DC # 296 ~ UMT - Moowa

Here I am again, straggling in late, but since I am usually super busy during the day, I usually do everything I want to do late at night when everyone else in the house is asleep. Lucky for me, I am retired and can (finally) be the night owl I always was. It was a bit tough when I was working, but my boss allowed me to come in later than everyone else because they all wanted to get off early and someone needed to man the phones. It worked out perfectly!

But all that aside, it has been a good week until today (Sunday), when I woke up almost passing out from low blood sugar. That always affects my whole day badly, so I was unable to go to the Intermountain Tanglers group today (link here to IT blog). I was upset that I couldn't make it, but I was in no condition to drive or much else today until about 7 pm. So I finally put up the Christmas tree. Now it feels better in here!

So now we come to the whole reason that I am posting here ... Diva Challenge #296. This week, since it was the first Monday of the month, we were challenged to use a tangle submitted to the Diva and that tangle was MOOWA, by Anya Ipsen. This tangle is beautiful, but I found it a bit challenging to use it to it's best advantage. I love that it has the beautiful sweep of Mooka, but has a wave element that really gives it a lot of movement. I played with it for a few days in my sketchbook, and found that it really was quite a treat to draw. I had also seen the 3Zs by Zentangle and they really appealed to me, so I cut some. However, I haven't used those yet, but sketched one in my sketchbook. So here is my challenge piece for this week. It was fun to do and even though there are several "oopsies" in it, they just provided some opportunities to make it look more or less like I wanted it. I hope you enjoy it!

That's it for today, but I know that this is definitely one that I will want to explore more. Stay tuned!

Thank you for stopping by my blog and know that I actually DO look at all of the submissions to the Diva's challenge, even if I don't get comments to them all the time. All of the artwork submitted to the Diva's Challenge can be seen here (click here) and you can scroll back through previous challenges as well. As always, comments and/or criticisms are always welcome. That's how I learn new tricks and techniques. Thank you again everyone!

Have a zen-ful day!

DC # 295 ~ Reticula/Fragment Part 2

When I sat down to write this, I thought to myself, I can't believe that it's December and when i looked and my last post was in October, I was sooooo embarrassed. But such is life sometimes and things don't always work out the way you hope. In the time since my last post, my son has had all his teeth pulled. Some of the meds that he has been on did a number on them and rotten most of them away - the dentist could only find 3 that might possibly be saved. So we just had him pull all of them. So most of November was spent with an extremely anxious young man and me spending most of my time calming him down and reassuring him that it was all going to be okay. The total extraction took place under anesthesia on the day before Thanksgiving and they placed his new dentures at that time. So from then until now, we have been working on getting him used to them and to heal at the same time. He's doing well, just anxious again because he wants to be able to eat everything now that he has teeth again. But the saga goes on. It gets better each day.

The first Reticula/Fragment that I tried for part 1 turned out okay, but I just haven't managed to post any of them yet. But I was bound and determined that I WOULD post my tile for this week. Before I do, however, I want to say that I was very much inspired by Michelle from Coffee and Creativity for the grid (reticula) for this one. I don't particularly like grid tangles, but I tried to make this much more free and less rigid so that I would like it. So here it is ....

After I uploaded it and cropped it, it looked a bit dark to me, so I tried to lighten it to look like it does in actuality, but apparently my eyes are a bit foggy today, because it looked hazy no matter what I did. So I hope this is a halfway decent picture.  Hope you like it and as always, comments, criticism, or whatever are always appreciated. Thanks for stopping by and see you again soon, I hope!

If you are interested in more challenge pieces, stop by the Diva's place (HERE) and check all of the beautiful work being done. Maybe you will want to join us with your piece soon. Have a great day!

DC #290 ~ Duotangle ... 'Nzeppel / Flux

Just a short post this week ... my computer chair gave up the ghost and decided to break on me and toss me to the floor when I was leaning over to pet one of my kitties. So I am kind of in a world of hurt atm. Laura Harms, the Diva, challenged us to a duotangle of 'Nzeppel and Flux. But I had never really tried 'Nzeppel before and Flux is one of my all time favorites, so I decided that I had best do what I could. After trying 'Nzeppel several different ways in my sketch book, I was finally ready to work on a tile or two.

Media: 3.5" plant-dyed tile
Sakura Micron 01 Black
Graphite pencil for shading
Grey fineliner for additional shading

For this first tile, I used one of my experimental backgrounds. I had read about "boiled books" right here on the Diva's website and decided to give it a try. There weren't actually many leaves left on the vine out back when I tried this, so the colors weren't the greatest and I wasn't exactly sure how to proceed. Turns out I need a whole lot more steps to get it looking fabulous, but I kind of liked the way this one turned out. I tried to include a couple of Flux (Maria-style) as well, but I don't do as well with those.

Media:  3.5" self-cut tan tile (Used Creative Memories
Scrapbooking page and cut it up)
Sakura Micron Sepia pen 01
Sakura Micron Black pen 01
Prismacolor Premier colored pencils

This is my second tile and I like it much better. This utilized my favorite form of Flux. I like the combination of colors here too.  My favorite color combination is sepia, black, and white on a tan tile. For this one, I actually used a very light pinky beige for the 'Nzeppel. It doesn't show up well here, but it's just a hint of color on the actual piece.















