Illuminated Vines video lesson

I got sidetracked last weekend due to a quick summer bug and didn't have time to post more pictures of my latest lesson on Illuminated Vines.

These were inspired by Illuminated Manuscripts of the 15th Century — that's Early Renaissance, and I'm particularly fond of the Italian and French ones with lots of gold and beads. The designs are not faithful adaptation, but more like inspired by those, with some of the same language such as tons of tiny scrolling vines, golden beads and flower motifs. Here are the two pictures I discuss in that lesson.

If you know me, I'm a huge fan of exploring your own materials and using whatever you have available to create art — it's not the supply that makes the artist. Of course, working with the best possible options is always desired (which makes me acquire huge amounts of supplies every year, hahahah). In this lesson, I discuss different alternatives for the supplies, so that you can adapt whatever you have available to you.

The lesson uses a ton of materials, but the part that I love the most is when you finally blend in those layers of color and the results produce that rich, deep colored shading, which makes the rest of the design simply pop.

Another thing that I really, really like about this lesson is that although it is not exactly Zentangle, it has a profoundly meditative quality to is, not only during the time when we create endless little vines, but also during the painting of the background. Soooo much Zen flow!!! So relaxing!

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