Diva Challenge # 196 ~ All Dolled Up!

Sorry I have been a bit haphazard posting for a few weeks, seems my hands don't want to work too well for me. I have been doing a few tangles though and this particular challenge really hit the spot for me! For those who don't follow the Diva's Challenge, the challenge this week was given to us by Emily Classon who has a 4 year old daughter that loves dolls.  She challenged us to "... be inspired by dolls like I have been.  Awaken your inner child, and add some playtime to your tangling with a doll-shaped string, a tangled paper doll chain, or a tangled fabric doll.  Do you have an old Barbie stuck in a trunk somewhere?  I bet there’s a way to tangle her too." 

You see, I am a definite doll-a-holic.  I also have 5 granddaughters and they all love stuffed animals and dolls too. I have all the dolls that I had as a child and some of my mother's dolls too. Dad traveled around the world in his civilian job with the Air Force and he always brought me back a doll. So I have quite a collection. When I grew up, it didn't stop there either...I got dolls for most gift giving occasions, and made clothes for Barbie and her friends for co-workers when I was older. After that, I made all kinds of dolls from mophead dolls to sculpey dolls and then expanded to stuffed teddy bears. So, you see, when I saw the challenge was for dolls to inspire me, I couldn't decide which direction to go in.  I had thought of an articulated paper art doll, but the torso just didn't work for me. Then I was going to find one of my old Barbies that I bought just for art projects, but couldn't find where I put them. Then I thought of just using a dressmakers form, but in the end, I was looking through some of my old doll and stamping magazines and saw some beautiful fairies and decided that I would make a winter fairie that I could also use as a Christmas card for someone special.  So that is just what I decided to do.  The picture doesn't do her justice, but I think that is partially the paper - it really wasn't smooth enough to do what I had intended. But, here she is for your perusal:

Diva Challenge #196
Media:  Art Cardstock, Micron pens, Derwent colored pencils, #2 lead pencil
Tangles:  Shattuck, Hibred, Cadent, Verdigogh, and my black pearls are actually red...lol

I've got a few more ideas in mind, and I have some past challenges that I want to post when I get all the pictures taken, so I hope to get them posted before the end of the year.

But now, I need to go look at all the fabulous work everyone has done. If you would like to take a look, you can find the Diva's Challenge here.

As always, comments are welcome and I have appreciated all comments in the past. I don't always respond but I do always read them.  Thank you very much!

Diva Challenge #194 ~ Embrace the Yuck!

Phew! I started this one out on Monday (several times!) after I read the Diva's Challenge by her guest blogger this week, Elisa Murphy. She wanted us to use our non-dominant hand to do our tangle this week to show our solidarity and support to the Diva while her youngest son, Artoo, recovers from eye surgery. In this exercise, we show our frustration and powerlessness over things that happen in our lives. But as we pick up our pens and pencils in our non-dominant hand, we can learn to deal with the things that cause these feelings and know that we can overcome them.  Well, that's the theory anyway.....  As I said, I started this one several times, but I mostly just sat there with my pencil in my left hand and trying to will my brain to just draw. Do you know how hard it is to think in reverse?  I finally got some scratch paper and picked a few tangles that I liked and practiced drawing them with my left hand until I finally figured out how to draw it "backwards" for me. Apparently, I crochet and tat left-handed or so my grandmother used to tell me, but I just did what was comfortable. And in picking up my pen, which I was reluctant to do until I have managed to actually draw my border on my tile with my left hand, I took a little while to figure out how to hold the darn thing! But I found a way that was comfy for me and regardless of what my son and hubby thought, it was comfortable for me.  I was holding it like a chopstick so that I could control the movement...otherwise I wouldn't have been able to draw as well as my 2 year old granddaughter.  But all that background aside now......Here it is!

Challenge 194~Embrace the Yuck!
Media ~ 4" Tile, Micron Pen, pencil and shading stomp
Tangles ~ Shattuck, Cadence, Y-Ful, and a couple of others I frankly don't remember!

So hurry to the Diva's Place and check out the other submissions for this week right here.  As always, any comments are appreciated and constructive criticism is ALWAYS welcome!  Thanks for visiting my blog!

Diva Challenge 193 ~ Thank YOU!!!

