Friday, March 20, 2015

Diva Challenge #209 ~ Green it Up!

Well, here it is almost the end of the week ... again. I really have had this done for a couple of days, but was running here and there and when I had time to take pictures, it was after dark and the pictures really don't come out well, so I managed to take pictures this morning BEFORE I started wandering thither and yon.  Anyway, this week's challenge at the DIVA'S PLACE was to green it up for both Spring being on it's way and of course, St. Patty's Day. I only managed to do one green piece this week, but it was kind of a busy one and my hands weren't working for a couple of them too, so I basically took it easy.

 But first, I want to introduce you to our oldest kitty, Mistoffellees, but we call him Puppy Cat usually.  He turned 15 on Sunday and he is a pretty special old boy. We got him at about 6 months of age, back in October of 2000 because the people that had him had just had a baby and the baby was terribly allergic to the cat. That's what his name was....Cat. Anyway, I brought him home and we named him after Magical Mister Mistoffellees from the musical "Cats", because it just seemed to fit. He got the name Puppy Cat because he is really a big cat, at his highest weight, he was about 20 pounds, but his tail is about the size around of a lab's tail. And he is polydactal on ALL of his paws. All in all, he has 24 toes and 25 claws. When I watch him now, I often wonder at how much it must have hurt him to walk, because some of his toes are bent under under his regular ones.  Anyway, here's to my Puppy Cat...Happy Birthday Mistoffellees!

This is Puppy Cat posing happily on his birthday  for me.  I love his "eyeliner" around his eyes. This boy is a beautiful tuxedo kitty 
Here's a closeup of one of his front paws showing his multitude of toes and claws. He is such a sweetie! 
But that was at the first of the week, and I was playing with a bit of tangling, so here's a couple I finished before I went to work on the challenge.

 I had actually finished this tile mostly at our local group meeting of the Intermountain Tanglers, which David Hunter and Heidi Sue started here in the Salt Lake area. One of our members had brought some hand dyed paper tiles for us to play with and I had never done the tangle Niuroda before, so I played with it at our meeting. David scanned the tile but it looked differently than this on our group website. I brought it home and decided that it wasn't finished, so I added a bit to it and now I DO consider it done. It reminds me of a jellyfish but now I really do like the tangle. I'll have to play more.






I decided that I should get used to using strings because I very rarely use them and chose one to play with. I like the way it turned out and so I shaded it. But when I got finished shading it, I didn't like the effect, so I had just found my Dove Blender that I used to use with my colored pencils with my rubber stamping and used it over the pencil shading and loved the way it smoothed out the shading. What do you think?




Going Green
Media:  3.5" x 3.5" tile, Black Micron 01, Various Green Derwent
Watercolor Pencils, and Water, Gold Pitt Pen
Tangles: Shattuck, Hybred, Mooka, Wud, Sh'rock


..... and Finally...here is my challenge piece for this week. I am guessing that my wee little lephrecaun lost his hat in the Sh'rocks and Mookas, and must have turned a couple of the rocks into gold.  If you hurry, maybe you will find them before he comes back to collect them!  Happy tangling all!




And it you want to see all the rest of the challenge pieces for this week, just head to the Diva's blog (click here) and see what everyone had to offer. Would love to hear comments, as always, since feedback is always good and helps me grow!

10 comments:

  1. All beautiful, but to be honest, the first one is my favorite. Maybe because of the 'simpleness'. Give my love (and congratulations) to Puppy Cat!!!

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    1. Thank you very much. And Puppy Cat said "thank you as well" but it came out as "purrrrrrr"

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  2. I really like your penultimate tile. I'm not sure I'm picturing what you used to smooth out the shading, but whatever it was, it worked really well. I think your green tile fulfills the Diva's challenge.

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    1. Thank you very much! I need to play some more with that Blender, I think. I'm not sure what liquid it uses, but it works almost like baby oil on pencil and colored pencil images.

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  3. Love that hand dyed tile and your green hat is great!

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    1. Thank you. The hand dyed tile was a gift from one of the members of our tangling group and she did a wonderful job with them all. The hat was fun to do, just not quite what I pictured. But in the end, I do like it.

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  4. All three are beautiful and so different! Especially I like the third one!

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    1. Thank you. I don't really have a style as such, so most of mine are totally different. I think it's either the prompt or the tangles that I use that dictate what I will do (or rather what the pen will do)

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  5. Love old Mistophelees! What a grand old feller. And your niuroda tile ended up amazing. So pretty on that colored paper. Your St Paddy's tile is charming! love the mookas. It all looks terrific!

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    1. Thank you. Mistoffellees is just a youngster compared to the old lady that we lost about 3 years ago...she was 25 when she gave up and she had been with Mistoffellees most of his life. I'm not sure that he ever got over that. He seems to miss her even now some days. Thanks, I like the way the Niuroda turned out..just a few weighted lines made all the difference for me.

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