Thank you for stopping by this week, and as always, comments and critiques are welcome. I try to get around to all the blogs, but I may be a bit late this week, due to not being able to sit at the computer for very long right now. For those who haven't checked out the other submissions, you should go see what has been posted for the Diva's challenge HERE.

Have a zen-ful day!

DC # 289 ~ Leafy Goodness! (and a few late goodies to share too)

Apparently I'm back again...my computer decided to play nicely for awhile (actually the computer plays perfectly - it's the wireless connection that doesn't want to play nicely!), so I can get my challenge tiles posted. I'll try not to bore or overwhelm you with a long post, since I have really been gone now for a few weeks. But, before I get started, I just HAVE to share this picture of my 3 adorable kitties with you. First though, a little background ... on my old computer hutch that I haven't used in a very long time, there are cubbies that I normally put the grocery bags in and in front of that my craft sewing machine on one side and my printer on the other. There is room for 2 kitties to sleep perfectly on the bags and the normally do. Salem, the youngest, is usually the only one up there anymore and he sleeps behind the sewing machine. Nicky, the middle fur baby, originally had that spot, but apparently Salem won the toss. Mistoffellees, our old man, usually sleeps next to me in one of the dining room chairs. Anyway, this particular day, everyone's routine got upset and Salem was upstairs longer than normal...when he came down, and was about to go to his hidey hole, he found it taken. Well, normally he will just go to the other side, but Nicky was there because Mistoffellees was in Salem's spot. So Salem started telling me about it and when I turned around from my computer, I just about died laughing at the scene going on, so I grabbed the camera. Anyway, these are my 3 wonderful furbabies!

An indignent Salem...with Nicky and Mistoffellees totally oblivious to
the outrage of our youngest kitty...lol

I loved our challenge to tangle autumn leaves (at least they are autumn leaves in this part of the world right now - my inlaws would have spring leaves). I had a maple leaf cutout and a oak leaf that I used for my strings and tried to use the techniques from 2014 "Tints on Tan" kit that I had bought at that time. I liked the way it looked, but there was far too much 'white space' for me, so I was going to just add a little grey tipple around the leaves, but got carried away. I didn't really like the way it was looking, so I used graphite to color between the tipple and hated that even more. Then when my husband was looking at it, the angle that he was holding it at made it look to me like the leaves were floating on a puddle or something like that, so that's where I went with it. I added blue which greyed the background so that it wasn't so obtrusive and the leaves popped. Guess if you just keep at it, eventually it will satisfy. Not to say that it didn't...I loved drawing this one and really got lost in the tangles, but I really wanted to make this ZIA out of it. Anyway, this is my submission ...

Media:  3.5" square tan tile
Brown Micron 01
Black Micron .005
Sepia Micron .005
Prismacolor colored pencils

Media:  3.5" square black tile
White gelly roll pen

Diva Challenge #288 challenged us to use the tangle Gourdgeous on our tile in honor of Canada's Thanksgiving. Gourdgeous is one of my favorite tangle patterns, so I did two. The first one is just white on a black background, but I had fun doing it.

Media: 4" square watercolor paper
Dye ink background
Micron Sepia Pen 01
White Prismacolor

The second one is done on a watercolor washed background, which really wasn't what I had intended. I had decided to try some watercolor backgrounds and this one just really didn't work, but that's likely because I couldn't find my watercolors and used some dye inkpads for my pigment and the tile wasn't nearly wet enough. But I used it anyway, so it is what it is!











And here is the last one (I promise).  I loved Daniel's stepout  for Dreamcatcher, especially since when I was in high school and college I used to make them for my friends out of wool roving and bits of turquoise, so I really did love the wonderful stepout he did for it. My version is done on a tan tile with what I thought was terracotta pencil shading, but I have a light out in the kitchen where I do my tangling, so it was actually a mulberry color. When I discovered that is was the wrong color, it actually worked out well as I wanted the outside ring to be a bit darker, so I used the terracotta for that and it worked out well. But that's okay, pink is my favorite color anyway! So here is my last submission for this week and I will not be nearly so long next time. That's a promise *grin*

Media: 3.5" tan tile
Micron Black 01
Micron Sepia 01
Prismacolor colored pencils ~ Mulberry/Terracotta

As always, comments, critiques, messages, or just a "Hi, how are you" are appreciated. And please do the same for everyone that has joined in the Diva Challenge this week. If you want to play with the challenges as well, you can find them at the Diva's blog (click here) and join us sometime. It's a wonderful group of people and very informative. I've learned a lot participating in this. Have a great week!

