DC#321 ~ Double Dog Dare (Non-Dominant and Auras)

What a challenge!  I feel as though I have really been working this week....I have been practicing with my non-dominant hand all week to get this done for the challenge. Laura Harms aka "The Diva" has asked us to not only use our non-dominant hand (which, in my case, is my left hand), but also to choose tangles which require auras. Even at the best of times,  my auras are rarely evenly done, so I'm not exactly sure which one challenged me more.

Here is my finished tile....I could only work on it for short periods of time because my hand would cramp up so I had to rest it. But I did find that even with the added stress of the auras, I still felt a great deal of relaxation taking my time and just concentrating on the lines I was drawing. . . watching them form from my pen . . . moving over a bit to make another line . . . and watching the shapes form . . . almost hypnotic for me! Then the coloring in of the black portions . . . oh what tiny little strokes I took to make sure that my area was covered . . . going over a line with the blackening process to try to fill in the shakiness of the drawn line . . . and some stippling in a few places. And now, the shading . . . THAT was really hard, not so much getting the graphite down but maneuvering the blending stump to get the graphite where I wanted it. Then the white highlights . . . that seemed to be even more delicate and took me a long time as well. But, in spite of all the time and self talk and hypnotic drawing that I did, I am rather pleased with the way it turned out. Several places didn't quite work the way I had hoped, but it's okay, it looks good . . . enough!

DC #321 ~ Double Dog Dare
Media: 4x4 Strathmore Toned Tile, Black Micron 01,
Creative Memories Fine Black Pen, Graphite,
and White chalk pencil by General
Tangles: Loki, Zinger (of sorts), Arukas, Garlic,
and Crescent Moon

Here are a couple of practice pieces that I was trying to get my hand working so that I could go to a regular size tile . . . not the greatest, but they were intended for practice, so it's okay *big grin*

Thank you for stopping by and as always, I always appreciate comments, be they constructive criticism or any other comments. Please stop the Diva's Place (here) and see what other artists have made of this challenge. Feel free to give it a try if you are so inclined. Hope to see You here one of these days as well, so you can join in on our fun.

Have a zen-ful day!  :)

DC #320 ~ UMT: Dansk by Margaret Bremner

I actually managed to tune in while Laura was streaming last Sunday to find out the challenge was. This week we are challenged to use a tangle my Margaret Bremner called 'Dansk'. I have been tangling on and off since summer of 2014 and have seen this tangle used, but I had actually never tried it. So I watched carefully as Laura was explaining that it worked best if the auras were the same width. Well, I DID try to do that, but my hands were hurting, so they might not be equal. But no matter, it was relaxing to make the shapes whether they were perfect or not (aside:  most of my stuff is NOT perfect, although that's what I strive for after I have actually learned the exercise). I finished up the linework just as Laura finished streaming.

It was very comfortable to tangle along with the other folks that were online, especially since I wasn't able to go to my Tangle Meetup on the 11th. It was my son's birthday and he had hurt his ankle, so we were babysitting his ankle. I fully intended to finish the shading and highlighting on Monday, the 12th, but instead I spent all day in the emergency room with my son, because we thought that his cellulitis had maybe come back . . . that's how bad his ankle was hurting. I hadn't brought any of my tangling stuff with me except a few tiles and a pen.  Not even a pencil was in my bag! You can bet THAT won't happen again!

So here is my first challenge tile and actually the first time I had actually used Dansk:

DC #320 ~ UMT: DANSK
Media: 4x4 Grey Toned tile, Black Micron 01, White Gelly
 Roll, White General Chalk Pencil, graphite, grey fineliner
Tangles Used: Dansk, Diva Dance, Fescu, Chainey by
Gaylene Miller and Black Pearls.

So I finally finished this up on the 13th in the morning, but I had actually done linework on another one while I was sitting all day at emergency. I actually felt more relaxed doing this one because I had an idea of what I was doing with Dansk. I finished it up on the 13th as well with the shading and highlighting. I actually think I like this one much better. What do you think?

DC #320 ~ UMT: Dansk by Margaret Bremner
Media: Toned Tan hand cut 3.5 x 3.5 tile, Black Micron 01,
White Gelly Roll, graphite, white General chalk pencil.
Tangles: Dansk, Joki, Tipple, Flux, Moowa, Crescent
Moon (around the circle that looks like a flower)

So there you go for this week, I'm glad I finally had some time to post them to my blog [and before Sunday night too :)))]  I think I will be using this tangle more and incorporating it into some of my work. I need to go check out everyone else's offerings, so thank you for stopping by and checking this out.

