Happy Spring Egg Gourd


I tangled an egg gourd instead of an egg today, Easter, to bring to a friends house this evening as a gift.  I thought it would be something fun, although she would probably rather a bottle of wine, but there will be plenty of that.

This reminds me of a story not so long ago when we lived a close knit neighborhood in the suburbs and my husband and I used to host a winter open house to keep us all from going stir crazy.  One of our older, very eccentric neighbors showed up with a butternut squash under his arm.  He had grown it himself and stored it for winter.  I thought it was a humble and wonderful gift and we enjoyed his harvest with a smile on our faces.

I hope this too brings a smile.

You can order egg gourds here.

More Mooka!

I just could not stop.  One more mooka.

                                    

Organic Garden 101

This weekend I learned how to draw on tonal paper and *grow* an organic garden
from tangles and imagination.  Thank you Meredith Yuhas for teaching us a such a fun technique!

Here is my garden:

                 

Weekly Challenge #111: "More-Mooka-Madness Monotangle-Mania" 


That's a mouthful!  It just goes along with the weekend I just came off of.  I spent my weekend in Northampton MA at Tangle U!  Hopefully the first of many.  The group was a manageable a size and I was able to connect with most of the attendees which adds to the fun and friends on facebook!  There were many wonderful courses from color to mandala strings to meditation.  All fabulous and extremely informative.

Mooka is such a fast tangle it was easy to complete two.  I found that meditatively breathing before each tile slowed me down, relaxed my hand and helped me find my strokes more smoothly.  I thank Meredith L. Yuhas, Ph.D., LPC, NCC, Licensed Professional Counselor and Certified Zentangle Teacher, for the wonderful reminder to meditate and the exercises she guided us through this weekend.

Challenge #110 Outside the Box

First of all, thank you for all the lovely birthday wishes.  You are all very kind.

Secondly, I was the proud recipient of Maria's beautiful heart tile from her E Unum Pluribus  post.  This was a very special birthday surprise that I will treasure.  Thank you again, Maria and Rick.

This weeks challenge from the Diva is working with something that you might not be comfortable with or have not dared to try.  I love Zentangle because I am kind of a black and white type person.  Most of my wardrobe is black or white with a little grey, maybe some dark blue thrown in.  So Zentangle was a perfect comfortable fit for me.  Using color was way to far outside my comfort zone and when I have tried it (talking lots of color) it did not suit me. There are many clever ideas from participants on the diva's blog and I was at a loss as to what I would do.

As I sat at my desk my eye fell on the beautiful tin of Zendalas, only one of which I have finished.  I realized I had given more Zendalas away to others who wanted to try them than I have completed myself.  It is something about repeating a pattern and wanting them to all come out similarly that made me nervous.

This challenge actually took two sessions to finish.  The first day I gave up because my hands were jittery and I was feeling really anxious.  Go figure, this is suppose to be relaxing right? Today I sat down and thought I couldn't feel much worse then yesterday and just finished it.

I am sure the next one won't be so tough.

Ensemble

Ensemble: A unit or group of complementary parts that contribute to a single effect

This group of nine tiles was pre-strung as one complete set so that the string ran through all nine tiles to "connect" them.  One can either complete the ensemble as one piece of work or individually complete tiles and bring them together.  I chose the later to complete my ensemble as this will be a swapping item at the next local CZT meet up.  The plan is to have all 55 attendees, or those who want to participate, to complete and entire ensemble and then we will swap out all but the middle tile and end up with our original tile and eight tiles from different CZT's.  I think this is an awesome idea and I have found great pleasure in tangling mine.

Here is the final ensemble.  I will post later my "swapped" version.

Challenge #109 Tangle To Be Named At A Latter Date

I celebrated my birthday this week.  The best thing about that is it means spring is close at hand.  So much to do, seedlings to start, garden to plan, yard clean up, some warm sun rays to soak up!

This tangle caught my fancy when I first saw it posted on the Zentangle blog and my many sketches were fun and easy to do, but then out came my tile and things just did not flow.  I am not going to fret about it.  So much has gone well with my zentangle experience I am going to except it as a learning experience and move on.  I post my tile no matter what the outcome, so here you are.  There are no mistakes in Zentangle so the finished product is what it is.  I was fortunate to have the time to practice.

:)

Get Out'a Town

Early Thursday morning I dognapped my husbands dog and drove north just as the first snow flakes were falling from the sky.  This is not always a wise thing to do because usually, what Boston gets Maine will get too and visa versa.  This time I was fortunate and today we have only a dusting of snow, power, sunshine and mild temps (44ºF).

With a quiet house and a very tired and sore dog, he gets his run of the woods and is gone for hours at a time, I whiled away the morning tangling. My mind wonders occasionally to my husband who has to navigate his way through the slippery conditions to work and back, but I must say it has been a beautiful morning for me and his dog.

Auraknot, Bunzo, Mooka, BTL Joos, Marasu

Challenge #108 UMT Whyz

I seem to have lost my way for a bit.  I had painstakingly planned out my finished product before I had even begun.  Then, to make matters worse I compared my piece to others work. That is just not a good place to find yourself.

It was when I started to tangle an ensemble recently that I realized how far away from the Zentangle philosophy I had strayed.  Away from the breathing, calm, relaxing enjoyment of following a string or not, filling that string with tangles, admiring your finished product, and learning that the outcome dosen't really matter it is the process that counts.

I suppose it is with all things that we have an idea how it should be.  I have been reminded once again it is not where you are going, but the journey that you are on that matters.  Feels better.

The challenge this week was a "Use My Tangle" which was brought to us by Jane MacKugler, CZT and you can find instructions for the tangle "Whys" on her blog here

This is my tile:

Thanks for stopping by.

Ensemble

Zentangle® sells and ensemble of 9 pre-strung tiles in sets of 2.  One has curvy lines and the other straight lines.  These are my first four tiles of the curvy set.  It is suggested that you work on one tile and hide the rest.  I could not bring myself to do that since I like a little control on what the finished ensemble would look like.  Maybe I will let go a bit and try it on the next one.

Tile #1 (upper left corner) Opus, Tripoli, Quabog

Tile #2 (middle left) Zander, Florz, Tripoli, Quabog

Tile #3 (lower left) 'Nzeppel, Beelight, Henna Drum, Purk

Tile #4 Quabog, Tripoli, Demi,Paradox

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.