Relax, Bro! DC # 285

It's been awhile again since I posted, but at least I'm here now! This challenge really spoke to me because I find I do things much differently when they are done just for me. I tend to fill a lot more space and just let things flow wherever they want. In fact, the one I did for this challenge just happened one day when I decided to do absolutely nothing except what I wanted with the day. I actually started this one in mid-afternoon and finished up well after midnight. But then, I do most of my work well after midnight because that's when there's nobody awake to make demands on my time...except for one or two of the cats and they tend to mostly leave me alone. Anyway, I couldn't even begin to tell you about this one except I decided to use my sepia pen to do most of my drawing (could also be because my black one is about to give up the ghost). I did start with Ellish, because I love it and also because my name starts with "L", so it appeals to me. Then my pen just kind of did it's thing with Flux and Tipple and a few others that I'm not at all sure what they are. Anyway, this was a most relaxing piece for me and I know that I need to do more of this kind of exercise to really find the "zen" in my life again.

Thank you for stopping by this week and as always, I always love remarks and comments (as everyone does). I try to get around to the blogs of everyone and leave feedback, but my hands don't always cooperate these days. Hopefully, I'll be back in the swing of things soon so I can play again with these challenges. If you would like to join in the fun as well, please stop by the Diva's blog and check out all the wonderful challenge pieces. You can find it here (click here) and you may decide you want to join us each week. Until next time .... Have a 'zen' ful day!

Duotangle~ Auraknot vs. Meer and Weekly Tangles

Well, Friday night here and I actually have tiles to post this week! This weeks challenge was a duotangle using Auraknot and Meer, both of which I really enjoy since they are so relaxing to me to do!  I have actually had them completed since Wednesday night but have just been too tired and lazy to get the camera out.

I decided against scanning because I haven't been liking the way the scanner washes out the shading and I think the camera shows it up much better. So without further adieu, here are my efforts....

 I did a few Duotangles, rather, started a few Duotangles, but finally ended up finishing this one and I am rather pleased with how it turned out. It was very relaxing to do and seemed to just flow from my pen without any help from me. The second picture is kind of blurry, but I loved the depth it showed, so included it anyway!

 I didn't get a tile posted for Daniel's great UMT, so I decided that I would post a couple that I completed. I love Knightstar, probably because it was easy for me to get into the rhythm of it as soon as I figured out how to not do it backwards.  Again, I photographed it at an angle to show the depth that it has.

 And this one is a WIP, I suppose because it doesn't look finished to me. I definitely need to do something with it, but I wanted to see how Knightstar would look in color.  I probably should have finished it before I colored it, but I had a new blending tool that I wanted to use with my Prismacolors, so now I just have to see what else I can do with it.

So there you have it, some of the things I have been busy with in the last couple of weeks. If you have any suggestions on what to do with that last one, please don't hesitate to leave comments for me. I can use all the help I can get!

Once again, thank you for visiting and as always, I appreciate each and every comment that you leave here. I don't always reply, but I do always read them. There are many other artists that are showing their work and have posted links at the Diva's place (Click here) , so do yourself a favor and check out all the wonderful work being done by artists all over the world. Maybe you will try your hand at Zentangle too...it's fun and relaxing!

Have a zen-ful day!

Circular World ~Diva #277

So.....I haven't been here for a couple of weeks due to my computer dying, but my darling son and husband bought me a new laptop that exceeds all my wildest dreams. It's a top gaming computer and breezes through the internet so fast that sometimes I can barely catch my breath...lol. But now I can hopefully get a few things posted.

It's been a very HOT couple of weeks here in Utah. I guess that Mother Nature needs to remind us that we DO live on a desert and that's how it's supposed to be in the summer. But in the last couple of weeks, we have only had a handful of days below 100 degrees F here. So I have spend my time indoors and have been tangling and playing with new techniques...it's been fun, but as I look at my meager output, I wonder why I don't have more to post. Could be that I am a blasted perfectionist. I had 3 or 4 great ideas for the Peace challenge, but seems I couldn't even get one finished. I'll just keep them in my "to be finished sometime" box.

Tangles used: Onamato (variation), Copada (I think),
Hibred, Arukas, Tipple, and a couple I don't know if they
are actually tangles.

But this week, the Diva (Laura Harms) is back home and has challenged us to "Go Round in Circles", with a circular inspired string or circle tangles. I really enjoyed this challenge, because I LOVE circles and I love circular tangles. Just something soothing in drawing orbs, maybe because they are infinite...no beginning and no end, just smooth infinity. Anyway, here is mine for this week. I wasn't able to do any editing on this so that the shading actually shows, but it really does and is actually beautifully shaded. My hubby loves it (which is  unusual) and suggested that it cried out for brilliant colour, and not pastel, wimpy colours. What do you think?

Tangles used:  Leaflet, Cat-Kin, St John's Cross, and Zen Bud

I also did an It's a String Thing challenge by Adele Bruno, but didn't finish it in time to submit it, I plan on using this one for a card front. I like this one too, but again, the shading doesn't show up well. I've got to find a way to load my Photoshop program onto this computer ... it doesn't have a drive for me to load from, so I guess I need to get a high capacity USB memory stick to load it.

