Relaxing time anywhere.

I had to bring the car if for a check up yesterday.  Of course I brought my Zentangle supplies with me.  What was suppose to be and hour an a half turned into almost three.  If it had have been quicker someone might have interrupted my relaxation time.  What is a bad thing, or a good thing.

Quilted feather, Tripoli, Marasu

Hurry, Pressed Wood, Jetties

Thank you for stopping by!

Peace and Quiet

I know many of you will not agree but I love being in an absolutely quiet house.  No TV or radio on, no barking dogs and no phones ringing.  Today was such a day.   Ahhhhh the best!

Demi, Grass border, Yincut.  Unofficial tangles are quilted feather and coffee beans.

Challenge #107 Quandry

Love the name and the tangle!
I have been playing with it for over a week now but my tile does not capture Quandray at it's best.  Visit the Diva's site for step out for this marvelous tangle.   I do love the look of the quilt feathering surrounding it and will be looking into other quilting patterns for future ideas.

Black, White and Gray Valentine

Mooka, Henna Drum, Inapod, String 039 by Jo Fletcher,

Challenge #106 The Year of the Snake

Chinese New Year Celebration started on February 10th and it is the year of the snake.

Often, the evening preceding Chinese New Year's Day is an occasion for Chinese families to gather for the annual reunion dinner. It is also traditional for every family to thoroughly cleanse the house, in order to sweep away any ill-fortune and to make way for good incoming luck. Windows and doors will be decorated with red color paper-cuts and couplets with popular themes of "good fortune" or "happiness", "wealth", and "longevity." Other activities include lighting firecrackers and giving money in red paper envelopes.

Tangles used are Ambler, Crescent Moon, and Sanibelle.

Challenge #105 Dansk

Inspired by Michelle Beauchamp's many beautiful ZIAs I tried my hand with her technique on this challenge which is to use the tangle Dansk by Margaret Bemner.

I will obviously need some practice and lighten up my hand a bit.  It is always fun to experiment a bit.  Sometimes things work out, sometimes they don't.  Either way this was fun.

Tangles used are Buttercup, Tripoli and Dansk.

Creative Common

My husband, son and I spent a beautiful three days in Maine this weekend.  We sat in front of the fire, played some games and watched some very cheesy Star Trek.  Well they did, I drew close by.

My son produces music under the name Creative Common which he refers to as an art collective.   He produces music, a friend produces video to accompany the music and others such as my self contribute with art.  Some of the things I have drawn have landed on the video screen.  I have not produced anything CC related in quite a while so I picked up my Micron pen and practiced my Tripoli tangle in his semi altered logo.  I have scanned it here and plan to play with it a bit more as time goes on as I need to learn more about Adobe Elements.

There is a penciled line outlining the letters which I may go back over with a Micron or just blend them to give a shadowed effect and I think it may need a bit of embellishment in the "center" of the Tripoli.

Anyway, I have added again to the CC collective and enjoyed some quite time while at it.

Thanks for stopping by.

Challenge  String #003

How differently do people view a string?  I for one, was very surprised with the two very different results I end up with from the same string.

Most of you reading this are familiar with zentangle strings but, for those of you who are not, a string is a penciled "guideline" that is put on the paper first (nothing is more daunting then a blank piece of paper) to use as a suggestion of where you might place your tangles.

The string for this week was drawn by Anne Marks and looks like this:

                                                        

You can find more string suggestions at tanglepatterns  which is a beautiful site developed by Linda Farmer.  Once you get there look around.  There is a wealth of information and many links to other creative sites.


Here are my two resulting ZIA's  (Zentangle Inspired Art) for this challenge.  They were both drawn on a 5"x5" piece of Eco White paper (Paper Source) using black and brown micron 01 and 005 pens and graphite pencil for shading.

Here's to seeing things differently!

New Tangle  "Geisel"

I used this tangle back in November in the "no strings attached" challenge.  The holiday season has been a busy one so I apologize for not getting the step-outs up for this sooner.

A little back story.  After 30 years of caring for dogs, my dogs, family dogs, as a veterinary technician many dogs I decided no more dogs!  Well, my husband could not live without a dog in the house so in a moment of weakness I agreed and we now have Frankie.

Although Frankie is "technically" my husbands dog, yes you guessed it, I take care of him.  So we walk a lot as Frankie is a 40 pound muscle that really needs a good daily workout.  On one of our walks along the Charles River Esplanade the posts on a bridge caught my eye.