As always, comments both bad and good, are welcome as I always appreciate constructive criticism. If you want to check out the other artists participating in this week's challenge, you can find it here.

Thanks again for visiting and have a zen-ful day!

DC #318 ~ Diptych & DC #317 ~ Photo Tangle

I can hardly believe that it's June already - where is this year going anyway? I haven't accomplished nearly what I set out to do, but luckily for me, I don't have deadlines (thankfully) because I am retired. Pretty much things get done as they get done. We have had a windfall and were able to help our daughter get a new car when hers broke down. With 2 little girls, she HAS to have reliable transportation, especially since she is a single mom. The girls are 9 and 7 and were thrilled to have a car that nobody had owned before them. It really made our day to be able to help them out!

They are out of school now for the summer and want to come over a few times so I can teach them to draw "like Grandma Leslie" does. They are both quite artistic and imaginative, as are most of our granddaughters. As a matter of fact, our eldest granddaughter just graduated from a liberal arts high school and is going to Singapore to study design over there. She received a prestigious scholarship, and so will be heading off there soon. I am terribly proud of her and know that when she was little, we used to do "art" together every day.

So with artistic thoughts in my mind over the last little while, I have been playing around a lot with different ideas, but mostly trying to clean out my art supplies because I have some VERY old ones around from my college days. I kept a few sketchbooks and have one abstract painting I found. As soon as I clean it up, I'll likely post it here on the blog.

But this latest challenge from the Diva has really caught my fancy, so I made a few this week, but am only posting one right now, since the others are in various states of completion. When I read about the challenge

      "So, this week's challenge is to create a Diptych. A diptych is two panels joined with a hinge
                        - and the panels are mirrored - and i use the term 'mirrored' loosely" 

I too opted for a zendala, only because I like the way it is folded and decided to make a 'hobbit door'. I can only imagine that Bilbo and Frodo and all the other hobbits might approve of this and use in their little hobbit holes. So here is my take on this weeks challenge "The Hobbit Door"

DC #318 ~ Diptych "The Hobbit Door"
Media: Hand cut Zendala Tile, Black Micron 01 pen,
Grey marker, graphite pencil and Prismacolor pencil
Tangles: Moowa, Mooka, Trefoil, Huggins (?)

I didn't get a chance to take a picture of my last challenge piece, so here is my take on DC #317 ~ Photo Tangles. I was going through some of my old magazines while trying to shovel the garage out and came across some of my artist doll magazines. At one time, I tried my hand at making and making over dolls into art dolls, So I found a lot of inspiration in those magazines. The picture I chose to use was in an ad for another magazine and the image and position of it really inspired me. Here is my challenge piece for DC #317

DC #317 ~ "Balancing Act"
Media: Yellow Photo Mat, Micron Pen 01 Black, Graphite, Prismacolor
Tangles: Molygon, Flux, Mooka, Diva Dance, Crescent Moon

I hope you have enjoyed my offering this week and thank you for stopping by! If you would like to see what other artists have shown, just head over to the Diva's place (here) and take a look at what everyone is showing for these challenges.

Again, Thank you for stopping by and all comments, good and bad, are welcome!

DC #316: String Theory ~ STRIPES!

Wow ~ it's not even late Sunday night and I actually have my challenge tile ready! Will wonders never cease? This week has kind of been rainy and dreary here, so I didn't feel like running around much, so as a result, I was at home more and decided to take time for myself to just play and I did!

Mother's Day was wonderful for me since I got art supplies for gifts -- new Micron pens (which I desperately needed - thank you son!), new white gel pens (the ones that I had been using quit working, so my son bought me two 3-packs in hopes that at least one would be a good pen), Distress Ink pads (6 minis from hubby), and Distress Ink sprays (3, also from hubby). I also bought myself a stamp and stencil package that was on sale, since I love stamping as well. So with all those goodies, I have been trying out different background effects and used one of my round pieces for this week's challenge.

Our challenge this week was to create our string with stripes, and although they aren't in a straight line, they ARE stripes. The first picture here is the penwork (I decided to change the central stripe so it's a good thing that I used a gray pen the first time around...lol) and the second is the completed zendala. I hope that you enjoy!

