Iris inchies

The last time I posted inchies, I griped about the size and several other things (inchies can be frustrating). Lisa at Inchie Arts decided she would help me out, and sent me some wonderful inchie bases, and some inchie plus (one and a half inch square) and twinchie (two inch square) bases too for my artistic inspiration.

First of all, let me say that these are some amazing bases - solid core matboard, diecut, and acid free, made from farm grown trees. In the past, I've used scraps and trash for my inchies, so I guess that affected how I felt about them after they were finished. These bases are gorgeous - real museum quality art material. I had seen them in online shops, but I didn't really think about buying them until I saw them in real life. This is one of those things that makes everything you do with it look better.

To be honest, I was a little afraid of them. What if my art isn't good enough for such nice bases, I wondered. Then I had a light bulb moment - if I didn't like what I drew directly on the bases, I could always glue some background paper on there and make a different kind of inchie. The base would get used, either way. Whew!

Thus encouraged, I whipped out some new pens - Staedtler ultra fine point pens. They have a .3mm tip, which is pretty close to the .25mm tip on the Micron One that I like for zentangles, and I got 10 colors in a nice case for about 9 bucks at Staples, a real deal!

I thought I would try something different. I'm not sure whether this would be considered Pointillism or Stippling, but it's a new technique for me. It's fun, too. The trick is to take it slow. If you go too fast, you get dashes instead of dots, and the shading is off (yeah, I learned that the hard way). However, if you go slow, it is a lot easier than drawing line, in my opinion. Try it! I continued the stems and leaves around the edge of the base - you can do that with these bases, because of the solid core. It's a really nice look. It feels like art!