~ goodbye ~

February 26, 2018February 26, 2018 | Allison

goodbye…

hiding in the hollow tree that somehow still lives on, half-destroyed;

green truck rides through buzzing goldenrod and tangled berry brambles;

skipping up to Gram’s to get flour because we ran out… again;

sunsets leaking burning lava over the mountain ridges;

creaming corn days, warm cardboard boxes dripping with the smell of pizza for lunch;

treasure hunts for crystals by the side of the thorn-ringed pond;

building forts and holes and towers in a barn full of fuzzy cotton seeds;

climbing the hill to get fresh eggs, crossing the road to get fresh milk;

family gathered around a crackling bonfire by the creek overhung with mint;

the farm rolling out from under you at the top of the tallest hill;

art parties, tables laden with shared supplies and traded ideas;

walking under the majestic, white-boned sycamores under a clear blue sky;

church potlucks that are feasts, where we know each face at the tables;

the succulent sound of cows tearing off mouthfuls of grass in the pasture;

selling rusty metal parts and cow bones and broken bottles for pinecones at the island;

playing with friends in the grain bins, jumping off the ladder into the yellow corn;

capture-the-flag games and ATC trades after church;

finding litters of soft, tumbling barn kittens and watching them grow;

sledding down Gram’s hill with cousins and sipping hot chocolate afterward;

firefly-catching contests; flashing bits of flying gold captured in hands and jars;

club meetings: crooked stairs, dusty seats, shouts and laughter pounding the low rafters;

rambling nature walks all over the farm with friends;

eating picnic suppers on the flat roof outside our bedroom on a calm summer evening;

everyone gathered at the last chicken house, talking and laughing, relieved to be done…

goodbye.

new is a crackly word, an uncomfortable word –

it takes breaking in, like a fresh pair of shoes.

the old is familiar. it may be torn and falling to pieces, but it is love that made it so.

you know, don’t you?

when what we’re used to becomes what used to be,

the touch of change is sharp, its hold is slippery,

but oh, how can I bear to let go?

I know.

so,

goodbye, old farm, goodbye, old friends. goodbye, old life.

I’ll miss you.

I already do.

❤

***Allison***

Hand Lettering + Font Inspiration

February 17, 2018November 12, 2018 | Allison

Hello, dears!

Unfortunately I couldn’t make my Art Lab post on Friday, but I have time (and data XD) to do it today! In this post I’ll show you a few tips and tricks on lettering, plus show you plenty of font inspiration to copy or use to think up your own fonts. (Because I usually run out of ideas after, like, three fonts. XD) So. Ready? GO!

Technique: Hand Lettering

Hand lettering is super fun, and also very useful for when you want to spiff up an envelope or gift tag or any number of things.

Fonts

Let’s start with one of my the most common and prettiest fonts in handlettering: fake calligraphy. Lovely name, isn’t it? 😛 That’s because it allows you to get a calligraphy-like effect without using any special calligraphy tools. It’s also super simple to write. See?

Step One: Write out your desired words in the neatest cursive you can.

Step Two: Find the downstrokes. Downstrokes are the places in a letter where you move your pen down the paper, like the little pink arrows show in the picture.

Step Three: Widen and color in the downstrokes to get the look of a calligraphy pen. Ta-daa! Pretty, isn’t it?

This is a great base font, especially when paired with a simple sans or serif.

So basically sans doesn’t have the little “tags” on the ends of the letters and serif does. I like writing all caps sans and all lowercase serif. 🙂

And now, here are a bunch more simple fonts I wrote out to look through and use as inspiration or copy yourself. Which is your favorite?

Accents

Now that you got some fonts under your… um, pen XD, it’s fun to add little accents and flourishes to fill in the space beside the lettering. Here are a few ideas to get you started, and you can find a bunch more on Pinterest and the “Doodly Accents” section of PicMonkey. 🙂

Inspiration

Still need some more ideas to get your creativity flowing? Here are a few of my recent (and not-so-recent) lettering pieces.

