SOCC Challenge

I've never tried SOCC before, so in this Zentangle I have my first attempt in the middle, and my second attempt in the upper right corner (I think I got better!). It was fun to try Bunzo for the first time, too. I haven't done a Diva Challenge in months and it's good to get back to it :)

Have a great day, everyone!

Auraknot

The Diva challenged us this week to use Zentangle's latest tangle called Auraknot. This tangle is so cool, and sure to impress friends and family! It doesn't play to my strengths, however, since I am parallel-lined challenged. Still, I managed to come up with something and am totally enjoying seeing everyone else's designs - they rock!

Home

I live in Oregon's beautiful wine country. My town is extremely small, in fact, we don't even have a stop light! But there is a larger town only 5 minutes away which has all the fast-food and art stores I need:) In addition to tons of vineyards, there are also lots of dairy farms, and farms that grow corn, hay, clover, and even blueberries. Has anyone out there ever bought a plant grown by Monrovia Nursery? Well, that's only about 15 minutes away from me, too. There's even a Trappist Abbey down the road from my house:)

I've tried to incorporate some of these things in my tile, like the grapevine for the vineyards, Archer for the Abbey, and Vache for the dairy farms. My little town is the 3rd oldest town in Oregon and is reported to be haunted. Yep, the whole town has been cursed by a witch who haunts our only graveyard! 'Nzeppel reminds me of cobwebs when it's filled in, which is why I put it in the tile, too.

I'm not overly fond of my work this week, in fact, I might go so far as to use the four-letter 'H' word, but I don't really have time to do another, so I'm forced to put it in here (and you're forced to look at it!:)

I have so enjoyed getting glimpses into everyone's lives this week! I hope you liked the small look into mine:)

Cadent Challenge

I can't believe I actually got my entry for this week's challenge in on Monday! Yay! I love Cadent and I use it often. I have to admit, I don't do much tangleation with this tangle because why mess with perfection? But I tried to do some here. I hope you like it:)

Circle Challenge

The challenge this week is all about eccentric circles. I love circles!!! I use them all the time in my other artwork and it's fun to dedicate this week's tangling to them. Happy circles, everyone:)
...time passes...
Oh No! I just re-read the challenge and discovered that eccentric circles shouldn't be perfectly circular:( I'm bummed, but I think I'll just leave this tile as my entry this week, cause I kinda like it:)

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!