Tangles used: Static, Tipple, and Crescent Moon

My birthday was earlier this month and I bought myself something that I have been debating on getting for a long time ... the book "One Zentangle A Day" by Beckah Krahula. I have started working in it, but I am not likely to do it daily like is outlined. I will do it in order, it's just that I like to take longer. At our last tangle get-together here in Salt Lake with the Intermountain Tanglers, we were talking about how our attention gets diverted, something that my family and I call "Bright and Shiny Syndrome". You know, you're in the middle of finishing or doing something, and something else catches you eye, so you stop what you are doing and do something else. Well, that pretty much sums up my life, so it kind of takes me forever to get things done, and that related to everything, even my tangling! But I did finish the first day and actually quite liked the result, so here is is without further ado...

So there you have it, my small submission for this weeks challenge and a few more goodies.

Thanks for stopping by and if you have the chance to see what all of the other artists have submitted, head over the the Diva's blog  and check them out. As always, I appreciate comments and helpful critique on my work. Thank you again for stopping by!

Have a zen-ful day!

Diva Challenge 273 ~ Tangle Remix and Playing Catch-up

Would you believe it? It's only Thursday and I am actually posting today  instead of Sunday night! It's been a pretty good week for me and I have a huge stack of tiles that need help badly. Our challenge this week was to take an old tile that we had in our stash and find one that could be helped by a remix or fresh coat of ink. I picked 2 and sadly, only 1 of them actually looks better. So I think I will show you that one first *giggle* I hate to show my worst work first....

So here it is initially....minimal shading and pretty much just Plain Jane. I suspect this was one for a stripes challenge and was done either in late 2014 or early 2015. When I looked at it, I felt it could be helped by a bit of a facelift (I could use one too, but that isn't quite so easy as it is to change artwork). So here is the modification that I did on it - mostly shading and just a few additions.

I really like this one much better, even if it doesn't show the shading as well as it looks in person. Sometimes I think that I prefer taking pictures to scanning, but at least they are getting finished by using the scanner.










This second one was done in July 2015 for a Simplicity challenge for the Diva. I really thought that I could help it out by adding to it, since it looked rather empty to me. I love simplicity, but sometimes even the simplest ones could use a bit more. So here is the original tile from 2015...

Just a bit too bland for me and I don't think I liked it even then. The shading on it is really that poorly done, so I thought I would dress it up and shade it a bit more. But I think I just made a mess of it. I may try to redo it again one day, but you can make up your mind.





Here's the remix, such as it is....

It really didn't turn out anything like I pictured. Oh well, sometimes I like them and sometimes I don't.















I missed the Black and White and Red all over challenge and I did a few of them, but this was the first one that I did and I did it in my sketchbook. I really wish I had done it on a tile as I really like it. But I am going to try it again on the front of a card and see if I can get it the way I like. There are several people that I really need to write to, and it's so much easier to send a card than to find my stationary again.

Thank you very much for stopping by. I always appreciate seeing some traffic here. As usual, I appreciate ALL comments, good or bad, and any creative criticism is appreciated. I have learned so much from this group and am so glad that I have joined in these challenges.

Now I can go back and see everything that everyone else has submitted, since there are so many talented artists here. If you would like to see what everyone else has done, please head over to the Diva's blog (HERE) and check it out. There's always time for you to start joining us. Come try it....it's fun!

Beads of Courage - Diva Challenge #271

Here we are again....late as ever, but at least I am actually posting this week. I can't believe that it has been what, 3 weeks since I posted? I don't know where the time goes; one would think that since I am retired, I would have more time to play, but it just doesn't work out that way. But, at least I am here for this challenge.

I have, over the past couple of years, made ZIA's for Laura's Beads of Courage challenges, but have never posted them. I asked myself this year, what's wrong with me that I don't get things posted? Since I couldn't answer that with any kind of an answer that actually sounded plausible, here I am.

This week, we have been asked to use the Beads of Courage program as inspiration for our challenge. Beads of Courage is an arts in medicine program to help sick kids deal with their chronic or life threatening illnesses and be able to better share their medical journeys. Whenever these children have a medical related procedure or appointment, they are given ceramic beads rather than lollipops so that they can document their specific challenges. It sounds like a wonderful program to help these kids be mindful of just what they have overcome in their lives.

I chose to use a stamping technique for my background for my bead tile. This is called "Bokeh" technique and gives a soft muted background with flashes of bright white reminiscent of photographic lights. Anyway, I like the way this background looks and you can Google bokeh technique to find out how to do it.  Without further adieu then, here is my tile for Beads of Courage.

I also have some older challenges that I have finished and would like to share with you. Up next is my take (after tons of tries to get it right) on Skye. I love the way this tangle looks and am going to try to include it as I get a bit more proficient.

And since I missed posting my Ellish tile, I have GOT to post that one. Of COURSE, I love it, after all, it resembles my initial "L" and makes a beautiful monogram!

For our local Tangle group, we have just started with monthly challenges, and the challenge for our last meeting was a monotangle of our choosing. I have been playing with Aquafleur lately and trying to get it right (finally), so here is my Aquafleur monotangle.