Linework - before adding color and shading
Background using distress inkpads and sprays

Completed challenge tile
Tools used: 01 Black Micron, graphite, Prismacolors, Grey Tombow Marker
Tangles (the ones I can remember...lol): Crescent Moon, Copada, Flux,
Joki, Ovy, Zinger, Springkle, and the last one may or may not be a real
tangle.....my pen just took over!

Thank you for stopping by and as always, I look forward to comments and critiques. If you want to see the other submissions, stop by the Diva's blog (here) and see what all the other artists have shared this week.

Happy tangling everyone!

DC #315 ~ Molygon & DC #314 ~ UMT: Scallamps

Since my post is so very late this week, it will be quite short. The challenge this week was to explore the tangle "MOLYGON" which is a tangle which was created by Rick and Maria, who created the Zentangle method for us. I have been playing with this all week and have scraps of paper all over the house with bits of Molygon on them, but really couldn't find one that really pleased me. So here is the one that I persevered until the end with and I think I like it a bit. Anyway, here it is for you to see.  As always, comments are welcome and creative criticism is always appreciated.

MOLYGON
Black Micron, Sepia Micron, Grey Fineliner, Graphite

Since I didn't get my challenge piece posted for last week, I would like to include it here as well. This is the piece I did for the UMT Challenge ~ Scallamps by Sarah Uram. I quite enjoyed this one and you can probably notice that this one does flow a lot better than my Molygon challenge.

SCALLAMPS
Black Micron and Graphite
Tangles: Scallamps, Pokeroot, Flux, Joki, Tipple, & Pinbawl

I really enjoy the Diva's challenges, and always do something whether or not I get it posted. I have decided that I need to start getting on the stick and getting my pieces posted when they get done regardless of whether they are current or not. During one of the Twitch live sessions, I mentioned to Laura that I am generally late, and she said that is fine, just add it to the week where it belongs. So I may post one from time to time that belongs in an earlier challenge. For those of you just stopping by, you can see the Diva's weekly challenge and the pieces that are submitted at the Diva's blog (here).

Thank you for stopping by and comments are always welcome!

DC #313 ~ Amanda (Earth) Day!

On the very first Earth Day in 1970, I was a senior in High School (now you know my age...lol) and there was a big rally up at the college in my town. I went and listened and thought about what they were trying to do. It all made sense to me and I have since that time, tried to do things that were earth friendly. There have been times that I haven't always been as conscientious as I should have been, but I always try to remember that this earth that we live on won't last forever, especially if we don't take care of it.

Along those lines, I have been going through some things that need to leave this house and came upon a few books that were falling apart. I had always wanted to try "found poetry" and this particular book has a replacement copy in the house so I used a page from it to tangle on. It is a page from "Renegades of Pern" by Anne McCaffery and one of my favorite books (the whole family loves fantasy and sci-fi). So I hope you like it, I think it turned out well. The small piece was a piece of scrap paper that I just didn't want to throw away because of course it was big enough to use for something, I just didn't know what. I tried to do them both in earthy tones with colors that might be found in nature. So without further delay, here they are!

Amanda (Earth) Day #1
Click to see larger

Amanda (Earth) Day #2
Click to see larger

Thank you for stopping by and as always, comments and critiques are always appreciated. If you want to see how other artists approached this challenge, check out the Diva's page (here) and see them all. And remember, you too can come and play with us and show us your interpretation of the challenges each week.

DC #307 ~ ZINGO!

On her blog this week, the Diva (Laura Harms) challenged us to use a tangle introduced by Maria's (Maria Thomas ~ co-founder of Zentangle) granddaughters Indy and Mazzy. These two young girls were very professional in their instructional video and you can find the link of the Diva's page (here).

As I watched these two young ladies, I was reminded of a few weeks ago when a couple of my own granddaughters came over and we had a good time talking and coloring. They spotted a few of my tiles and decided they wanted to learn to draw like "Gramma Leslie". So when we can get all of the schedules to sync, I am planning on showing them Indy and Mazzy's video. Here's a picture of Gramma and her two sweethearts (they look great ... gramma not so much).

Gramma talking again ... as usual!

