Diva Challenge #217 ~ Dex vs. Bunzo - 35?

The Diva had another challenging week, but still managed to get a challenge posted for us again. I don't know how she does it sometimes! Her youngest was again in the hospital but thankfully was out in time for Mother's Day so they could all have a great day. Her challenge this week is to do a duo-tangle using Dex and Bunzo only. The 35 comes from the fact that Dex has 3 letters and Bunzo has 5, which coincidentally makes it appear as 35, which is also how old the Diva is this week.  So, Laura, here is my Duo-tangle and Happy Birthday to you!

Challenge 217 - Dex and Bunzo
Media: 3.5" sq tile, Black Micron 01, pencil to shade
Tangles: Bunzo, Dex

This is the first time I have ever done Dex, but it is a fun gridded pattern to do, and Bunzo has always been one of my favorite tangles ever since I saw it the first time. So this isn't anything spectacular this time, but just a nice laid back little tangle that was very relaxing to do. Hope you like it!

Thank you all so very much for your wonderful comments last week....I do appreciate your comments and read them all every week. Happy Belated Mother's Day to everyone out there, be you a biological mom, a step mom, a dad acting as a mom, a furbaby mom, or anyone that just relates to loving having someone to take care of. 

If you are interested in joining our tangle adventures, just head over the the Diva's blog (click here) and check out all the wonderful artwork being shared. Who knows, maybe you will be inspired to join us! :)

As always, comments are always appreciated and I definitely appreciate your stopping by!

Diva Challenge #216 ~ UMT Brella

First off, thank you all again for your kind comments last week. They are always appreciated.

We had a pretty good week last week although it was a little tough on my son. He is on disability for many things, but had to go through a mandatory evaluation which is something we do periodically. This time he was extremely anxious about it because they didn't give him much notice about the appointment. The therapist he spoke with understood and apologized about the lack of notification for him, but also spent a good deal of time talking with him. My son suffers from depression, extreme anxiety and social phobias, as well as a lot of pain, due in part to an auto accident we were in. But he does well in helping here around home and I very much appreciate him. When the therapist was talking with him, she asked if he had ever had a definitive diagnosis for his Autism/Aspergers and we told her that both his therapist and doctor had said that he is most likely on the scale somewhere. Well, she got busy and got her evaluation tests out and FINALLY confirmed what we had assumed for a very long time - he is autistic. Now that he is 30 years old, it's good to have a firm diagnosis. And she thinks that if we can understand it and how to deal with it, it will lessen some of his other problems. So it was a very good week for us!

The Diva, Laura Harms, had a great week also in that her youngest is showing progress in being able to eat solid food. Congratulations to Laura on that highlight for her week. Little landmarks are so wonderful when we are trying to make progress. Her challenge this week was a UMT, as is normal for the first challenge of the month. This month our UMT is Brella by Bunny Wright and since Star Wars is a big deal in the Diva's household, she chose to use a Star Wars theme for Star Wars Day - "May the 4th be with you". We are pretty much geeks in this house too, although my son is by far the biggest geek in the house and so I attempted to do something Star Wars too. I actually had this done on Monday, but have been busy running errands until today, so I couldn't get a picture of it until now. I chose to do the Rebel Alliance sigil - I know, not very creative, but I really haven't been feeling very creative lately. It was very relaxing for me to do it though, so I guess it was mission accomplished.  See what you think...

May the 4th be with you!
Media: 3.5" x 3.5" tile, Black Micron pen, pencil
Tangles: Brella, StarMap

Very simple, but very enjoyable to do also.

As always, any and all comments are appreciated. If you would like to see the other submissions for this challenge, head on over the the Diva's place (click here) and check out all the awesome artwork there. Enjoy!

Labyrinths are Among Us~ Diva Challenge #215

First off, let me say that I'm sorry I didn't get around to all the blogs last week. My hands were giving me fits (arthritis and fibromyalgia) so I was basically staying away from the keyboard because it hurt to type, but I have peeked in to some from last week and I am going to be working on some of the challenges I have missed. That being said, let's move on to this week's challenge. When I woke up Monday and saw that the challenge was to draw a labyrinth, all I felt was sheer panic! To begin with, I had no idea what a bonafide labyrinth looked like, but the Diva helped us out there by sending us to a couple of websites. I looked at those and kind of got familiar with what a labyrinth should look like, but somehow I wanted something different. So...as my husband often says to me...I went into full research mode and spent a few days on Google and Google Images just looking around. Thank you, Diva, for such a challenge! I found out so much about labyrinths and the reasons for them, that it made it all so very interesting. Like she said in her post (paraphrasing here), mazes and labyrinths are not the same thing at all. I find after looking at everything, I definitely prefer labyrinths. I must have gone through all the scratch paper in the house trying to decide exactly how I wanted my labyrinth to look, but finally settled on a design that I absolutely love. This is what I would like a labyrinth to look like if I were able to build one in my back yard (I can't, my yard is barely wide enough for a picnic table).