For any tanglers or tangler wannabee's, our local group meets on the second Sunday of each month (unless notified). We have a very nice group, which is headed by Dave Hunter and Heidi Sue. Check out the Tanglers blog HERE to see what we do.

Also, for those of you new to this blog or to Zentangle, check out all of the artists that have submitted their artwork for this challenge. The Diva posts a new challenge each week and they are a lot of fun. There is always so much diversity and inspiration in the work we see.  Check out the Diva's Challenge HERE. Feel free to come join in the fun any time you like.

As always, I am thrilled that you have chosen to visit my blog and always appreciate any and all comments. They make me happy. Have a great zen-ful day!

Diva Challenge # 268 ~ "Bit-o-black"

Just a short entry tonight because we've all been a bit under the weather here. I loved this challenge, but since I tend to use quite a bit of black anyway, I was hard pressed to know what to do. So I decided to try to play a bit with a Mooka monotangle and darken the spaces. Also, I tried to draw it a bit closer to the way the stepouts indicate, even though I tend to normally do mine a LOT different.  Anyway, here's my entry for this weeks challenge....hope you  like it :)

I did this in black ink on a Strathmore toned tan 4" tile and used graphite to shade with with accents and a few highlights with a white chalk pencil. Not quite what I had in mind, but still nicely dramatic, which fit with what I had wanted.

Thank you for stopping by and, as always, CC are always appreciated. If you want to see what the other artists submitted for this challenge, please check out the Diva's blog (click here) and see what everyone has done for the challenge.

Have a zen-ful day!

Challenge # 267 ~ Drupe / Pokeroot

I'm behind again and here it is Saturday (but hey, at least it isn't quite Sunday yet). I got my challenge tile done last week, but for some reason, I just was exhausted and didn't get my blog written. I think it must be something going around, because both of my sisters have called this week and we are ALL exhausted with no discernable reason, except perhaps allergies. My younger sister and I are both allergic to cats and she has 2 and I have 3. Can't seem to give up the fur babies and don't want to even try! But my older sister and I figure that it's just because we are getting old....her birthday was last week and she was 70 and I will be 64 in July and we both have physical problems, so I  guess we can blame it on that *giggle*   Ah well, I guess I will just take responsibility and say it was just tired and just flat didn't get it done.

But now that's out of the way, this weeks challenge was to make a duo-tangle using  Drupe and Pokeroot. I have seen these both many times, but in actuality I have never tried either one of them that I recall. I think that somewhere along the line, I probably tried to draw them without knowing what they were, but I just really don't recall using them.  After practicing them both for a bit...I decided that I could actually use them, but trying to get them to play nice was a bit difficult. I have several half done tiles and attempts, but I finally got one done. It took me all week though, I'm afraid because the weather this last week has been making a mess of my arthritic hands and I just couldn't hold the pen well. But here is my attempt:

After I  finished the penwork, I decided I would like it better with color and after I made my Pokeroot into some weird color (Prismacolor PC937~Tuscan Red) of cherries, my son suggested that I put yellow with it (I usually listen to him as he has a great eye for color...he gets that ability from his dad). I didn't have a yellow that I liked, so I used one of my orange colored pencils (Prismacolor PC1003~Spanish Orange) and liked the way it turned out. So I guess it was worth all the time it took for me to finish it *smile*

As I mentioned above, I actually DID do challenge #266 ~ UMT Crux. I rather like the way it turned out too and I actually did scan the penwork just in case I didn't like the colors I had chosen. So I have my penwork for this one before shading and color. I need to get into the habit of taking pictures before I do any shading or coloring to see where my linework can use improvement. So here is the basic linework for Challenge 266 ~ Crux

Nothing fancy here, just pretty much just Crux and some Flux with Springkle and a bit of Tipple.

Here's the same picture now after I colored it and did a bit of shading. Hope you like it!

I signed this one different than the normal signature I use, but I didn't really like it, so I guess I will keep trying different ones out until I am thrilled with one.  Anyway, that is my meager offerings for this week.

If you haven't seen all of the artists that have submitted their tiles for the Diva's challenge, please head on over to her site and check out the submissions there for this challenge. Scroll through and take a look of some of the fabulous artists that show their work each week and if you would like to join us, please do. It's a great learning opportunity each week. You can find the Diva's site here (click here), so come and play along and find your Zen!

Any and all comments are appreciated, good or bad, and helpful criticism is always appreciated. Thank you for stopping by!

Diva Challenge #265 ~ Stripes

Here we are at the end of the challenge week and although I was very busy this week, I only have one tile to share with you. We had family get togethers this week and it was great to see some of the family that I haven't seen in awhile. My cousin and his wife had spent the last 3 or 4 years over in Russia as missionaries and had a lot of wonderful stories to tell as well as some of the strife the Russian people had suffered over the years. It was fascinating to hear the stories they told, and sad to hear of the trouble and fear that went along with living in a country that doesn't want you there. Evidently where they were was very close to Ukraine and they were very fearful on several occasions and taken by the KGB on several occasions for questioning. But now they are safe and sound and we are glad they are home.

