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!

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!