Phew!  I am horribly late (in fact, clear into the next week) but I did want to get something up for THX to say thanks mostly to our veterans and current serving military personnel. I worked for the DoD for 30 years, most of the time with a unique group of individuals in an Army Reserve unit that was a helicopter ambulance and service unit. These men and women showed me what dedication and service really was. When they were deployed to Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan, I would talk with their families they left back home and reassure them that their soldiers were alright. I was right there with the families to welcome their heroes home. Many of our pilots were also Vietnam veterans and they often compared the reception they got coming home from the Middle East and the reception coming home from Vietnam. It was heartbreaking to hear the stories of rejection after Vietnam. But I do want to thank military worldwide for being able to defend the things they believe in. My entire career (and in fact - my whole life) was spent around military folks. My grandfather served in WWI and received a Purple Heart after being gassed in France. My father served in WWII and Korea. While I did not serve in the military (I wanted to join the Air Force, but due to physical problems, could not), I worked for DoD all my life. My last position was as the secretary to the General of the Regional Army Reserve Command before the finally closed the command. But I could probably go on forever with stories from and about "my guys", but I need to get to the tangles.

So here they are (I got a bit carried away, because I didn't like most of them).  Just a small note on colors, I chose to use red, blue, and purple because they represent colors of military to me...red and blue (along with white) for our US flag and purple for the prestigious military medal ... Purple Heart. I hope you enjoy and if you would like to see all the ones that were finished on time, just drop in to the Diva's blog

First attempt
Media: Micron Pen, Pencil, Prismacolor Watercolor Pencils
Tangles: Trio, Huggins, Xyp

Second Try!
Media: Micron Pen, Pencil, Creative Memories Fine Tip Permanent Markers
Tangles: Trio, Huggins, Xyp

Third Try (My Favorite)
Media:  Micron Pen, Pencil, Creative Memories Fine Tip Permanent Markers
Tangles: Trio, Huggins, Xyp

Unfinished Starts

Diva Challenge #190 ~ Pink for Ardath

First off, thank you again everyone for your remarks last week.  I always read them, but since I never know how long I will be on the computer, I'm afraid that I don't get to respond to you all.  Just know that I appreciate all of you and your comments...they are much appreciated.

For this challenge, the Diva challenged us to use pink in memory of her grandmother who died from complications of breast cancer as well as all those have passed or are cancer survivors.  My mother had several lumps that thankfully weren't malignant, but my aunt wasn't quite so lucky.  She had to have a double mastectomy, but they got it all and she survived the cancer. However, both she and my mother ended up with Alzheimer's, which contributed to both of their deaths. I also have friends that have survived breast cancer, one of whom was a male friend that got it very young and is now a survivor for over 8 years. A girlfriend developed breast cancer, but beat that only to develop bone cancer, which thankfully she beat also. Other cancers have plagued friends and acquaintances over the years, so this is for ALL cancer victims.

Pink Tile 1: Dragonair, Luv-ya, Mooka, Tipple, Bunzo

Pink Tile 2: Pearls (?), Fiore, Juke, Zinger

Was trying out Carol Ohl's connection tutorial on this one.  I like the way it turned out and will have to use some of these techniques in future.

 I'm sorry that this is so late this week, but my son's girlfriend is here from Tennessee, so things have been a bit hectic getting things ready for her visit.  As always, I appreciate feedback and comments.  And be sure to visit the Diva's blog (here) to perhaps join in on the challenges and see all the beautiful work that is submitted.  Who knows? Maybe we will see YOUR work next week.

Diva Challenge #189 ~ UMT - Yuma

First and foremost...thank you all for your very kind comments over the last week.  I don't always get time to answer each one individually.

Home seems to be a bit hectic even though my husband and I are both retired. He is getting older and doesn't always remember how to do things, so it usually ends up that I do most things around here. He also doesn't drive, so it is up to me to run all the errands or take him or our son where they need to go.  My son is an autistic adult and we didn't find it out until about 4 years ago.  He is now 30 and does well, but he doesn't drive either. So life does tend to get a bit hectic some weeks. We are getting ready this week for the arrival of his long distance girlfriend from Tenessee and so I really haven't done much with tangling this week.