I have worked on a couple of Zentangles and did finish my stripes tile for submission. I was going through some of my older work and found a few that I am going to try and finish up in the next few weeks and so will get them  posted when I get them done. So here for your perusal is my tile for this week:

I chose to go minimal on this because of the tangles I wanted to use. I don't actually remember the names of them, but I like the way they look together on here. As always, comments good or bad are always welcome.

If you would like to see what the other artists have shared this week, head on over to the Diva's blog (click here) and see what everyone has shared. There are some beautiful pieces there this week, as always.

Thank you very much for stopping by and have a zen-tastic day!

Diva Challenge #264 ~ String Theory: String into Spring

Our challenge this week was to use a spring-like string and create something using that string. I actually had a picture of the string I was going to use and had the linework all done, but when I went and shaded it, it became a disaster, so I may actually try that one again (I do have a picture of the linework before shading, so I can just do it again!) But the one that I actually finished (yes, I started several and none of them spoke to me, so I have a pile of half-finished tiles hanging around - maybe for another day) turned out better than I thought it would. The only problem is that I did finally get my scanner working (YAY!) but it tends to drain all the color out. And since it's dark out now, I didn't want to be taking pictures to upload, so please forgive me for the washed out color. It's far brighter than it looks.

I do actually have a 3 looped spring string under this one, but it kind of got lost. I started drawing the Abundie and in actuality, wasn't going to have it be Abundie, but the pen insisted and then just took over from there. After I finished the linework and was trying to decide how I wanted to finish it, it screamed for color. So since I haven't used my Inktense pencils in quite awhile, I thought I would give them a try, I am actually quite pleased with this....hubby thinks it looks like a Martian garden, but I just think it's a colorful ZIA. Hope you like it!

I missed last week's challenge completely, but it looked like fun, so I had to give it a try. I have had quite a problem with my hands this past few weeks, I was doing so miserably that I could barely hold my pen and I missed our local Tangling Get-together this month. I actually did try about a dozen grids for the Globular Grid challenge, but they drove me crazy, so I didn't get anything posted last week at all.

This is the Global Grid that I finally ended up finishing and again, I am still playing with the scanner to get the colors right here too.  This one is done on kind of a light pink paper, so the scanner kept trying to pick it up white and washing everything out. But I liked this one too!

That's it for this week and I know it is really last minute, but when my hands don't want to work, I can't get 'er done as quickly as I wanted to. These will be used on some cards going to family that I need to get in touch with. I love being able to use them like that.

If you haven't already seen the rest of the artists doing the Diva's challenge, you can go  HERE  and see what everyone else has done. There is a new challenge most every Monday, so if you want to go ahead and join in the fun, keep you eye on her blog. 

Thank you for checking this out and to all the other artists this week...I have been looking at all of your blogs, but wasn't able to make comments this week. Just know that I am always impressed with ALL of the work here and inspired by each and every one of you. Thanks again and have a wonderful zen-day!

Diva Challenge #262 ~ UMT Fassett by Lynn Mead

It's been an interesting week here for me and my family. The weather has been beautiful the majority of the week, with soft spring rains and warmer temperatures.  Of course, that meant that the pollen is on overdrive and consequently, I have spent a good deal of the week with sinus issues due to allergies. I don't really want to go out (although I would love to go out and about) because my eyes are so swollen with the allergies and I can't wear makeup and have it last more than a half hour (Yes, I tend to be vain about going out not looking my best). But worse than that, when I try to  blow my nose and unstuff my sinuses, it feels like I am going to pop an eye out.  That has just been a new thing with my allergies and it's the strangest feeling ever. So, I have been doing lots of experimentation and relaxation with my tangling.

I know that I have mentioned my beautiful kitties before and here is a picture of the oldest and youngest keeping me company while I am tangling and/or on the computer. (Yes I have a pillow on the table for them to sit by me.) The black and white handsome boy is Mistoffellees, who just turned 16 a month ago. He's the main reason that there is a pillow on the table. He has problems sometimes getting comfortable when he is trying to sleep. The black baby is Salem Saberhagen and he's a beautiful Bombay. I think he's about 8 or 9, but I'm not sure. Our other one, Nicholas, usually isn't on the table with them because he and Mistoffellees are still discussing who is the alpha male, but they don't know that it's actually Salem....lol. Anyway, these are my companions who keep me company.

This week's challenge by the Diva was a UMT (Use My Tangle) and we were challenged to use Lynn Mead's tangle FASSETT.  This was one of the first tangles that I learned because it was actually similar to some of the doodles I have been doing all my life. Not quite, but almost. Anyway, I find it relaxing to do tangles like this one because my pen essentially takes over with the rhythm of the lines. I used a Toned Gray Tile by Strathmore for this first one and loved how it turned out. I was not only trying out the gray tile, but also used an actual string, something that I rarely do. They tend to confuse me, but I actually liked using it on this because it gave me some direction when I started my tile. Hope you enjoy!