You can hand letter with any medium you wish! Here I used my watercolor brush pens which are super fun for lettering.

envelope 8 — Quote from Jane Austen’s *Emma*

For this one I used a blue notebook marker + a blue ballpoint pen. I love adding vines to letters, but it does take a bit of time and patience. 😉 Another fun thing to do for fonts with thick, solid bars of color like below is to add zigzags or circles or other patterns inside the bars for more interest.

Quote from Nancy Pearcey’s *Total Truth*

This is the first page in my second bullet journal. I like how the mix of colored pencil and ballpoint pen looks together. 🙂

Not quite the right season for this, but hey, it’s lettering! XD I think it looks really neat to overlap some letters, like I did with the ‘y’ and the ‘o’. Also a little extra line of a different color beside the downstrokes adds a shadow effect and makes it look more special.

And lastly, a lovely Bible verse that I copied completely in blue ballpoint pen. (By the way, these Pilot G2 pens are practically THE BEST PENS EVERRR. They write super smoothly and you can get them in a range of point sizes.)

That’s all I have for today, so hopefully you’re inspired by now. 😀 If you did make some hand lettering inspired by this post, we’d love to see it! Check out how to help us fill our art gallery here.

***Allison**

The Ultimate List of Pen Pal Ideas

February 12, 2018June 1, 2020 | Allison

Hello, dears!

Today I am super excited to bring you the most requested post from my poll: a post of pen pal ideas! 😀 We’re going to look at gifts that you can send your pen pal in an envelope, fun things to include in your letters, envelope art inspiration, and more!

In this day and age (wow, I sound so old XD), a little handmade goes a long way. Emails are wonderful (and let’s admit, a lot faster), but you can’t beat the feeling of receiving a personalized package that a friend put time and effort into, just for you. I get so excited every single time I get a letter. ♥

Any letter from a pen pal is a treasure, but I love to think of ways to make each thoughtful little package even more special. Hopefully you enjoy reading through these ideas and maybe you and your pen pal will be inspired to use some of these ideas in your next letter!

Continue reading →

Poems {Third Edition}

February 8, 2018February 8, 2018 | Allison

Hello, my friends!

I’ve been collecting some poems in a draft for a while now, and today I thought it’s about time to share them. 😉 I quite enjoy writing poems, and I’m so glad that you guys have enjoyed reading them so far! Hopefully that trend shall continue. 😛

Ahem, shall we begin?

moon hammock

the moon through

bare black branches

becomes a lacy hammock,

spun with delicate glowing threads,

and suspended from stars.

cradled inside,

the man in the moon

watches the people below

hurrying and worrying

about their day,

and smiles softly.

for he knows how big a problem is

in a universe

millions and millions of miles wide.

he looks at the stars and knows –

not big at all.

home

we’re back again,

back to our memory foam house

that remembers how we sat

and laid our heads

and walked the floors

and made the beds.

it welcomes us back again,

back into the old nooks and

comfortable crannies.

we slip back into

the familiar grooves,

take our old places

in hearts and homes,

and smile the smile of

back again.

we were trying to carve out

new places for ourselves,

new dips in new pillows,

new ruts in new roads,

new places in new hearts,

but carving is hard work,

you know.

so for now we snap

back into place

like a seven-piece puzzle,

and breathe a sigh of relief.

we’re home again.

poem 1 (1280x960)

wildflower

they called her

brown-eyed Susan.

she was a wildflower,

her beauty fresh and pure

as sun rays and raindrops, with

wind-blown hair

and dewdrop eyes,

poppy petal lips

and a bright daisy smile.

she lit up her meadow

and spread her heart wide.

but wildflowers stay

only for a season

and then they

…

f a d e a w a y.

first world problems

this page won’t load,

the internet is slow,

and my tv only covers half the wall.

they’re out of organic,

i ate too much,

and i had to make that crust from scratch.

my purse must weigh ten pounds in coins,

they only take cash,

but no one has change for a $100 bill.

i have nothing to do but sleep,

but there’s not enough time in the day,

and i need to get away from all this stress.

