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!