For my second one, I used a Toned Tan Strathmore Artist Tile. I'm not sure which one I like the best, so I'll just continue playing with them. On this one, I did some of the shading with a light gray marker and it helped me to achieve the look I was going for. I was proud of both of them, because hubby actually liked them this week. He normally says he likes them, but this week, he practically gushed, telling me that he really liked them both and told me how well I was doing with composition on these. Maybe there IS something to using a string? Well could be ... at any rate, here is my second one.  Hope you enjoy!

Well, that's it for this week and I have got to say that I thoroughly enjoyed myself on this challenge . If you get a chance, head on over to the Diva's Place (click here) and check out what everyone has submitted. It's fun to play with our tangles, so if you are a tangler, come join in the fun!

Thanks for stopping by and please leave a comment if you are inclined. It's good to know that people are out there. Have a zen-ful day!

Diva Guest Challenge ~ #261 Stacked Bijou

Up to my usual tricks and posting this late as usual. But no matter, I actually have been keeping up with the challenges, just not posting because for a bit I couldn't find my camera. But I found it now and wouldn't you know it, the only challenge that I can find to photograph is the one for this week.  I had a great time with this for many reasons...I have tons of paper around the house and getting it all out and trying to decide what colors would go with what was actually a pleasure. The palette I selected probably doesn't go together all that well, but I liked the colors.

Anyway, the Diva had a Guest posting the challenge this week; Jane Reiter, CZT. She proposed a very unique challenge this week for us. We were to start with a Bijou in the center or at least paper the size of a Bijou, 2 x 2. Then cut each layer 1" bigger than the last and stack them. So here is my take on it:

 This is a straight on picture of my stacked challenge and it really is shaded more intensely than it looks here. I love these colors together because to me, they are quite earthy. I have several more layers cut out and ready to go because I had such a wonderful time with this. And I just noticed that I took my picture before I signed it. Oh well, I have now signed it and dated it on the back. I may actually put this one in a frame because I really do like the way it turned out.

I decided to add a closeup picture of the different tangles I used. On Bijou, I used Sinchun. I love the way this one turned out, even though it took me many, many practice pages before I got it looking the way I wanted.  Next one is Organic ... love the way it flows.  On the orange is Abundies, yet another favorite. The green is D'rua and a few Molygon next to it. The outer frame (purple paper) is Oybay. I love drawing that one too, this one is rather plain and not embellished much, but it works for me.  Anyway, hope you liked it this week




There are many more beautiful pieces to check out at the Diva's blog. Click here to take you to her blog and check them out for yourself. Any feedback is always welcome for mine or any of the other artist's work. Thanks for stopping by!

Duo Tangle ~ Boo-Kee/Artoo

This week Laura Harms, the Diva, has challenged us to make a duo-tangle using the tangles Boo-Kee and Artoo, which she designed and named for her two boys. This week has been a difficult one at their house, what with one having a tonsilectomy (sp?) and the other visiting the ER. It's so difficult to have young ones that are sick and I know that she has had her hands full.

I had fully intended to have my offering done earlier in the week, but as quite often happens, my hands weren't working the best. So I mostly just browsed through the rest of the submissions and was amazed at all the beautiful ideas. The Diva's piece for the week is such a beautiful zendala and uses both tangles to their best advantage. I love both of these tangles and they are fun to do, but somehow I just wasn't managing to get them to play nicely together. So in the end, I did two similar tiles, but I do like one better than the other.  Here they are for your perusal.

This actually was the second tile that I completed, but since I like it better, I am posting it first. I had hoped to get the picture taken while there was still beautiful sunlight outside to show it off to it's best advantage, but it was dinner time so I had to wait until after dinner to take the picture. The blue-grey on the tile apparently is a shadow from my hand and shouldn't be there, but it is what it is. So anyway, here is the one that I actually like.

This is actually the first tile that I worked on and mostly didn't finish because I didn't know where to go with it. I loved the way the Boo-Kee started out, but they kind of overpowered the Artoo tangles and it just wasn't doing what I wanted. So I kind of took the same idea and did the second one (above). I may try again on these because I really like these two tangles together. Again, you can see the blue-gray shadow on the tile. I'll work on that next week and hopefully get the pictures taken earlier in the day and/or week.

I'm not sure if the background on this is showing up as well as I had hoped, but this was an experiment in a background treatment that was meant to look like diffused lighting in the background. It is called "bokeh" and is actually a photographic technique that has been adapted to use with rubber stamping. At least that is where I found all the instructions for it. I got some more white ink that should work better and I think that I will play with this one a bit more. Basically, all you do is blend the colors you want for your background to be very subtle and then take your white ink and use circle stencils and randomly place them over the background ink to indicate blurred lights in the background. I'll do so more and show the steps at a later date.


So that's my offerings for this week.  Thank you to all who have stopped by last week and left comments. It is always appreciated and as always, I always love comments and constructive criticism as well. If you haven't stopped by the Diva's blog yet (CLICK HERE), the hop on over there and take a look at all the wonderful artistic submissions for this (and other) challenges. I want you to know that I am not always able to leave comments on some of the submissions, for one reason or another, but I DO look at them all and appreciate them all.  See you all next week, and have a great ZEN-ful day!

