Zentangle® Dingbatz: Patterns & Projects for Dynamic Tangled Ornaments & Decorations

Zentangle® Dingbatz are a fun and easy way to incorporate the fundamentals of Zentangle® into a wide variety of creative projects and bring attention and mindfulness to the smallest corners of your life.

Zentangle® Dingbatz: Patterns & Projects for Dynamic Tangled Ornaments & Decorations is a new book by Certified Zentangle Teacher (CZT), coach, and speaker Brian Crimmins. Available in June, this book includes a variety of projects that will allow you to practice using Dingbatz not only as stand-alone designs, but also as accents and enhancements to other art projects.

 

About the Author:

Certified Zentangle Teacher (CZT), coach, and speaker Brian Crimmins has taught the Zentangle(R) Method in art museums, tea houses, and in private homes. He has also exhibited and sold his own Zentangle-inspired art in galleries and at community art shows. Inspired by a concept called "Dingbatz" introduced by Zentangle(R)founders Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas in 2017, Brian started creating his own inspired Dingbatz designs, and quickly began teaching them in classes and to other CZTs at conferences. He loves to demonstrate the unique anatomy of Dingbatz with Zentangle(R), and he challenges his students to make their own.

My Thoughts

I know, I know. Your first question is what the heck is this book about. What is a zetangle? What is a dingbatz? Let me help. So the zentangle is a method of making structured patterns into beautiful images using simple shapes and lines in a relaxing manner. Dingbatz are decorations on paper. In a book there may be a design underneath the chapter title or on the corner of some pages. This book will help you to make both. Awesome words.... I know. This book's goal is to combine the two and use zentangles to make interesting dingbatz. I love writing like this. I feel like J.K. Rowling. It will help you to make eclectic and different types of items. Some of the items in the Table of Contents that this method can be used for is scrapbooking, name tags, place cards, gift tags, etc. 

I can tell you one thing, it is definitely relaxing. I had a particularly bad day with my two year old. We are entering "those" years an the tantrums were epic. My normally laid back child had been a "child of the corn" that day and I need to relax. Being pregnant, I can't drink so I pulled this book out and decided to give it a whirl. Next thing I knew, two hours had gone by. It lets your mind shut off. Things like this are my version of therapy. It feels so good to zone out sometimes and not have to think. I definitely could see this being something fun to try for a holiday place card or some gift tags. If you are a calligraphy or any kind of pen or pencil drawing you definitely should give this method a try. 

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Amazon

Holiday Gift Guide- A Stocking Stuffer for Art Lovers.

Description-

The instructions are quick visual exercises in Pocket Art: Portrait Drawing, the first book in the new Pocket Art series.

This lively, graphic approach to explaining concepts will have you looking and learning with step-by-step illustrations and expert tips straight from London-based artist Joanna Henly (aka Miss Led). This compact 112-page book is just right for carrying in a backpack or pocket for when you’re learning on the go.

Henly begins by guiding you through your initial set up, then moves on to "Understanding the Face." She takes you through every detail of capturing facial features and expressions, and mastering the rendering of hair and skin. Her exercises demonstrate and reinforce everything you learn as you go along.

The author-

Joanna Henly, well known by her professional name, Miss Led, is an illustrator, artist, and art director based in East London. As an illustrator, she works by commission for corporate brands, products, packaging, and advertising campaigns with specific experience within fashion, beauty, and technology sectors. As an artist, she works on projects from portrait commissions to large scale complex works. These are often in public spaces or live performances. In addition, she creates personal work, which is exhibited globally, and sells beautiful prints and originals online.

Jo is a strong promoter of professional practice within her art and illustration, including as a Global Ambassador for Liquitex paints and European Ambassador for Wacom. She is also a passionate educator, promoted via social media and podcasts to her online audience, which reaches 1.3 million people.

Specs-

Format: Paperback / softback, 112 Pages

ISBN: 9781631594694

Illustrations: 200 color images

Size: 5 in x 8 in / 127 mm x 203.2 mm

Published: April 24, 2018

My Thoughts-

As an art teacher, one of the projects my students struggle with the most are portraits. There's something about looking at a face and drawing it that make artists more critical of their work. Every year I usually assign a self portrait and a classmate portrait for them to work on their skills. When I heard of this book by author, Joanna Henly, I knew this would be the perfect addition to my classroom. 

Henly really did a fantastic job covering every area of portraits. Whether it is drawing facial structures, noses, lips, etc, it is covered in this book. Reading through it, I felt even more aware of better ways to do them myself and how to teach them. The imagery is absolutely beautiful with both black and white and colored images. The directions are easy to follow and provide a step by step guide for artists of all experience levels. It is the perfect size to carry around wherever you go too! 

If you are a budding artist or know someone who is, this is perfect for your holiday gift shopping. I can't recommend this book enough! 

