Playing with Distress Inks

Playing with Distress Inks

Loving the Distress inks so much that I thought I'd share a video on how I use them.  Hope you enjoy :)



Zentangle with Distress Inks

Zentangle with Distress Inks

First Zentangle Tile with Distress Inks

 

This is my first attempt as using distress inks for my background. I love, love, LOVE it! So much fun! I didn’t use the mister-effect because I was anxious to get started on the tangling right away, so I didn’t care to wait for it to dry.  I plan on doing a whole lot more with these distress inks so stay tuned!

 

For this piece I went with a little Helen Williams style for the tangle, I wanted something that would flow and allow me to shade in different tones.  I used a regular tile, distress inks, micron .1 and .05, a gold prismacolor pencil crayon, a white prismacolor pencil crayon and a white jelly roll.  **Note: White pencil crayon just lightens and blends, does not work as white exactly on top of the distress ink.

 

No before pics as I got carried away  J

Fassett Zentangle

Fassett Zentangle

 

This isn’t the first time I’ve used the Fassett Zentangle, it was once the weekly Diva challenge but it had been a while.  Eni Oken posted the Fassett Zentangle pattern as the challenge for the week and this is what I came up with.  I wanted the holes to look more like…well, holes.  But all in all it didn’t turn out too shabby. At least the Fassett part of the tile works!

 

Line art:

Fassett Zentangle before shading

 

Finished piece:

 



Fassett Zentangle

Eaxy Zentangle

Eaxy Zentangle

The Eaxy Zentangle was the Diva’s challenge this week.  It took a little harder to get used to than I expected.  A few tiles were chucked out while I tried to get the hang of this Eaxy.  Also included Eni Oken's Ruutz.

 

Check out the Diva’s challenge here

Check out Nadine Roller’s Eaxy step-out here

 

Line work before pic:

 

eaxy zentangle line work

After shading:



eaxy zentangle shaded

Grey Cloudy Smudging with Trelina Zentangle

Grey Cloudy Smudging with Trelina Zentangle

 

I smudged this tile first with grey pencil crayons (cloudy smudging tutorial here). Then I did the final in my piece in my Trelina training.  I think I’ve got it down now, and figure I’ll be using it quite a lot in future projects. Thanks again to Eni Oken for her amazing pattern(s) and all of the wonderful things she does for the tangling and doodling community.

 

There is no before pic, because as you can see, my camera was being used to record the video below.  Hope you enjoy!

Cloudy Smudging Technique for Tile Backgrounds

Cloudy Smudging Technique for Tile Backgrounds

Trelina and Skye on Cloudy Smudging background

 

There are a bunch of techniques for creating interesting backgrounds for zentangles and doodles.  Watercolors, distress inks, etc.  Here’s a really cheap and easy way to make a funky background. 
I got the idea from my grade 8 art teacher, it's one of the few things I remember from that class.  Turns out it came to good use many (many, many, many,) years later.

All you need is: 

• A tile or piece of paper
• A cheap pair of scissors
• Cheap pencil crayons (in the video I used crayola, not using my prismacolors for this)
• Tissue

Use the scissors to grate the nib of the pencil crayon onto your tile.  When you have a nice little pile of shavings, use the tissue to color the tile.  I cover my index finger with a good wad of the tissue and use circular motions to cloud up the tile.

You can use the tile right away to tangle or doodle on.

TIP:  My best tip with this method is to use the colors you clouded your tile with to shade and color your final piece.

 

Here’s a finished tile I did with the Trelina pattern and Skye. 

 

Enjoy the video, I hope it gives you some ideas to create!

Another Trelina

Another Trelina

 

Yay! I got to play with my new grey tones tiles! Woohoo! And of course, since I’m still working on the Trelina tangle, I incorporated into the piece.  Lots of fun shading on the grey tiles, was able to use a white pencil crayon and really make that white pop (though the pic doesn't do it justice).

 

Gonna post these in reverse…

 

First the finished tile

Trelina zentangle after shading

 

Here’s the before shading tile

Trelina zentangle before shading

 

 

And here are the materials I used to make this piece