I got some new crayons and pencils!!! That's right you read it correctly. lol While we were in Grand Rapids last Saturday we stopped by the wonderful art supply store TSquare on Plainfield Ave. I'd heard about watercolor crayons but I'd never actually tried any myself. They had the Lyra Aquacolor Crayons in stock so I brought home the tin of 24 colors. However that wasn't our last art stop of the day oh no that would have been Hobby Lobby on Alpine Ave. There I promptly purchased a tin of Derwent Inktense Pencils. Naturally as soon as we got home I quickly cleaned off an area on my work table pulled out a sheet of Strathmore 400 series watercolor paper and got to work. For the next 1 1/2 hours I couldn't have told you if the phone rang or if anyone had come to the door I was so engrossed in what I was doing, seeing and feeling.

I started out by drawing a heart with a permanent marker on the corner of my paper then I quickly converted it into a Zentangle which was then filled in with the Derwent Inktense pencils. Then came the bottom left corner hmmm what to try next? How about a stamp. I'd been working on some Valentine cards earlier so the Close to My Heart stamp went down with Stazon ink and then was colored in with the Lyra Aquacolor crayons.

The cover of the Derwent Inktense pencil tin had a peacock on it. So I pulled out a graphite pencil and sketched him onto the center of my paper. Then using the Derwent Inktense pencils I continued to color and shade him in. I was quite pleased with the results of the peacocks body but will need to experiment more with the feathers.

Onto the right side of my paper another stamp that was handy was the cute little monkeys from Stampendous and then below that I drew a butterfly Zentangle. For each of these I used a combination of crayons and pencils.

Oh what beautiful colors appeared on my paper. I can't wait until the next time I have a few hours to play again with my wonderful new toys.