maybe i’ll go to africa.

roses

once i wandered through

an old abandoned house

whose bones had broken long ago.

and in the cellar,

hanging in the dark,

i found roses.

they were tied to the ancient rafters

with brittle, yellowed thread,

fragrant with the soft, crumbling scent

of nostalgia.

i touched a faded petal and wondered

how something so old and fragile

could still be beautiful.

and i wished

to grow older

with all the grace of

dying roses.

the voiceless

we are the voiceless;

hear our silent cry.

our eyes have never opened,

our ears have never heard,

our lips have never spoken,

but if we could, we would say…

why do the ones who gave us life,

bring us death?

what have we done

that we should die?

people say,

the color of your skin

doesn’t matter –

it is who you are inside.

but does your size matter?

if your heart is too small,

perhaps it does not matter

what it holds,

if it will never get a chance

to tell.

we are the voiceless;

hear our silent cry:

we are innocent.

you cannot prove us guilty,

but we still die –

helpless.

hopeless.

voiceless.

**********

*sniff* Why is it so satisfying to write sad poems? :’) What do you think – do you like writing sad or happy poems/stories best? Which do you like reading best? Regardless, I hope you enjoyed these and I’d love to know which poem was your favorite!

Also, before you go, could I ask a favor of you? I have sooo many post ideas and not enough time (and data XD) to post them, so would you help me choose which ones to post first?

Thank you so much for your feedback, dear readers. ♥ Have a simply lovely day. 🙂

***Allison***

~ Winter Stroll ~

February 3, 2018February 3, 2018 | Allison

Hello, dears!

*sigh* I’m getting rather tired of the freezing weather we’ve had here lately. Winter is kind of boring and cold and hard to photograph, am I right? But I DID get a few good non-snow winter photos here recently that I thought I’d show you! Winter is hard for photography, but not impossible.

One recent Sunday we took a family walk after church to explore our new farm a bit. Well, it was more like a walk/drive/ride combined because we took the truck and the fourwheeler too.

I love this picture because of the pink and purple shirts. XD Jeff’s shirt used to be more blue but it got kind of faded.

♥

Maggie adores going on rides with us. 😀 She’s so cute and happy and smiley!

For some reason what looked like a bunch of old tuna cans were nailed up to the wall in one of the sheds? We were puzzled. It’s kind of funny though.

I love this picture for its rustic character and texture. (Don’t worry, this isn’t the house we’re moving into or anything. XD XD It’s just an old shed.)

More rust, and more neat-ness in an abstract kind of way! This stuff went under the concrete they poured in Dad’s “new” shop.

Isn’t the bark on this tree super strange? It’s all flaky and weird – even on the twigs. It kind of looks like lichen, except completely covering the whole thing.

The kids wandered down to the pond while Mom and Dad drove around another part of the farm. Jeff was trying to convince Maggie to take a swim, but she only likes water she can wade in, not swim in, for some reason.

This is Carmen and her prize feather. XD

I absolutely LOVE the pattern the sky and clouds make on the water! It looks so neat, don’t you agree? It would make a neat painting too.

I love the cattails all around the pond!

The light was gorgeous. ♥The boys went crazy with the fourwheeler – spinning around doing burn outs and driving through puddles and over tiny trees and stuff. -_- Boys, boys… *shakes head* XD Ah well, it is pretty fun to drive.

For some reason I really like this picture too. Probably because it’s winter and I’m eager for green and sunshine like this. Ahhh, so pretty!

LOOK AT THE LIGHTING! *happy sigh* It was sooo gorgeous up there, but really hard to capture too. It didn’t look quite like this, but you can imagine how pretty the sun looked on the golden grass.

The fun thing about moving to a new farm is that we now have hundreds of acres to explore for the first time, and I LOVE it. The sun was out and it was such a lovely day for winter and we got to wander down paths we’d never been too… ahh, it was great. 🙂 *happy sigh* Walks like these are some of my favorite things!