When I arrived home I started playing with these shapes and found a pleasing tangle that ended up looking Seuss-like.  I looked up Dr Seuss and found his real name to be Theodor Seuss Geisel.  I thought his last name to be unique and so it is that this tangle is named Geisel.

At long last the very simple step outs:

I hope you enjoy!

Weekly Challenge #102 Auraknot/Bunzo

The one thing I like best about Laura's weekly challenges is it sometimes makes you revisit tangles that you have forgotten.  The duo tangle challenges, such as this one, stretch your thinking to put two very unlikely tangles together.  OK, so that was two things I like.  There is really so much to love about the Diva's blog, but I will not go on.

Here is my result for the challenge this week. It actually looks like a Tri Tangle with the resulting Betweed looking Auraknot!  If I find more time this week I would like to try another.  This has been a great way to start my week.  I hope your week has started off well!  Thanks for stopping by.

Diva Challenge #101  "Phicops"

What a lovely tangle this is!  The Diva's husband came up with this interesting new tangle.  I love it when families create together.  The step out directions are on this weeks Diva challenge which you can find here.  I played with this for a while and found so many different shapes that can be made with this tangle and the balance of white, black and grey just seems to happen on its own.

Costa Rica!

I have been away on a lovely trip with my son and husband and his family to Northern Costa Rica.  We had adventures and lots of relaxing time in a beautiful villa that was staffed by a house cleaner, bartender and cook whom were at our service all day.  Yes, it was a beautiful seven days.

It is rainy and cool back in Boston but, it is always nice to be home.  Here are some of the drawings I did while relaxing by the pool.

Pop Cloud that looks more like the jelly fish we encountered on our snorkeling trip.

Mooka in the round.

Love Heals with the Newtown teachers and children in mind.

A Very Refreshing Breath of Creativity

I was recently introduced to a new artist, her blog and books, that has stirred up my imagination and caused my childhood happiness to skip a beat.  Her name is Carla Sonheim. You can find her blog here which will lead you to her thoughts, her books, her tutorials and online classes!  I cannot tell you how much fun I have had since visiting her site.

One of the first things I tried out was drawing Tombow Rabbits. After watching her free tutorial I got right to work and did some bunnies then tried out my dog, Frankie both looking at me and away from me and just had the best fun and really liked the results.

From one of her books, "The Art of Silliness," her first excersise is to draw a bird a zillion times.  It is suggested you use your left hand, close your eyes or do both.  There was such a freedom in doing this and when you finally open your eyes you have a zillion birds with amazingly different personalities.  Some of them don't quite look like birds but when you add an eye, a feather or a hat to it's head you have one unique bird after the other. (I will have to add my picture at a later date, because I don't currently have it with me).

Two more things I thought were fun is her instruction on blob hunting and watercolor birds.  Blob hunting or looking for cracks in the sidewalk that can lead your imagination to draw an animal or something that resembles an animal is a lot of fun.  So now I have a camera full of patterns (for tangles), sidewalk cracks and blobs. Some of my attempts below, the dog came from a crack and the others are watercolor birds.

drawn with Inktense Watercolor Pencils 

Prang Watercolors

Challenge #100 "Viva la Diva"

This weeks challenge is the diva's 100th and it is brought to us by Maria Thomas introducing a new tangle Diva-Dance.

I cannot thank Maria and Rick enough for giving me the tools I needed to relax and create and the Diva for caring enough about our Zentangle community to offer us weekly challenges which brings us together like a warm fuzzy family.

I want to share with you a portion of a newsletter from the Clean CEO & Team Founder, Dhru Purohit.

What's the difference between a struggle and a challenge?


A struggle is a burden.
A challenge is an opportunity.

A struggle is, "I can't wait for this to be done."
A challenge is, "I can't wait to see where this goes."

A struggle is being in one place, but needing to be in another.
A challenge is fully being where you are, not needing to be anywhere else.

A struggle is, "How can I get out?"
A challenge is, "What more can I give?"

A struggle is resistance.
A challenge is acceptance.




I hope in the New Year to make my "struggles" into "challenges."

The Sketchbook Project

                                      http://www.arthousecoop.com

I signed up in April to complete a sketchbook for the Brooklyn Art Library.  I got involved in this project primarily because I have a fear of writing/or drawing in books as some of you already know.  I have always thought "If you are going to put it in a book, everything must be perfect."  Well, nothing is ever perfect and I am trying to free myself from that thought pattern, my brain just has to catch up with my heart.

