Different doodling

I went to a sale at Zart Art late last year and there was a man demonstrating using watercolour paints and black pen for an art activity in  the classroom.
I remembered it recently and did  the preliminary work. I had got out my watercolour crayons and just put some lines on paper and then swished some water around.
I experimented by wetting some areas of the paper and not others.  The crayons just did fairly ordinary straight lines where the paper was wet.  When I put the crayon on the dry paper, and then swished water around with a brush, the colours mixed nicely and the obvious pencil marks disappeared.  But overall, the thing looked like a mess.
Unfortunately, I didn't take a photo.
Then, over the next few days, I did a little bit of doodling with a black pen.  I went around the areas of different colours and intensity.

I quite like the result.  I have no idea what to do with it now.  I suppose I should treat it like the zen doodles, just let myself enjoy the process, not worry about the end product.

Lino cutting part 3

The last part of the first lesson was to use a different substance for cutting into.  I used Soft Cut carving block, which I got at Zart Art, one of my favourite shops! I learnt about it when I was teaching, it is a school supply shop that also sells to the public.
It was easier to cut into - I think.  It is softer and thicker and does cut easily but it also moves a little more than the lino does.  Each has its advantages I suppose.

It was suggested that we do a pattern that could be repeatedly stamped onto the fabric.  I used a Charles Rennie Mackintosh design (that I had played with previously). I thought I had cut the carving block square but obviously I didn't, the last row of my printing did not match the rows above as I had changed the orientation of the block as I was printing.

As I get more experienced and confident, I might even try to utilise some of the knowledge I gained about how to design repeat blocks.  I will need to be better at cutting than I am now as well as better at stamping, to get good repeats going.  Something to aim for.