The lighting here was SO pretty again, and again so hard to capture! I also didn’t want to tell them to stop walking because I wanted to get a candid picture, so most of them turned out blurry. XD At least this one is alright!

I have no idea what kind of tree produces these strange flower thingies.

HEH HEH. Megan and I were doing photos like in movies when the characters are barely holding onto the edge of the cliff, and then she actually almost fell into the water. XD XD A sturdy fallen tree over a creek is basically irresistible to young boys (and girls). Heh heh, see here? Maggie doesn’t mind wading. Her expression… XD

I love the smooth, curved edges on this ice!

OH I LOVE THIS PHOTO. For some reason I just find it really neat. 😉 I saw this little exposed knob on a tree and had to stop for a picture! Also it really reminds me of an avocado seed somehow? Don’t exactly know why… XD

Oh, funny story. I often randomly spot hawks when we drive somewhere or go on walks. I don’t know why I see them so much more than the rest of my family, but I do, and it’s gotten to be a sort of joke. I’m always like, “HAWK” when I see one, and Megan groans. XD She gets annoyed because I say, “It’s really strange how I always see hawks,” almost every time I see one. Well that’s what she says, but I don’t say it every time… *shakes head* XD

ANYWAY. I found a hawk that day too (it’s in the tree if you look close), so I took a picture for Megan as evidence. 😛

And I shall end on that note. I hope you enjoyed coming along with us on our winter stroll and seeing for yourself that there ARE things to photograph in winter after all, if you look close enough. 🙂

What was your favorite picture? What was your least favorite? (I want to know! Don’t worry about hurting my feelings – as long as you’re not intentionally mean or rude you won’t. Constructive criticism really helps!)

Do you enjoy winter (or spring or summer or fall) strolls? Do fourwheelers look fun, and have you driven one?

***Allison***

Various and Sundry Sisters Photoshoots

January 28, 2018 | Allison

Heyyy, guys!

Megan and I (and my little sister Carmen) have been doing quite a few photoshoots recently, so I thought I’d combine them all into one post for you today! I shall go in roughly chronological order because that’s how I uploaded the pictures. 😉 Also, Megan took all the pictures of me except the “selfie” ones, using my Nikon D3400. Alright, onwards and… upwards? XD

I did this photoshoot back in December when I went to the “island” (a patch of trees in a field) to collect greenery for wreaths. For some reason I decided to do a photoshoot of myself while I was there? I’m trying to get better at “selfies” because GOODNESS they are hard, especially without a tripod. Thus I only have two of those pictures to show you. XD

(This caption thingy is NOT cooperating so I guess I’ll have to use it instead of deleting it.) Thankfully these two pictures turned out alright at least!

Ooh, I love this next photoshoot! Megan and I went down to the pond at our new farm one day (see more in this post) and it was absolutely breathtaking! The snow on the trees, the crystal-clear reflections… ahh, isn’t it beautiful? The perfect backdrop. 🙂

HEH HEH. And then we have this. XD Here’s an at using the self-timer, but it failed so hard it actually worked. XD I turned around just at the wrong time and IT CRACKS ME UP.

Here’s another little “selfie” photoshoot. When no one else is available to take pictures of, at least I have myself. 😛 It… still didn’t work out the best. It was really hard to stay in focus with self-timer, not to mention getting to the right place at the right time! Morale of the story: SELFIES ARE HARD. Find a sibling if possible. XD

Anyway. I was trying to go for one of those stock photo, Pinterest-y pictures but it turned out blurry. -_- Other than that I think it looks kinda neat, though. I do kind of blend in with the fence post… XD

AHA! An in-focus picture! Way to go, Allison. And I even jumped at the right time! Wow. *shakes head in wonder*

This doesn’t exactly fit since it’s just a hand (in case you thought it was a face…?), but oh well, it was in the same photoshoot. AND IT’S NOT BLURRY. SO. Plus you can see how crooked my fingers are. XD This perspective makes them look shorter than they are, though.

