Diva Challenge #264 ~ String Theory: String into Spring

Our challenge this week was to use a spring-like string and create something using that string. I actually had a picture of the string I was going to use and had the linework all done, but when I went and shaded it, it became a disaster, so I may actually try that one again (I do have a picture of the linework before shading, so I can just do it again!) But the one that I actually finished (yes, I started several and none of them spoke to me, so I have a pile of half-finished tiles hanging around - maybe for another day) turned out better than I thought it would. The only problem is that I did finally get my scanner working (YAY!) but it tends to drain all the color out. And since it's dark out now, I didn't want to be taking pictures to upload, so please forgive me for the washed out color. It's far brighter than it looks.

I do actually have a 3 looped spring string under this one, but it kind of got lost. I started drawing the Abundie and in actuality, wasn't going to have it be Abundie, but the pen insisted and then just took over from there. After I finished the linework and was trying to decide how I wanted to finish it, it screamed for color. So since I haven't used my Inktense pencils in quite awhile, I thought I would give them a try, I am actually quite pleased with this....hubby thinks it looks like a Martian garden, but I just think it's a colorful ZIA. Hope you like it!

I missed last week's challenge completely, but it looked like fun, so I had to give it a try. I have had quite a problem with my hands this past few weeks, I was doing so miserably that I could barely hold my pen and I missed our local Tangling Get-together this month. I actually did try about a dozen grids for the Globular Grid challenge, but they drove me crazy, so I didn't get anything posted last week at all.

This is the Global Grid that I finally ended up finishing and again, I am still playing with the scanner to get the colors right here too.  This one is done on kind of a light pink paper, so the scanner kept trying to pick it up white and washing everything out. But I liked this one too!

That's it for this week and I know it is really last minute, but when my hands don't want to work, I can't get 'er done as quickly as I wanted to. These will be used on some cards going to family that I need to get in touch with. I love being able to use them like that.

If you haven't already seen the rest of the artists doing the Diva's challenge, you can go  HERE  and see what everyone else has done. There is a new challenge most every Monday, so if you want to go ahead and join in the fun, keep you eye on her blog. 

Thank you for checking this out and to all the other artists this week...I have been looking at all of your blogs, but wasn't able to make comments this week. Just know that I am always impressed with ALL of the work here and inspired by each and every one of you. Thanks again and have a wonderful zen-day!

Diva Challenge #262 ~ UMT Fassett by Lynn Mead

It's been an interesting week here for me and my family. The weather has been beautiful the majority of the week, with soft spring rains and warmer temperatures.  Of course, that meant that the pollen is on overdrive and consequently, I have spent a good deal of the week with sinus issues due to allergies. I don't really want to go out (although I would love to go out and about) because my eyes are so swollen with the allergies and I can't wear makeup and have it last more than a half hour (Yes, I tend to be vain about going out not looking my best). But worse than that, when I try to  blow my nose and unstuff my sinuses, it feels like I am going to pop an eye out.  That has just been a new thing with my allergies and it's the strangest feeling ever. So, I have been doing lots of experimentation and relaxation with my tangling.

I know that I have mentioned my beautiful kitties before and here is a picture of the oldest and youngest keeping me company while I am tangling and/or on the computer. (Yes I have a pillow on the table for them to sit by me.) The black and white handsome boy is Mistoffellees, who just turned 16 a month ago. He's the main reason that there is a pillow on the table. He has problems sometimes getting comfortable when he is trying to sleep. The black baby is Salem Saberhagen and he's a beautiful Bombay. I think he's about 8 or 9, but I'm not sure. Our other one, Nicholas, usually isn't on the table with them because he and Mistoffellees are still discussing who is the alpha male, but they don't know that it's actually Salem....lol. Anyway, these are my companions who keep me company.

This week's challenge by the Diva was a UMT (Use My Tangle) and we were challenged to use Lynn Mead's tangle FASSETT.  This was one of the first tangles that I learned because it was actually similar to some of the doodles I have been doing all my life. Not quite, but almost. Anyway, I find it relaxing to do tangles like this one because my pen essentially takes over with the rhythm of the lines. I used a Toned Gray Tile by Strathmore for this first one and loved how it turned out. I was not only trying out the gray tile, but also used an actual string, something that I rarely do. They tend to confuse me, but I actually liked using it on this because it gave me some direction when I started my tile. Hope you enjoy!

