ideas about what we used and how we liked it and what we would do differently or the same way. If anyone else sends me pics I will  show them and I will remember to take pictures next time.

I had a tracing of my hand that I had done when I first starting playing a few weeks ago.

Someone mentioned on her blog about a group tracing their hands (guess where I got the idea to do that). I think she then traced it on to cloth because she said she could have printed it on her ink jet printer.  AHA.......I had some treated fabric already ironed onto  freezer paper. I could do that! I scanned it and I did print it out first on paper. The first one was teeny tiny, about 3 inches square. The second one was from my photo program and it was too big the third one was printed from Paint and it was just right; so I printed that one on fabric. The original on paper was never meant to be used but I liked it and cleaned it up a little but it was not nearly as nice and clean as the work the ladies were doing yesterday. I am still just experimenting and I decided that though it is not perfect I would do something with it. I traced over all of the lines with a black Pigma pen to sharpen them and I did a little "fixing up" also. I laid it on a piece of fabric that I was going to cut for the back and I liked the way the pattern showed through on the white background so I fused the pieces together then I fused them  to a piece of Timtex (remember I am experimenting). I fused the backing on the other side of the Timtex and quilted on the line outlining the hand with black and then echo quilted with white over the background and added the binding.

It is very stiff and will stand on a little easel if that is what I want. I have a sketch of my right hand too so I guess I will  do the same with that one.

BTW, Jack had a look at my old camera, he went on line looking for a solution and found one, so now he has my old camera. It used to work the other way around; every time he bought an new (more expensive) camera I got the old one. My new camera is not expensive but has better features than the old one. It worked out well for everyone.