Pea-Nuckle

The Diva's Challenge this week is to use the new tangle by Molly Hollibaugh called Pea-Nuckle. I didn't do super-great when I first practiced it, but it became easier as I did this tile. I notice that I need more connecting lines to make it look balanced, but on the whole, I'm happy with this!

This week I also made my first Mandala. I used my new blank Zendala tile and, thanks to Margaret Bremner and the Mandala video from her blog, I went to work. But I'm not sure if I created a Mandala or a Zendala? Another hard part I found was knowing when to stop and when to keep adding things. I think I was probably very careful not to do too much in this piece.

Have a great day, everyone!

Diva Challenge 70!

Brown is not generally on my list of favorite colors. The only good thing that's brown is chocolate! Even so, I pulled out my brown Micron pen and got to work. This piece is another where I used specific shapes as the string. I call this 'Shards' because it reminds me of shards of glass. Oh, and I couldn't not do any color, so I added a red string:)

On another note, I'm so excited because I got my Zentangle order in the mail today. I bought the Ensemble tiles and also the Zendala tiles. Yep, I'm going to dive into the round world of zendalas! Wish me luck:)

(I had to edit this to say 'It's SO not fair to follow Simone on the list:)

Scratchboard Zentangle

Every Tuesday morning I help in my daughter's art class at school. Last week they were using a cool thing called Scratchboard, which is a thick paper with a colored coating on top. You use special tools to 'scratch' the coating off to reveal the color underneath. The most popular scratchboards are black with white underneath, but there are also available with rainbow colors under the black, or white under a metallic coating. It's really fun to play with, but does require a bit of practice, as I found out!

Yesterday I was finishing up my piece during the 6th grade art class, and some of the kids were watching me - they loved it! They thought Zentangle was the coolest thing ever! And their favorite pattern was 'Groovy,' so I thought I would use this piece for the Diva Challenge this week:)

And on a purely personal level, I'm excited about publishing my book, Yorkshire Mysteries, as you can see on the right side of my blog. I wrote the book a while ago, knowing that getting it published would be a huge longshot. But with the advent of online 'publishing on demand' I am finally able to hold my book in my hands and put it on my bookshelf along with some of my favorite books. It's a real thrill!

Have a good day, everyone:)

Bigger is Better!

Yay for big, bold Zentangles!

Diva Challenge 68

I enjoyed this week's Diva Challenge, which was to use only Strircles and Hibred in a tile. I'm a huge fan of Strircles, but haven't used Hibred in a while. I tried to do something completely different this time, and didn't use a string, but instead used shapes as the foundation of my piece. I kinda like it! :)