When I looked at this challenge, I thought that it was going to be great fun because I had been looking at tangle patterns and come across Yuma. I hadn't tried it yet, but it looked like it would be a fun one to draw, since I usually like flowing, botanical type tangles.  Then I sat down and tried it....looks are deceiving. Mine didn't seem to want to cooperate or maybe I just didn't get it, but I finished my tile and will likely try to do a couple more this week if I can figure out what it is that I am not liking.  I didn't know where I was going with this one (ops normal), so I can't explain it.  Anyway, here it is for your perusal.

UMT ~ Yuma
Tangles used: Yuma, Shard, X-Did and a couple of my own doodles

For those of you that may be interested, the Diva Challenges can be found here, so why not give it a go and see what you can do!

Diva Challenge #188~Coming Out Day

The Diva's Challenge this week was to create a tile for Coming Out Day ~ Oct 11 for LGBT. This was such a wonderful challenge for me and I intend to do more tiles when time permits using these colors and theme.

 My son and I have many friends that support and belong to the the LGBT community! We have, for a long time, had many friends that were gay or lesbian and to tell you the truth, I never really thought much about it at all. When I was in high school (eons ago), I had a very dear friend (in fact my first boyfriend) that was gay and had a hard time telling anyone. So after high school, he followed his heart and became a nanny to a good doctor and his wife and they introduced him to many people in the LGBT community.  I think it was the first time in his life that he was actually happy.  We remained close throughout his life, which unfortunately ended far too soon. But knowing him to be so happy when he was allowed to be himself prompted me to do my tile in rainbow colors. I had meant to get this posted sooner, but this week I have been a bit sick.  But here it is now

A Joyous Coming Out

I actually like this one and it is much brighter than this picture shows.  The tangles I have used are:

L - Luv-ya

G - Golven

B - Blooming Butter

T - Twenty-One

The only tangle pattern that I had ever actually used before was Luv-ya. In actuality, it was my son that chose these particular tangles.  His reasoning was that all of his LGBT friends are a bit flamboyant and he thought that these would be perfect to describe them.  I agreed with him, thinking particularly of one of his good friends that also worked with him when he was doing makeup for a local Haunted House for a few years. This particular friend and I got to be good friends and like most of the kids over there, he called me "Mom".  His own parents had thrown him out of the house when he told them he was gay and so I always a special spot in my heart for him. So I dedicate this joyous and bright piece to all of my good friends, LGBT or otherwise, and ask that people just embrace the joy of loving each other with no strings attached. 

If you would like to see the rest of the pieces created by many other artists, take a look at the Diva's blog here and perhaps start joining in with us.  Happy tangling and love to all :)

Diva Challenge 187 ~ Don't Look!!

First of all, thank you everyone, for your comments on my tiles last week.  It is always appreciate, and I love constructive criticism...it makes us stronger.

Well, the Diva has given us a challenge to do a string with our eyes closed.  I don't normally do strings anyway, since most of what I do is mostly ZIA rather than Zentangle, at least in my mind.  Anyway, I forgot to take pictures of my string and I'm still working on one that my son did for me, so I'll likely post that one next week. But here are the two that I actually did.....the first one I didn't really like until I did some shading on it and I decided it was ok.  The second one I was finishing up last night (late!) and my son and I managed to get on a laughing kick .... you know, the kind where all you have to do is look at each other and you can't stop laughing?  Well, we were having a cup of coffee at the time and as you can no doubt see, we managed to spray coffee all over the tangle I was working on.  I kind of liked where it was heading, so I finished it up today, coffee and all (tangle #2).  Anyway, here they are!

Challenge #187 ~Blind String 1

I rather liked this one once I shaded it, and I didn't even make too many mistakes, but I did manage to have to use Bronx Cheer (I had never tried it before). I don't know for sure the tangles I used in this, but They seemed to work ok.

And here, in all the coffee soaked glory, is tile #2

Challenge #187 ~ Blind String #2

I kind of like this one too, but I need more practice with strings, I can see that.  Anyway, here they are and as always, any comments are always appreciated.  Now I'm off to check out the other tiles submitted this week.  You can find them here, on the Diva's blog.  Why don't you enter the challenge too?