For my second one, I used a Toned Tan Strathmore Artist Tile. I'm not sure which one I like the best, so I'll just continue playing with them. On this one, I did some of the shading with a light gray marker and it helped me to achieve the look I was going for. I was proud of both of them, because hubby actually liked them this week. He normally says he likes them, but this week, he practically gushed, telling me that he really liked them both and told me how well I was doing with composition on these. Maybe there IS something to using a string? Well could be ... at any rate, here is my second one.  Hope you enjoy!

Well, that's it for this week and I have got to say that I thoroughly enjoyed myself on this challenge . If you get a chance, head on over to the Diva's Place (click here) and check out what everyone has submitted. It's fun to play with our tangles, so if you are a tangler, come join in the fun!

Thanks for stopping by and please leave a comment if you are inclined. It's good to know that people are out there. Have a zen-ful day!

Diva Guest Challenge ~ #261 Stacked Bijou

Up to my usual tricks and posting this late as usual. But no matter, I actually have been keeping up with the challenges, just not posting because for a bit I couldn't find my camera. But I found it now and wouldn't you know it, the only challenge that I can find to photograph is the one for this week.  I had a great time with this for many reasons...I have tons of paper around the house and getting it all out and trying to decide what colors would go with what was actually a pleasure. The palette I selected probably doesn't go together all that well, but I liked the colors.

Anyway, the Diva had a Guest posting the challenge this week; Jane Reiter, CZT. She proposed a very unique challenge this week for us. We were to start with a Bijou in the center or at least paper the size of a Bijou, 2 x 2. Then cut each layer 1" bigger than the last and stack them. So here is my take on it:

 This is a straight on picture of my stacked challenge and it really is shaded more intensely than it looks here. I love these colors together because to me, they are quite earthy. I have several more layers cut out and ready to go because I had such a wonderful time with this. And I just noticed that I took my picture before I signed it. Oh well, I have now signed it and dated it on the back. I may actually put this one in a frame because I really do like the way it turned out.

I decided to add a closeup picture of the different tangles I used. On Bijou, I used Sinchun. I love the way this one turned out, even though it took me many, many practice pages before I got it looking the way I wanted.  Next one is Organic ... love the way it flows.  On the orange is Abundies, yet another favorite. The green is D'rua and a few Molygon next to it. The outer frame (purple paper) is Oybay. I love drawing that one too, this one is rather plain and not embellished much, but it works for me.  Anyway, hope you liked it this week




There are many more beautiful pieces to check out at the Diva's blog. Click here to take you to her blog and check them out for yourself. Any feedback is always welcome for mine or any of the other artist's work. Thanks for stopping by!

Duo Tangle ~ Boo-Kee/Artoo

This week Laura Harms, the Diva, has challenged us to make a duo-tangle using the tangles Boo-Kee and Artoo, which she designed and named for her two boys. This week has been a difficult one at their house, what with one having a tonsilectomy (sp?) and the other visiting the ER. It's so difficult to have young ones that are sick and I know that she has had her hands full.

I had fully intended to have my offering done earlier in the week, but as quite often happens, my hands weren't working the best. So I mostly just browsed through the rest of the submissions and was amazed at all the beautiful ideas. The Diva's piece for the week is such a beautiful zendala and uses both tangles to their best advantage. I love both of these tangles and they are fun to do, but somehow I just wasn't managing to get them to play nicely together. So in the end, I did two similar tiles, but I do like one better than the other.  Here they are for your perusal.

This actually was the second tile that I completed, but since I like it better, I am posting it first. I had hoped to get the picture taken while there was still beautiful sunlight outside to show it off to it's best advantage, but it was dinner time so I had to wait until after dinner to take the picture. The blue-grey on the tile apparently is a shadow from my hand and shouldn't be there, but it is what it is. So anyway, here is the one that I actually like.