Diva Challenge 215 ~ Labyrinth
Media:
4" x 4" tile, Micron (black and brown), pencil for
shading, green and blue watercolor pencils, white colored
pencil for highlighting and white gelly roll for orb dots
Tangles used:
Miander, Ovy tangellation, Flux, Fescu, Zinger (1)

When I started with the Miander on the path, I cursed myself for choosing that particular tangle and especially for making it so small, but I love the way it turned out and found that it was very relaxing to tangle it. In looking back at it, I find that the places that I was really in tune with the pen are the smallest design areas and the larger ones are more just trying to cover space. But I really do like the way it turned out. In fact, so much so that I will probably make another one and make it larger and frame it. Thank you once again, Laura, for your wonderful challenges!

If you would like to see the responses to this challenge and check out the Diva's blog for other challenges that she has issued, go to the Diva's Challenge blog (click here) and check it out.

And remember, any and all comments are welcomed and appreciated ... always!

Traced Objects!

Once again, thank you for all of your comments ... I am sure that everyone loves to read comments. For me, it's a confirmation that someone is actually looking at what I am doing. Just a little egocentric, I know, but it's all good. After all, how can we grow if people don't offer advice and comments?

This has been kind of a crazy week, what with the temperature here in Salt Lake around 70F on Sunday and snowing all day today. Must be because in the US, taxes are due today! It was a bit strange though, because we got more snow today than we got in all of January, February, and March of this year. But this has been a strange year and Salt Lake only got a little more than 3 inches of snow in those months and I woke up to about 5 inches of snow this morning. I really didn't mind since it meant that the wind finally calmed down. It broke one of my bird feeders and the birds were mad at me, I'm sure.  Anyway, here are the snow pictures, they are unbelievable to me!

But, on to our Diva's Challenge for this week. We were challenged to use a stencil, or trace around objects to form our string and tangle away! I have a big collection of wonderful stencils that are in a notebook *somewhere*, but of course they must be in the proverbial safe place because I couldn't find them anywhere. So I grabbed a few things around the house and used them. Here are the objects and the string I created:

Here are the objects I used ... my corner rounder, my bone folder, and a printer connection....

to come up with this string. This is the second string I created with these objects and they are in *approximately* the same place as the ones on my challenge piece since I forgot to take a picture before I started tangling. That's why the string on the right side looks wonky...I erased it to try to make it look like the original.

So now you know what the string looks like, here is the actual first tile. First off though, I must tell you that I quite often ask my son's opinion and he suggested adding color to this. I wasn't sure, but in the end I think it worked out beautifully. What do you think?

Diva Challenge #213~Traced Object String
Media: 3.5 x 3.5 tile, Black Micron Pen, Sepia Micron Pen,
Green Micron Pen, Red Micron Pen, Blue Micron Pen,
Yellow Creative Memories Pen, Brown Creative Memories
Pen (used for shading on Flux)
Tangles used: Flux, Farling, Akuras, PinBawl, Tipple

Thank you for bearing with my stories and thank you for taking a look at my blog. Since I have this second tile with a string already drawn, don't be surprised if I add another tile this week.

As always, please take a look at all the beautiful submissions over at the Diva's Place (click here) and if you are so inclined, join the fun there one of these first weeks. Thank you for any comments you may wish to make as I LOVE to read comments!

Diva Challenge #212 ~ UMT - Fanz

First of all, thank you for your kind comments on my challenge last week. They mean a lot to me and I appreciate them all.

And yet again, I am posting at a late date in the week ... it has been an off week here at home. Rather hectic with kids mostly. Just a case of taking far too long to get necessary things done and an upset son that was afraid that something had happened to us. Sometimes his autism makes him afraid of things going on and he had somewhat of a meltdown. Things are almost back to normal, so hopefully I can get my challenge posted earlier next week and also get some of my other other ZIAs posted. But I talk too much, so let's get on to the good stuff.....ZENTANGLE!

