Diva Challenge: White on Black on Found

This week's Diva Challenge is to use a black tile or anything found black. I have some of the black Zentangle tiles but don't use them often. I find that I cannot get the white pens to be as detailed as I would like. They don't flow like the Sakura micron pens. In fact the one that worked the best for me was the Signo uniball pen. I did love, love, love the Zentangle soapstone stick for shading. I could shade all day on black with it! They seem like a hard rock but lay down a soft white misty shade of white on the black paper. It was fun but I doubt I'll be a lover of the black tiles anytime soon.

Dotee Dolls

Engaging with others in mail art swaps is one of my favorite pastimes. I usually pick one or two a month to participate in on a site called artfortytwo.org. The swaps are varied, the art well done, and the people nice. Another advantage of  the Art 42 group is that I am not required to purchase any special products to participate in the swaps. Everyone works pretty much with the products they have on hand already. I like this because it often allows me to use new techniques or products I have been wanting to try out. Most of the swaps I engage in are collaged or painted ATC's, chunky pages, or things of that nature.

However, one different sort of a swap caught my attention -Dotee dolls. Now what in the world are Dotee dolls?, I thought. Well, as it turns out, Dotee Dolls are an altered art doll created by Dot of http://dotslifeandart.blogspot.com Since then they have become a swap sensation and they are as varied and different as they are fun. The pair I made for the swap were to be a Winter Dotee doll and a Spring Dotee doll. Here they are - the Snow Angel and the Spring Sprout. I must admit I had a hard time parting with them but send them off I did and these pics are all I have left.

Many sites and blogs post detailed instructions for making a dottee doll but here are the basics.

1. Find some fabric you love for the body. Cut it out in any shape of your choosing. I have seen pear shapes, rectangles, triangles. Find a ribbon to use for hanging the dottee doll. The ribbon is folded in half  with the loop sticking out the top of the doll and the tail hanging out the bottom of the doll.  Attach the ribbon to the front inside of the body. The doll will be anywhere from about 3-5 inches long.

2. Using felt of any color cut out a face shape. Draw, paint, sew or bead on the facial features, then sew the face to the front side of the front of the body.

3. Stitch the two body parts together. Hand stitching is easy to do on these dolls. They can be sewn right sides together and turned inside out so the stitching does not show, or sewn wrong sides together with the seams to the outside. Again it depends on your preference.

4. Embellish the doll as you choose. You may add clothing, beads, hair. The sky's the limit! 

Winter White

I arrived back home in Benson just in time for the first big snow of the year. It came down all day and night Friday, light and airy, quiet and peaceful, white on white. The perfect inspiration for two swaps I have due mid-month for the artfortytwo.org site.

One of my favorite color schemes is white on white. I love how much can be said with so little.
I was recently looking through an issue of Midwest Living in which a couple had done their Christmas decorating in a white on white theme. It was quite simple but elegant. White is cold, yet calm and serene. It speaks to us of purity and goodness, hope. It is clean, fresh, new. When I picture the color white I see snowflakes and winter. I see delicate lace, the luster of pearls, white doves of peace, the fire in an opal.

Just because something is white does not mean it has to be colorless. Actually the quality of white in the light spectrum is not the absence of color but the combination of all color. One of my drawing teachers in college was known for fabulously detailed color pencil work. I was particulary awed by her colored pencil drawings of white objects such as rabbits. Somehow she managed to never lose the white quality of her subjects even though her drawings were in color.

White is the color of new beginnings. Every artist or writer who faces a blank white page or canvas know how it feels just before you commit pen to paper. Scary. However, more often than not what emerges is beauty, like newly fallen snow on a winter landscape.