Linda Mahoney Art

Fun with zentangle-inspired images continues. I created this little 4.5x6.5 piece with colored ink. I can't resist experimenting with new materials and ideas. I completed a larger colored pencil piece yesterday that is unusable. I will post it as a "learn from your mistakes" item later. Have a blessed Sunday! All the best - Linda

I continue to find zentangle-inspired images relaxing and fun! There are many sites on the web where you can find ideas for designs to incorporate into your doodling. I like to work on these while my hubby is driving - though unexpected bumps result in a few squiggles here and there. I've begun including color in the images and like how it pops. I hope to get more sophitiscated in the use of the doodles and size of the marks to help create depth and shading within the images. Update on the artwork in the previous post: "Wrong Turn" - is SOLD. Prints may be available at a later date. All the Best - Linda

Here's a colored pencil painting that I finished yesterday. It's 22"x16" on Stonehenge. This past summer an artist friend commented to me, "You like art that tells a story." I had never thought of that before, but perhaps I do. I very much enjoy doing representational still lifes and landscapes, but I suppose when I do something that is totally created from my imagination, it does tell a story. I often have the title of a piece in mind before I start on it, so I guess that figures in, too. This one is titled "Wrong Turn". Sometimes purchasers want to know what I was thinking when I created a certain piece. I don't mind sharing, but I prefer for the viewer to have their own story. If I tell them mine first, I feel it limits what it can be for them. Most of us have made a wrong turn or two in our lives, and I hope that idea doesn't cramp your story when you consider this image. 

Here is the finished (I think) artwork with the abalone shell that I was working on in the previous post. It was a lot of fun to do and I'm already off on my next colored pencil painting. I hope to have it finished by the end of this month so that I can enter two of them for the jury process of the Colored Pencil International exhibit. Only one piece per artist can be selected, but I figure having two will double my chances to get in. I would really like for that to happen so that I can get my 10-year merit status. Back to the drawing board...

This doesn't look like anything more than a bunch of squiggles, right? When you look up close, even the most realistic renderings can look very abstract. I have to remind myself, as I do my students, to "draw what you see, not what you think you know". We all develop some kind of preconceived ideas of how things should look from a very early age. To accurately reproduce what we see, it is helpful to shift away from naming the object or thinking about what it is. Focusing in on small areas and duplicating what we see rather than what it is helps to make the shift.  This is a small area - about 4" square from a 16 x 22 image. It's  Prismacolor pencil on Stonehenge paper .  I hope to finish it within the next couple of weeks and will share the whole image here.