Ooh yes, this photoshoot was probably the most successful in terms of quantity. 🙂 We went for a walk at our new farm and found that the smaller pond was frozen enough to walk on! It was soooo fun, and I’ll have more pictures in a later post. This time Carmen obliged me and we did a little photoshoot. 😀 I love how you can see her reflection in the shallow puddles of water on the ice!

Once we start she always gets really into it and has all sorts of ideas about how she should pose and stuff. 😉

Look at this strange ring of bubbles!

Okay, hold on here, guys – only one more photoshoot to go after this. I hope it isn’t getting too long. Anyway, Megan and I did this one when we were rebaling at the new farm. We had to stack I think over 300 40-pound bales in a semi trailer which was rather hard work… except when it wasn’t. Then we took pictures. 😉 I thought the walls of the trailer would make a neat background and I think it did! How about you?

HA HA. We sometimes wear masks if the hay is too dusty, and it was that day. It kind of looks like a party hat, eh? An awfully strange one, to be sure.

OKAY. LAST ONE. This is a related photoshoot because we did it that same day. I think. It was snowing

I love the contrast in these pictures!

Heh heh, I was trying to look at the snow on my hood which resulted in me crossing my eyes. XD

I had the idea of doing some of those rather cliché but pretty snow-blowing pictures. 😛

BAHAHA THIS IS HILARIOUS. I look like I’m singing a very solemn song to the snow. XD

YAY, YOU MADE IT THROUGH! What do you say – are you getting tired of sisters photoshoots yet? Do you like shooting and seeing portrait photography or other photography better? Also, what was your favorite of these photoshoots?

Have a beautiful day, beautiful person. 🙂 Thanks so much for reading!

***Allison***

~ Etcetera #2 ~

January 24, 2018January 26, 2018 | Allison

Good gracious, guys, my unposted pictures are backed up all the way to October. XD So as you can see, it’s high time for another random photography/thoughts/etc. post! Enjoy the bits and pieces. 🙂 (And warning: this is going to be a VERY long post.)

Flowers + Butterflies

I love this next picture! The flower and colors are so incredibly bright and cheery. 🙂

At the new farm we’re kind of in the middle of nowhere and at the end of the line, so it’s really hard to get Internet. You can get it, but it’s quite expensive past a certain monthly amount of data – and we already used that up, halfway through the month! O.o And even worse, the things that use it up the fastest are watching videos online and BLOGGING. HELP. XD Thankfully after you use up the data you still have Internet… it’s just really, REALLY slow. Like barely-moving slow. -_- Hooray.

I was excited to be able to get decent pictures of a monarch butterfly because they’re pretty rare around here!

I just finished reading Emma for school. Anyone else read it? I don’t know if I like it or not. It’s definitely very well-written, but it’s also rather boring – life in the 17th century seems to consist of going to dinner parties and getting married?

A bunch of other butterflies and moths and bugs came to the zinnia patch as well. 😀

Guess what? You know how I mentioned we might turn the Cedar House into an Airbnb? Well if we do, and we probably will, my parents are thinking they’ll let me be in charge of it! I am SO excited. That means I’ll get to decorate it, clean it, and add all sorts of fun touches for the customers – eek! 🙂

I think I found a new favorite word – to say, at least: verisimiltudinous. ISN’T IT GREAT? XD

Carmen got a cat laser toy for her birthday and Tom (one of our cats) LOVES it. Mom says she feels sorry for him because there’s not actually anything to catch. XD

Fall Forests & Fields

I took these pictures at my grandparents’ woods which are lovely and gold in the autumn. And the light… ♥

Ahh, mushrooms. I love taking pictures of them and drawing them, but I don’t like eating them, heh heh. I used to absolutely despise them but I don’t mind them as much now – at least raw is okay.

Speaking of food, I’m not a picky eater, but I think two of my least favorite foods are black walnuts and goat cheese. They both taste so pungent and strange, and I think goat cheese tastes like goats smell. SORRY. BUT IT DOES.

This one kind of looks like an art prompt, doesn’t it?