I had a lot of fun with ZINGO this week, and have several attempts in my sketchbooks, but since I am running late, I will just show my final for the submission this week. I was debating whether or not to darken the color and decided I just wanted to leave it pastel, so here it is.

Media: 3.5 x 3.5 tile
Tools: Micron 01 Black pen, Graphite pencil, Prismacolor
Pencils, Grey fineliner
Tangles: Zingo, Zinger, Flux, Fescu

Thank you for stopping by and if you want to see all the other submission for this week's challenge, head on over to I am the Diva and check them out. It's a lot of fun and we'd love to have you join in the fun.

Have a wonderful week!

DC # 302 ~ Hamadox (UMT) & IAST #183

First of all, thank you all for your kind words last week. They are always appreciated. I don't always get to everyone's blog or posts, but I have seen all of the submissions for this week. I hope to make it around this coming week to add my comments.

Well, late again as usual, but I just couldn't pass up posting my Hamadox because I really liked how they turned out (I did 2 different ones). And I also actually finished a challenge for Adele Bruno's IAST and also did 2 for that one. So short and sweet tonight and here we go!

Diva Challenge #302 is a first of the month Use My Tangle (UMT) and we have the delightful Hamadox by Diana Schreur CZT. I love this tangle and how my pen can just take over without me coaxing it much. Here is my first tile:

Diva Challenge # 302 ~ Hamadox
Tangles used: Hamadox, Flux, Moowa, Fescu, Tipple
Tools: Micron Pen, Prismacolor colored pencils, graphite 

Tile # 2 is a bit simpler, but only because I had a few oops! moments and couldn't decide how to finish it.

Diva Challenge #302 ~ Hamadox
Tangle used: Hamadox, (ghostly Printemps were the aforementioned
oops! and they showed through the black that I covered them with -
but it's okay, it kind of gives it a unique effect
Tools: Micron Pens, Prismacolor colored pencils

Adele Bruno had a heart themed string this week and I did 2 submissions for this, although I am not at all sure they made it in time. These are 2 entirely different looks and I'm not at all sure that I like this first one. My son does though and thinks it would make a great tattoo.

IAST # 183
Tangles used: Zenith, Caught, and Pearls
Tools: Micron Pens, Calligraphy Marker, Prismacolor
colored pencils, and graphite 

My 2nd submission for this challenge was a bit more to my liking. I tend to prefer flowery looks when I can actually get it mostly right.

IAST #183
Tangles used: Zenith, Caught, Moowa, Luv-A, Fescu, Beadlines
Tools: Micron Pen, Prismacolor colored pencils

Thank you for stopping by and if you get a chance, head on over to the Diva's place and see what everyone else has done!

DC # 301 ~ DuoTangle: Paradox v.Diva Dance

First off, thank you very much for visiting my blog last week and a big thanks to those that left comments. I am not the best person in the world for posting comments, but do try to get around to all of the blogs. I am so inspired by all the artists at the Diva's blog, so I go through all of the blogs a lot. Thank you all for sharing!

I'm SO glad that Artoo had a successful Moebius Syndrome Awareness day and that his school and community are so mindful of the disorder that he has and that he is able to show the world that he is, in fact, perfect just the way he is. What an amazing family that the Diva has!

In the Zentangle Newsletter this week, they had a new video entitled "Kitchen Table Tangles" and Rick and Maria were demonstrating a duo tangle of Paradox and Diva Dance and showing how to intertwine them. The Diva decided that it would be a good challenge for this week and so we were challenged to do just that ... a DuoTangle of Paradox and Diva Dance. I loved that way that Rick had tangled his piece, but intertwining the two tangles just didn't seem to happen for me, but that's okay. I have never been fond of my Diva Dance, but I loved how this tile turned out . . . AND I think that the shading almost shows up nearly as dark as it is in person. Hope you like this and as always, comments and critiques are always welcome.

DC#301 ~ Duotangle: Paradox v. Diva Dance
Tools: Micron 01 Black pen, Graphite pencil for shading

I was going back through my blog and realized that I had not posted some of my challenges, so please indulge me as I post these. This first one is using the new tangle, "DraWings" and I must say that I really love drawing this one. It just seems to flow for me.

This next one is Icanthis. I wasn't sure that I was going to like this one, but I found it fun to work with as well. Here's what I did with it on a recent tile.

Please take some time and check out what the other fabulous artists have been doing with the Diva's challenge here and perhaps you may get inspired to join us in this fun. Thanks for stopping by!