Our challenge this week was a UMT and our tangle to use was Fanz by Susan Goetter. It's a rather fun tangle, but I must admit that it took me a few nights to get the rhythm of the auras right, but I was rather pleased with it. I showed my tile to both hubby and son and they both had different ideas about which was was up, so I am presenting you here with both of them and you can decide for yourself.

This one is shown the way hubby likes it...says it reminds him of a tree of sorts. I guess I can see it, but he wasn't sure what the Narwal were then...lol

This one is shown the way my son likes it...says it reminds him of Willy Wonka's chocolate waterfall and the chocolate river with candies all around.








I just think it's fun and I didn't have any idea of where the pen would take me.  What is your favorite?

The tangles I used are Fanz, Narwal, Nipa, and Printemps with a bit of tipple here and there as well. Anyway, it was a fun one for me and I think I'm going to have to play with Fanz a bit more. It looks like loads of fun.

There are more interpretations of the challenge over at the Diva's website (click here), so go take a look and maybe you will join in the fun! Thank you for visiting my blog and comments are always welcomed and appreciated.

Diva Challenge #211 ~ Flux

Well, this week, the Diva was unable to post her challenge as her youngest son is not doing well and was in the hospital. So we thought that there was no challenge this week.....however, Rick and Maria posted step-outs for Flux, which is one of their original tangles and they realized that they had never taught it with step-outs for us yet. Flux has always been one of my favorite tangles, so imagine my surprise when I found out there are 2 versions of it. I had only known of the version that Rick uses, but apparently the one that Maria did was first and I had never known that. I guess probably because I don't know a CZT yet, so I just watch the internet. Anyway, it is definitely one of my favorites and so I did one today (April 2, 2015) on a blue tile for my son. Today is World Autism Day and the color representing that is blue, so this one is for him. After I took this picture, I added some white highlighting to it, so I will take another picture tomorrow and post it as well.  Hope you like it!

World Autism Day - Apr 2, 2015
Media: 3.5" x 3.5" blue tile, Black Micron, Blue Micron
Blue Derwent Watercolour Pencil
Tangles: Flux (both versions), Uni, Printemps, Pearls,
PinBawl, and Florz

Same tile with white highlights added....better picture too :)

Thank you for stopping by and if you want to see the rest of the submissions, go to the Diva's Challenge Page (click here) to see the beautiful work done.

Diva Challenge #210~Spiralstring - That's the Thing!

Once again, thank you for your comments, it is much appreciated.

Sketchbook Spiralstring
Tangles: Flux, Printemps, Tipple, Bunzo, Cruffle, Fescu

Our Diva challenge this week was to use a spiral for our string and tangle away! I never realized just how difficult that would be; it's very definitely a challenge. I wasn't at all sure how to go about it, so I did this first one in one of my sketchbooks to see if I actually could do a spiral string. It's not too bad, but I could see where some changes needed to be made, and I decided to post my first one.

Challenge #210 ~Spiralstring
Media: Micron Pens - Black, Brown, Sepia, Pencil, and Dove Blender
Tangles Used: Flux, Printemps, Cruffle, Fescu

I liked the way this looked, but I really wanted it on a normal tile, so here is my official offering. I do like the way it turned out. Unfortunately, there is also a kitty hair or two on here too...lol. They manage to get into everything! But I love them anyway....

Diva Challenge #210~Spiralstring
Media: Tile, Black Micron Pen, Pencil, Green Watercolor Pencil
Monotangle: Amphora

This one was a practice of Amphora, which is a new to me tangle and I thought it might look good as a spiral...what do you think?

So my blog entry is short and sweet tonight, but late as usual. I really am going to have to get my pictures taken earlier so I can get my post up sooner.  But I always seem to manage to get them up on Friday or Saturday. *shrug* Go figure...lol.

Well, I hope to go check out a few more of the challenge pieces...I cheated this week and looked at a lot of them before I got mine posted. And checked out some of the previous year's entries as well. There is just so much talent out there. If you want to check out some of the beautiful work done for this challenge, head on over to the Diva's place (CLICK HERE) and if you are so inclined, come and play with us and show yours off too.  As always, comments are highly appreciated. Thank you for looking.