I took this picture when we were having a Nature Study on hickory trees with our friends and went to search for hickory nuts afterward. I LOVE the lighting. 🙂

I rather like how you can see two pictures at once here.

Etcetera

Bittersweet berries are beautiful! There’s a huge vine of it up the hill from our (current) house.

My friend and I randomly did a photoshoot after church one day when I had my camera along anyway. I won’t put the pictures of her on here in case she doesn’t want me to, but here’s one of the pictures she took of me. 🙂

The maple tree outside our church is AMAZING in the fall!

Ooh yes, I really like this one. I edited it quite a lot to make the chopper and wagon into silhouettes, but I love how it turned out!

Here’s a kind of similar picture. I took this right before we went on the nature walk: one of us spotted a deer on the hill and it walked right along the top so you could see its silhouette. Doesn’t it look neat?

My siblings put colored lights around the trampoline a while back and they look AMAZING at night! And as bokeh and light painting photos. 🙂

I’ve also been reading a phenomenal book called Extreme Devotion. It’s a daily devotional, but I’m just reading it as a normal book because it’s composed of many short, very inspiring stories from Voice of the Martrys. One of my favorite quotes from it so far is this:

God, I do not ask You to make my life easy; I do ask You to make me strong.

– From a Jewish child, in a note found in the rubble of a Jewish ghetto in Poland after it was bombed by the Nazis

AHH THIS PICTURE. Doesn’t it look so warm and bright and sunny? ♥ It makes me happy just to look at it. Actually lots of things make me happy just to look at them. 😛

Have you ever exploded Ivory soap? If you haven’t you should – it is SO fun! All you have to do is take a bar of Ivory soap (only the Ivory brand will work) and microwave it for a while until you see it start puffing up like a marshmallow. It’s so weird and neat. I did this one day with Carmen when she was bored. 😉

And now let us end with a picture of three of our adorable bunnies. 😀 ♥ I haven’t posted much about them lately, huh? Probably because we don’t take many pictures of them in the winter when it’s cold and gray. Hopefully I can do another photoshoot soon, when it warms up. 🙂

And there you have it! One long and random post. XD I finally cleaned up at least SOME of the leftover pictures, which feels great. I still have plenty left, though, so be on the lookout for another Etcetera post soon!

Which picture or topic was your favorite? Do you have the same problem of taking too many photos to keep up with? Are you enjoying winter or ready for it to be over?

***Allison***

~ s n o w y ~

January 19, 2018 | Allison

Eeeeek, I’m so excited to show you guys these pictures! 😀 It snowed 6 or 7 inches while we were up at the new farm, and it was GORGEOUS. ♥ Good thing I brought my camera, heh heh. I also brought the macro extension tube set I got for Christmas and it worked splendidly for taking pictures of individual snowflakes! Sooo pretty.

Anyway, I guess I’ll let you see for yourselves now, huh?

I love this little snowdrift sculpture on the roof. 😛

DSC_2159 (1280x856)

Isn’t this neat? It’s kind of hard to tell, but it’s snow on a wooden staircase.

snow 18 (856x1280)

Dripping icicles are great fun to take pictures of. 🙂

DSC_2141 (1280x856) snow 17 (1280x1280)

I think this one’s neat too. ♥ It kind of looks vintage to me – does it to you?

snow 15 (1117x1280)

There were some cute birds by the hay rebaling barn and I got some… okay pictures. They wouldn’t let me get too close, and I was only wearing tennis shoes in the snow so I didn’t WANT to get too close or my feet would get completely soaked. XD

snow 13 (1280x901) snow 14 (1280x1280)

Ohhhh for some reason I love this picture. ♥ REMEMBER THOSE DOUGHNUTS?

snow 11 (1280x854)

Snow + Cows = Photogenicness. Sadly I took this out the car window so it isn’t as photogenic as it could be.

snow 9 (1280x854)

I quite like how you can see the snow falling so clearly in these pictures!