DC # 300 ~ Congrats on 300 Challenges AND Moebius Syndrome Awareness Day

Wow! Our awesome Diva (Laura Harms) has challenged us for 300 weeks to join her in this tangling world and strive to grow. She has encouraged many people to settle down and find their zen with this wonderful meditation technique. And in all that time, we have also been fortunate to hear about how this technique is helping her to deal with some everyday things that the majority of us probably don't have to deal with.

Her youngest son, Artoo (his internet name) was born with Moebius Syndrome, which is a disorder that inhibits the ability of those with it to be able to move their face and make normal facial gestures. It is not a disease, but a disorder that concerns the nerves in the face. Laura describes it very well on her blog, so if you would be interested to know about it, please take a look at her blog here. Those of us that follow her blog have followed little Artoo through his babyhood and toddler years through the pictures we have seen and through Laura's descriptions. He is now in school and doing very well, is smart as a whip and absolutely adorable.

So every year, we celebrate Moebius Syndrome Awareness day by using the Moebius logo as a string or inspiration for our challenge. Here is my offering for this year.

Diva Challenge #300 ~ Moebius Syndrome Awareness
Tangles used: DraWings, Achey Breaky Heart
Tools: Micron 01 Black Pen, Prismacolor colored pencils, Prismacolor
Alcohol Marker Blender

The color for Meobius is purple, so I mostly used that in my tile, but since Artoo's favorite color is green, I tried to incorporate a bit of it in there for him.  This one's for you ARTOO!

As always, thank you for stopping by and any comments, critiques or how do you do's are welcome. I know I'm always a bit late getting this in, but it seems that Sunday is the only day I can actually do anything. Looking forward to seeing your remarks and see you again soon.  Don't forget to stop by the Diva's place (click here) and see what she has going on!

UMT ~ Orbs-La-Dee (DC# 298) and IAST# 179

Happy New Year, my friends!  I can't believe that I didn't post at all since the first part of December, but it was a real busy time trying to keep everyone well here. I suspect that everyone else was busy as well. At any rate, it's good to be back and this year, I am going to TRY to keep up with at least the Diva's Challenge. I am thinking of trying a couple of others as well, since I have decided that this year, I am taking time for myself more than I normally do. I definitely need to de-stress and my artwork tends to do that for me.

So this week, since it is the first week (technically the second, but the first one with a challenge), it's time for a UMT (Use My Tangle) and Laura has chosen Orbs-La-Dee. I have only tried it a couple of times and that wasn't in a composition, just trying the tangle on for size. Well, I found that it's all kinds of fun and I think that this will become a new favorite of mine.  Anyway, without further adieu, here is my Diva Challenge tile. I was just playing with Ogee grids and thought that this worked well for me.

UMT ~ Orbs-La-Dee
Tangles used: Orbs-La-Dee, Joki. Moowa, Tipple
Tools: Sakura Micron 01 and 08 (for coloring)
Graphite pencil for shading (darker that it shows here)

 I also decided that I was going to try other challenges this year from time to time and will post them here as well. This week, I decided to try Adele Bruno's IAST #179. Adele used a double spiral string and had us use the tangles Betweed, Dust Bunny, and Curl. I had used Betweed before, but the other two I had never used. Although I like all of the tangles separate, I'm not at all sure that I like the way this turned out. I can't seem to find the string, although I do know it's there. But I did finish it, even though I wanted to toss it. I may revisit it at some time, but for now, here it is for what it is!

IAST # 179
Tangles used: Betweed, Dust Bunny, and Curl
Tools used: Sakura Micron 01, graphite pencil and Derwent colored pencil

Again, I'm not real sure I like this one, but here it is anyway and I at least made the effort to try the new-to-me challenges. The color that I used isn't showing up as brightly as it is in rl, but that's the best I could do with my camera. Hopefully, I will get ink soon since my scanner is also my printer and it won't even scan when the printer is out of ink :(.  Anyway, I enjoyed getting back into tangling after the holidays and am going to try to be here more often this year.

Thanks for dropping by and as always, comments are appreciated. There are many people that do these challenges, so click HERE for the Diva's Challenge and HERE for Adele's It's A String Thing Challenge. Take a look at all the wonderful submissions and come play with us if you want to try it yourself.

Have a Zen-ful day!