So today, I have finally finished the book.  I think I may be to late to send it into the project BUT I FINISHED IT!!!!!!!  Better to finish late then never start right?

So here are a few pictures from my sketchbook.

Challenge #99 Looped Border String


I should have taken a picture of the "string" before I filled it in but, you can see the creator of our challenge this week, Margaret Bremner's string here.

I don't go for busy designs so I chose a monotangle of Fife and practiced my magnification skills.  It needs more practice but I think it was a good start.

Challenge #98 "Keenees"

This is my first time using this tangle and on first inspection it reminded me of a tangleation of tripoli.  So what I ended up with was what looks like a pollen pod from another world! Ha, one never knows where you will go when you put pen to paper, fun!

Challenge #97 "No Strings Attached"

Our challenge this week from the Diva was to produce a tile or ZIA using no string what so ever and just go for it.  Well, I did just that with a tangle I have not yet introduced or named and I chose to practice with color more as it just seemed appropriate.  I had fun, hope you enjoy!

Challenge #96 Zinger

This is a mature tangle whose name was lost, but now has been found.  We are celebrating the wonderful "zinger" tangle in this weeks challenge.  This is a beautiful addition to any tile and so much fun to draw!

Sunny Sunday Tangle

Looks like the holidays are on my mind.  Happy Thanksgiving!

8 1/2" x 11"

This ZIA is a token of my thoughts to my second cousin, who is the second young male in my small family to be struggling with cancer.

Challenge #94   Socc


Socc is a very relaxing tangle.  This is the first time I have used it I am excited to have learned a new tangle.  Not sure I like the end result but I did enjoy the journey.

Bunzo Challenge #93


Bunzo appeared to me to be an alien because it can keep growing and multiplying.  So I drew it busting through a screen just in time for halloween.  Look out, here comes Bunzo!

Circles of Happiness


For some reason I feel very happy and comforted when drawing circles.

Lokta Natural Paper 15" x 20"
Brown Pigma Micron
Sepia Pigma Micron
Black Pigma Micron

Starfish

This tile has sat on my desk for months.  Reading about newly discovered techniques lately helped me to finish this ZIA up.

Pigma Micron
Fabrico Cool Gray
Gelly Roll Med White

Challenge #92 Stripes

Stripes as a string.  I am much more comfortable with circles.

Ganesha

Dilip Patel who is a new CZT and it being customary under Hindu Life style to seek the blessings of Lord Ganesha (the elephant  headed God) before embarking on any new activity he has challenged himself (and asked others to help) to complete 100 Zentangled Ganesha before December 31st.

From Dilip's blog here is the story of the elephant headed boy.


As a kid, Ganesha was a very brave and committed child. When his mother, Goddess Parvati, once wanted to go for her bath, she installed Ganesha to guard the home. Lord Shiva, Ganesha's father visited home at this point of time, only to find Ganesha not letting him in as per his mother's instructions. Also, both, father and son did not know/recognize each other, and hence a duel became inevitable. Coming back from the bath, Goddess Parvati was a wee bit late, and witnessed the father cutting off the head of the son.

Wailing Parvati ordered her husband to bring her son back to life by installing the first head that they could find facing north. An elephant facing north was sighted first, and hence the men sent for the task brought the head of the elephant!

Thank you for the fascinating tale from your culture Dilip.  For me this was a wonderful exercise and here is my contribution to you.

Weekly Challenge #90 String Theory: String 001

The Importance of strings.  Read Linda Farmers site here to understand how very important strings are and what our string challenge looks like for this week.

I don't typically like a grid pattern but, today was obviously a day for a grid.  Happy Tangling!

"Sankegg"

Sankegg is the name given to the tangle that was derived from the giant Pysanka Egg the Diva spotted on a trip this past summer.  You can see her post here.

This immediately reminded me of big wind turbines that produce power without amazingly flying apart.  I didn't like how flat they looked, so after a little play and seeing an extra little triangle in the middle it brought to mind  "fohbraid".  

                           This was a fun tangle and I can see using it again.

Italy

I just returned from a 10 day visit to Rome, Naples and Venice Italy with my husband and son. It has been some time since we have been able to "get away" and have some fun, so it was a very special trip.

Italy is spectacular and I took so many pictures, but I thought I would share some "pattern" pictures here with you.  I did not tangle much while there, although I did pick up a coaster or two and tangled a simple pattern then left it behind for someone to find. I also managed to tangle all the way home in the plane which was very relaxing.  Here are some pattern pictures:

and here are my airplane tangles:

Thank you for stopping by.