DSC_1990 (1280x854) DSC_1985 (854x1280)

The falling snow… the wooden fences… the covered trees… ahh, I think I can safely say snow looks even prettier down there than up here, and that’s saying something. XD

DSC_1984 (1280x854)

Alright, now for my favorite part – the close-ups!

DSC_1971 (854x1280)

Look, you can see the invidual snowflake(s)!

snow 5 (1280x854)

Snowflakes are incredibly beautiful. ♥

snow 3 (1280x853) snow 2 (1280x854) snow 1 (1280x854)

And now for my pride and joy… ta-daa!

snow 7 (1280x854)

snow 8 (1280x960)

Isn’t it so beautifully delicate? I just LOVE zooming in and being able to see the intricacy of each snowflake. ♥ So far this is definitely my favorite part about that lens set. I’ll hopefully do a review of them once I take more photos with them and figure them out a bit more, but they’re quite neat so far!

One thing I will say – you have to use manual focus which is difficult when taking such close-up pictures. Even a tiny movement can make the subject blurry. But other than that, I love them!

I hope you enjoyed these pictures, dears. 😀 Which ones were your favorites? Did you get snow where you live too?

***Allison***

P. S. Guys, if you love photography too, you should definitely check out Roxanne’s photography challenge! I probably won’t be doing it since, as I keep saying, we’re pretty busy with the move, but it looks super neat and I’ll bet it will be great fun!

The Art Lab, Episode 38: Spaghetti Mountains

January 13, 2018November 12, 2018 | Allison

Hey, guys! How’s life? Mine’s good, and currently smells like pizza baking in the oven. (It’s movie night with homemade pizza. 😉 ) Wait, that was the timer… HOLD ON.

Okay, we’re good. Ha, that was an interesting coincidence. ANYWAY, less food and more art now, eh?

Oh wait, I forgot about the title. XD Maybe we’re not done with food yet… Today I want to show you how to draw “spaghetti mountains,” what I decided to call this certain doodling technique. 😛 I think it looks so neat in the end, and it’s quite fun and relaxing to draw.

Art Inspiration:

{via}

Isn’t this gorgeous? I love it! I made a similar piece using this as inspiration, and also made you guys a little tutorial if you’d like to try it yourself. 🙂

Materials Needed:

Paper, an ATC, canvas, etc.
Black pens or markers (I used varying sizes of Micron pens + a black brush pen)
A white gel pen (optional)
Some time

1. Draw some jagged lines for mountain ridges with your thickest pen (I made the lines thicker later). Make some ridges in the background and foreground.

2. Take your second thickest pen and start filling the first mountain with “spaghetti.” XD Draw some curvy lines that all start and end at the same point, and follow each other closely. Like so.

3. Add more spaghetti in a different direction, and connecting to the noodles you already drew.

4. Keep adding more spaghetti in all different directions until you fill the whole mountain ridge.

5. Now for the ridge behind it. Use a slightly thinner pen to show perspective, because things (like spaghetti) look smaller when farther away.

6. Keep it up! After you finish that ridge, move onto the one behind, using a thinner pen each time and making the lines close together. Doesn’t it look so neat thus far?

7. Add a sun behind the last ridge. I left a white space, but you wouldn’t have to. 😉

8. Next we’re going to make the “rays” of the sun. Using your thickest pen, fill in the space above the sun with rows of dots or ovals.

9. Make the dots in each new row bigger than the last…

10. Ta-daa! You’ve filled the whole page!

11. You can definitely leave it like that, but I added a bit more embellishment with a white gel pen. First I colored in the sun black, (weird, I’ve never seen a black sun before, have you? XD), and then rimmed it with dainty white dots.

12. And lastly, I added some white circles to the black dots, just to break things up a bit.

13. Ta-daa! You’re finished!

What do you think? I think… strange but neat. 🙂 I hope you get a chance to try this, because it’s quite fun and I love the end result.

Thanks for reading, dears! Now go make some art. 😉 Oh, and if you DO make art inspired by this post, we’d love to see it! Check out this page to see how you can help us fill our gallery.

Have a great day, guys! I hope I haven’t made you too hungry… XD

***Allison***