This is actually the first tile that I worked on and mostly didn't finish because I didn't know where to go with it. I loved the way the Boo-Kee started out, but they kind of overpowered the Artoo tangles and it just wasn't doing what I wanted. So I kind of took the same idea and did the second one (above). I may try again on these because I really like these two tangles together. Again, you can see the blue-gray shadow on the tile. I'll work on that next week and hopefully get the pictures taken earlier in the day and/or week.

I'm not sure if the background on this is showing up as well as I had hoped, but this was an experiment in a background treatment that was meant to look like diffused lighting in the background. It is called "bokeh" and is actually a photographic technique that has been adapted to use with rubber stamping. At least that is where I found all the instructions for it. I got some more white ink that should work better and I think that I will play with this one a bit more. Basically, all you do is blend the colors you want for your background to be very subtle and then take your white ink and use circle stencils and randomly place them over the background ink to indicate blurred lights in the background. I'll do so more and show the steps at a later date.


So that's my offerings for this week.  Thank you to all who have stopped by last week and left comments. It is always appreciated and as always, I always love comments and constructive criticism as well. If you haven't stopped by the Diva's blog yet (CLICK HERE), the hop on over there and take a look at all the wonderful artistic submissions for this (and other) challenges. I want you to know that I am not always able to leave comments on some of the submissions, for one reason or another, but I DO look at them all and appreciate them all.  See you all next week, and have a great ZEN-ful day!

Ghosts of Tangles Past

So . . .  this week the Diva Challenge asks us to revisit an old tile and redo it the way we would do it today. I first came in contact with Zentangle in May of 2014 when I was first on Pinterest and saw a couple of drawing that really interested me. They were something called "Zentangle" and I had never heard of it. Well, since I use Google to look up everything, I googled the term and started all kinds of beautiful abstract pieces that I thought I would like to try. So I went to zentangle.com  and started reading the blog there. They claimed that it was an easy thing to do, just one line at a time and you could create beautiful art. I thought that I would have no problem with this, since I had been interested in art my whole life and had even been an art major in college. Of course, that was AGES ago and I had mostly been doing crafts and life since then and I really didn't graduate from college, so I had forgotten most of what I had learned. I mostly drew animals and cartoony things before I got interested in rubber stamps and then scrapboking and when I saw zentangle, it seemed to call out to me.

I didn't know anything about what a string was and I was in too much of a hurry to take the time to do the steps for most tangles, so I would look at something and try to draw it. As a result, most of my early pieces were really crap-tastic and bear no real resemblance to actual tangling. But be that as it may, I started studying what I could find on Zentangle and little by little, I have been teaching myself to do some, what I consider, fairly decent tangle pieces. Check out the before and after and hopefully, there is progress there.

 One of my first tangles done in June of 2014. I really have no idea what the tangles were supposed to be, but my son told me that the big shell type thing was my attempt at Phycops. It took him about 2 weeks of trying to help me see which way the lines went, before I actually had the "aha" moment and figured out what I had been doing wrong. Thank you very much, TB3!

 Here is my redo on this one and I left out a lot of the tangles that were in the older one. I think that I finally learned how to draw Phycops. It's not the same at all because my early ones didn't have strings and no rhyme or reason to them. I feel better about the newer ones, because I feel like I have finally found my stride with them. Hope you like!

Another of my sad attempts at Phycops (also June of 2014), I was fascinated with that particular tangle and just couldn't make it work for me. My son can see things that I can't and he has the knack of helping me to learn the correct procedure. I keep trying to get him to try to tangle, but he really isn't interested. Again, no string and apparently no shading either, so the new try has definitely got to be better.

Again, here is my redo of the old tile and as you can see, I really DID learn Phycops. I used some of the other tangles in this one too, although I didn't use all the attempted tangles that were in the old one. I find that I like a bit of white space as I become more confident in my work. Hope you like! This one was just completed yesterday.









As always, thank you for stopping by and taking a look at my attempts. I am thoroughly enjoying this tangling journey and hope you are too. Thank you also for any comments and CC. It always helps. If you are interested in seeing what some of the other wonderful artists in this community, just hop on over the the Diva's blog (CLICK HERE) and take a look.

Have a great day!

Diva Challenge # 254 ~ Valentangle

First of all, thank you for your kind comments and thank you again for stopping by. I appreciate the visits and comments from you. They mean an awful lot to me. I love being part of this online community of wonderfully creative folks and learn from you all the time.

