From A Dream

On July 26, 2000, an image of a little girl's cartoon came into my dream.  When I woke up, I quickly sketched her in my journal, not really knowing what she meant.  At the time, I was the principal at a local parochial school and had two early elementary school girls of my own.  I figured that may have something to do with my dream.  However, I soon forgot about her.

Yesterday, Karen Letchworth mentioned Pile It On in her blog, which literally encourages readers to pile up various challenges along with theirs.  This week, they have Challenge #21, which is about using patterns and mixing scales.  I decided to try them out, and researched various blog challenges to find the perfect combination for my art projects.

©Arnoldo L. Romero 2012

First of all, I knew I wanted to use The Play Date Cafe PDCC132 color scheme, which features black, white and a splash of mustard yellow.  I've been playing with them for a couple of months and love their design team.  Next, I searched for a theme and found that Sunday Postcard Art blog's theme for the week is childhood.  I've never played with them before, but loved the featured postcard by Audrey - that's what reminded me of my old cartoon.  All kinds of mediums are allowed, so when I found the Crazy Amigo Challenge - Doodle, I knew what I wanted to do.  I learned to tangle through 3 books by Sandy Steen Bartholomew, a Certified Zentangle teacher.  I've never met her in person, but I consider her one of my blogging friends.  I even won the Latin Lover Bean Award she sponsored last summer!  Therefore, I combined these challenges to create the Zentangle Tile in my art journal.

©Arnoldo L. Romero 2012

For my card, I decided to use the sketch in Card Positioning Systems CPS266.  I hadn't played with them in a while, but their layout was perfect for me to use the pattern scale mix in the Pile It On challenge.  I recycled a scrap from a church bulletin and a vintage typewriter key print by Paperabilities.  I also had a mustard colored stamp frame by K&Company and some black and white Stanley mason's line that would fit the Play Date Cafe challenge perfectly.  I scanned my tile and cut it with a pair of Fiskars stamp scissors.  I created my focal point with the print and a Dymo label with the word "Hello," over a scrap from an Art-C print.  I flipped the sketch vertically and altered the order of the layered elements to fit my needs.  It worked!

©Arnoldo L. Romero 2012

Since the original Zentangle tile is only 3"x3," I used another print of it for the Sunday Postcard Art challenge.  They require that the postcard be 6"x4" in size.  I glued a strip of black paper that I had decorated using bubble wrap and white acrylic paint several years ago.  I matted my print in black and estimated where it would be.  I drew some light pencil lines and sketched out where I wanted to place my text - Psalm 127:3.  I inked my lettering with the same Sakura micron pens I used to tangle.  I attached my print with foam squares and scattered some K&Company mustard colored flowers.  As a finishing touch, I added dashed lines around the perimeter of my postcard.

As you can tell, I had a fun with these art projects.  Hope you enjoy them too.  Since I first got the idea for these art projects from Karen, I'm also using the postcard as an entry to the Word Art Wednesday challenge.  As if it wasn't enough, I am posting this in Take A Word Challenge - Dream, since all of these art projects stemmed from a dream.  (Isn't that weird?)  I truly appreciate all your comments, and would love to increase my number of followers, so  you are cordially invited to join me.  Blessings!