Ghosts of Tangles Past

So . . .  this week the Diva Challenge asks us to revisit an old tile and redo it the way we would do it today. I first came in contact with Zentangle in May of 2014 when I was first on Pinterest and saw a couple of drawing that really interested me. They were something called "Zentangle" and I had never heard of it. Well, since I use Google to look up everything, I googled the term and started all kinds of beautiful abstract pieces that I thought I would like to try. So I went to zentangle.com  and started reading the blog there. They claimed that it was an easy thing to do, just one line at a time and you could create beautiful art. I thought that I would have no problem with this, since I had been interested in art my whole life and had even been an art major in college. Of course, that was AGES ago and I had mostly been doing crafts and life since then and I really didn't graduate from college, so I had forgotten most of what I had learned. I mostly drew animals and cartoony things before I got interested in rubber stamps and then scrapboking and when I saw zentangle, it seemed to call out to me.

I didn't know anything about what a string was and I was in too much of a hurry to take the time to do the steps for most tangles, so I would look at something and try to draw it. As a result, most of my early pieces were really crap-tastic and bear no real resemblance to actual tangling. But be that as it may, I started studying what I could find on Zentangle and little by little, I have been teaching myself to do some, what I consider, fairly decent tangle pieces. Check out the before and after and hopefully, there is progress there.

 One of my first tangles done in June of 2014. I really have no idea what the tangles were supposed to be, but my son told me that the big shell type thing was my attempt at Phycops. It took him about 2 weeks of trying to help me see which way the lines went, before I actually had the "aha" moment and figured out what I had been doing wrong. Thank you very much, TB3!

 Here is my redo on this one and I left out a lot of the tangles that were in the older one. I think that I finally learned how to draw Phycops. It's not the same at all because my early ones didn't have strings and no rhyme or reason to them. I feel better about the newer ones, because I feel like I have finally found my stride with them. Hope you like!

Another of my sad attempts at Phycops (also June of 2014), I was fascinated with that particular tangle and just couldn't make it work for me. My son can see things that I can't and he has the knack of helping me to learn the correct procedure. I keep trying to get him to try to tangle, but he really isn't interested. Again, no string and apparently no shading either, so the new try has definitely got to be better.

Again, here is my redo of the old tile and as you can see, I really DID learn Phycops. I used some of the other tangles in this one too, although I didn't use all the attempted tangles that were in the old one. I find that I like a bit of white space as I become more confident in my work. Hope you like! This one was just completed yesterday.









As always, thank you for stopping by and taking a look at my attempts. I am thoroughly enjoying this tangling journey and hope you are too. Thank you also for any comments and CC. It always helps. If you are interested in seeing what some of the other wonderful artists in this community, just hop on over the the Diva's blog (CLICK HERE) and take a look.

Have a great day!

Diva Challenge # 254 ~ Valentangle

First of all, thank you for your kind comments and thank you again for stopping by. I appreciate the visits and comments from you. They mean an awful lot to me. I love being part of this online community of wonderfully creative folks and learn from you all the time.

So this week our challenge from our Diva was to make something "Valentiney".  I had all kinds of ideas running through my head, but wanted to play with some of them on some artist trading cards (actually they are business card size, but close enough). I never did get my full size tile started because I was just having fun playing with some different ideas. So here they are....hope you enjoy!

I was trying my hand at some gems and decided to make a heart brooch of sorts, but I made the heart too big so I couldn't put the setting on that I has envisioned. I had fun making the gems, but I think I need a lot more practice.

Diva Challenge 254 - #1

This one was just playing with two of my favorite tangles, Flux and Luv-A. Out of the ones that I made this week, hubby liked this one and the gem the best. I quite like this one too.

Diva Challenge 254 - #2

Another favorite tangle of mine has always been Bunzo, so when I drew this heart, I could see two Bunzo cozying up to each other for Valentine's day and decided to just make it into a balloon. I really like the way this one turned out. I find it rather whimsical.

Diva Challenge 254 - #3

The picture I took for this last one turned out a bit dark and lightening it on Photoshop didn't help because it washed out the Printemps background. So please forgive my lack of photographic skills on this one. It really is a lot brighter that it appears in this photo. The lower part of the heart under the pink Printemps is actually a very nice lavendar, but it didn't photograph well. Ah well, such is life.

Diva Challenge 254 - #4

Color was added to all of these with the exception of the Bunzo Valentine with Prismacolor colored pencils and black micron pen was used on all. The background of #4 was added with a grey Tombow marker because I didn't want an overpowering background.

This was fun this week and I will try to get around to all of the other blogs in the next couple of days (yes, I know I'm late, but it seems I can only do what I can do and I DO always look at all the blogs and attempt to leave comments). If you are reading this and haven't joined the Diva's Challenge or checked it out to see all the amazing artists out there, please check the Diva's Challenge Blog HERE and see if you want to come and play with all of us. It's great fun!

As always, thank you for stopping by and if you get a chance, leave me a comment. Happy Tangling!