So this week our challenge from our Diva was to make something "Valentiney".  I had all kinds of ideas running through my head, but wanted to play with some of them on some artist trading cards (actually they are business card size, but close enough). I never did get my full size tile started because I was just having fun playing with some different ideas. So here they are....hope you enjoy!

I was trying my hand at some gems and decided to make a heart brooch of sorts, but I made the heart too big so I couldn't put the setting on that I has envisioned. I had fun making the gems, but I think I need a lot more practice.

Diva Challenge 254 - #1

This one was just playing with two of my favorite tangles, Flux and Luv-A. Out of the ones that I made this week, hubby liked this one and the gem the best. I quite like this one too.

Diva Challenge 254 - #2

Another favorite tangle of mine has always been Bunzo, so when I drew this heart, I could see two Bunzo cozying up to each other for Valentine's day and decided to just make it into a balloon. I really like the way this one turned out. I find it rather whimsical.

Diva Challenge 254 - #3

The picture I took for this last one turned out a bit dark and lightening it on Photoshop didn't help because it washed out the Printemps background. So please forgive my lack of photographic skills on this one. It really is a lot brighter that it appears in this photo. The lower part of the heart under the pink Printemps is actually a very nice lavendar, but it didn't photograph well. Ah well, such is life.

Diva Challenge 254 - #4

Color was added to all of these with the exception of the Bunzo Valentine with Prismacolor colored pencils and black micron pen was used on all. The background of #4 was added with a grey Tombow marker because I didn't want an overpowering background.

This was fun this week and I will try to get around to all of the other blogs in the next couple of days (yes, I know I'm late, but it seems I can only do what I can do and I DO always look at all the blogs and attempt to leave comments). If you are reading this and haven't joined the Diva's Challenge or checked it out to see all the amazing artists out there, please check the Diva's Challenge Blog HERE and see if you want to come and play with all of us. It's great fun!

As always, thank you for stopping by and if you get a chance, leave me a comment. Happy Tangling!

Diva Challenge #253 ~ Molygon

I had been seeing Molygon showing up in tangles and on some of the posts on Facebook, so I was happy to see that Zentangle released the step outs for it in their last newsletter. It was such a fun one to try.

I had big plans to do much more, but I about knocked myself silly during the week. I'm not exactly sure how it happened, but I fell and bit clear through my lip. Now it's just going to be ugly...the weird thing is that it really doesn't hurt, but I really have a headache and it sure makes eating meals difficult. Well, it seems that my family are all klutzes right up there with me...son slipped on the ice while trying to help me clean the car off, hubby over-reached when he was picking up something from his bedside stand and fell out of bed. I think we all need to live in a bubble with no sharp edges and nothing to slip on...lol.

But anyway, here are my offerings for Molygon this week:

Molygon practice
Media: Moleskin sketchbook, Black and sepia micron pens,
graphite pencil, grey marker
Tangles: Molygon, Zinger, and a few that just happened,

With this one, I had actually just been playing with Molygon in my sketchbook and it just kind of went it's own way, but I think that by and large, it turned out pretty good, You can't really see my shading in this one too well, but the camera never does it justice.

And here's the one I did on a regular tile:

Media: 3.5 inch tile, black micron pen, graphite pencil,
colored pencil for the jewel
Tangles: Molygon, Flux, Black Pearls, Mooka, and I
can't remember the ones I used for fill

I'm not at all sure that I like this one, but I do like parts of it, so I'll just keep working on Molygon and use the parts I like. But all in all, I like playing with Molygon and plan on using it more...it's a fun little tangle pattern.

If you would like to see more artists' vision on Molygon, then head over to the Diva's blog (click here) to see what everyone has done with this versatile little pattern. 

I usually check out everyone's submissions and try to leave as much feedback as possible, but there are some that I can't post comments on, so those of you that use Wordpress and Instagram, please know that I DO take a look and would love to leave comments, but I am unable to because I am not a member. I tried to get an Instagram account, but I don't have any devices that the program will operate with. But I just wanted you to know that I have been taking a look at them all and appreciate that everyone has such wonderful ideas.

With that being said, as always, I do appreciate comments and thank you for stopping by!