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Show off your cat pride with this new book from, The Quarto Group!

Doodled Cats is packed with creative prompts, fun feline facts, and step-by-step doodling projects for the feline fanatic in you—the perfect book for on-the-go artists.

In Doodled Cats, beloved artist and illustrator Gemma Correll provides inspiration and ideas for doodling a variety of different cat breeds in a fun, quirky style. From a Persian and a Sphynx to a Scottish Fold and Siamese, doodle enthusiasts will learn to draw and doodle all their favorite feline friends, in addition to anthropomorphic cats, fashionable furballs, and even cats in hats! A bonus project demonstrates how to create your own cat-doodled mug.

This compact, hardcover book makes the perfect gift for on-the-go creative types and cat lovers alike.

DOODLED CATS

By Gemma Correll

9781633226531

160 pages

US $14.99, CAN $19.99

June 26, 2018

Walter Foster Publishing

My Thoughts:

Cats are one of my favorite animals! They're so independent and full of vigor. When I saw the adorable designs of Doodled Cats, I knew it would be a hit in my classroom (and for me personally). My students range from around 8 to 15 and this book has designs for all types of artistic levels from beginners to experienced. I loved the step by step guides to each design, as well as the cats designed as known figures in our society today.

The other adorable aspect of this book is the cute little illustrations and stories. These can be fun to read or to try and recreate for your own customized designs. You can even add your own real life feline friend!

If you're looking for a gift for your favorite cat lover or a fun activity book to enjoy, I highly recommend Doodled Cats!

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Scratch & Create - Scratch Board Book Review

I love creating interesting art. Imagine finding a mysterious picture underneath. These two books from Scratch & Create are a joy to scratch and lovely to look at.

The books contain pages of scratch boards. To create the art, the scratch surface is removed with the included scratching stylus tool. If you have ever scratched a lottery ticket, the idea is similar. The full color design will be revealed by removing the solid metallic colored surface by scratching.

The Enchanted Forest book is a series of postcards. The postcards can be removed from the book to work on and then to mail. A slight design is visible in the metallic surface. I picked a corner to get started. A little at a time and the color comes out. These are fully colored under the slick removable surface. It is very relaxing to scratch away! It does not take too much effort to reveal the designs. I can choose a section at a time, working with the two sided tool or I can get busy clearing a much larger section. Whatever mood strikes me. In Enchanted Forest, there are 20 postcards to complete.

The Hand-Lettered Life is a larger size book. There are 16 scratchboard pages with stencils to make your own design! The first few pages are prewritten phrases that can be scratched completely or just scratch a little here and there. I like the designs featured. They look like popular coloring books patterns. Most of the book contains solid scratchboards to make your own sign using the stencils or freehand. Each scratch brings out the color from underneath.

I found both of these titles to be calming and relaxing. The scratching is enjoyable and seeing the color pop is exciting. It can get a little messy with the scratching surface dust, so I recommend doing so outdoors or on a table covered in paper.

These books are fun for all ages. The concept is like coloring and the designs are lovely!
Order Hand-Lettered Life and Enchanted Forest plus more Scratch & Create titles from Quarto or from your favorite book seller.




Many thanks to Quarto for providing the review product.
Disclosure: No monetary compensation was offered or accepted for this post. Gratis product was received in order to write my honest and unbiased review. The opinions above are my own and were not influenced in any way. Others experience may vary.

New Ceramic Surface Design

Product was received for free in exchange for an honest review.

New Ceramic Surface Design is a fully-illustrated manual covering a wide range of creative surface decoration techniques presented in an approachable and accessible format. Ceramic artist and expert Molly Hatch guides beginners and more advanced ceramicists through various methods for creating designs on clay. You will be introduced to several different and new approaches for using your own imagery and content on the ceramic surface. Techniques include Mishima, tape resists, rubber stamping, and doodling to create line art, stamping, nature resists, found objects, and shellac resists to create textures, and sticker resists, contact paper stencils, paper resists, and Sgrafitto to create shaped designs. Detailed photography and hand-drawn illustrations document the processes and show beautiful completed samples. Templates and stencils for all the featured designs are included in the back of the book to use as is, or to tailor to your own tastes.

My thoughts:

Love this book! First of all, it is a nicely spiral bound book.  Second, i enjoyed reading the Artists inspiration in the book.

What I thought was very helpful is that near the front of the book there is a section labeled "Gathering Tools".  It is a list of tools you will need for most of the beautiful projects throughout the book.  So before you go any further in the book to pick a project, you will have the tools.  

There are step by step instructions on each project, with very colorful detailed pictures of said project.  And the instructions are easy to follow. Since I am a beginner, i was happy about that.  I felt although I had my very own personal art teacher, but only in book form.  There are many beautiful projects in this book, it is hard to chose what one to try first.