February 08, 2013

Dansk with the Diva's 105th Challenge


The Storm continues and it's not letting up.



What a day! It has been an unbelievably stormy day. I am getting ready to go out and start shovel  some of this awesome snow. I am a skier so I am very happy to have it. My car is completely blanketed with about 8 inches. 
It was a perfect day to tangle. I started the Diva's Challenge earlier this week, but something was amiss with my mood. I had so much energy, I just wasn't able to sit, so I have been skiing and cleaning and went to yoga and a bunch of other things. Then the storm arrived, ahh bliss. I put on the fire and some nice relaxing music and entered the zone. I had arrived at the wonderful place that the practice of Zentangle® can take you too.  
The challenge was to use Margaret Bremner's tangle Dansk. You can find her pattern here.  Margaret is a very talented artist. Have a peek at her blog if you have not done so already. 
Below are two tiles that I completed today.







The Diva is giving away Carol Ohl's calendar, One Zentnagle a Day.  It is lovely. I have seen it all over the internet. I think it would inspire me to focus on the daily practice of Zentangle. It would be a pleasure to win this. 
You can find Carol's incredible work here on her blog.




January 29, 2013

Second Try with Diva's 104th


Here is my second attempt with The Diva's 104th Challenge. Thanks to Carole Ohl at Open Seed Arts for sharing her tangles on her blog site found here.  I was able to find my way to a more relaxed approach to this challenge. I wanted to practice what I was thinking and leave some negative space. I also tried to find a better balance of black and white.

The Diva's 104th challenge

String Challenge 104

This is my tile for The Diva's String Challenge this week. You can find the challenge here.
She and her family are ill this week. I hope they find all the healing wishes being sent from all who participate in her challenge. 
I found this particularly challenging (as it was meant to be).  There were 14 spaces in the string to fill. It was definitely a learning experience. I used 7 patterns that I have not used before. In the future I woud look for ways to utilize a busy string to incorporate some negative space and maybe ignore some of those lines. 

January 28, 2013

"Made In The Shade" Ensemble


9 Piece Ensemble
From "Made in the Shade: A Zentangle® Workbook"

By Cris Letourneau

Here are my nine tiles from the shading playground in Cris Letourneau's book entitled "Made In The Shade: A Zentangle® Workbook". It's so exciting for me to be included in a book. When Cris first put out her request for unshaded tiles to CZT's I was working on this ensemble. I was a newly minted CZT and had recently returned from Providence Rhode Island. I had agreed to do this ensemble as a swap with fellow classmates. I thought that it might make an interesting subject matter for Cris and so I offered them to her unshaded. . She was quick to accept and keen to use them. I was thrilled. We agreed that I would put up a post of the tiles assembled and shaded. I did not have a blog at that point, nor did I know anything about blogs. It is now a few months later and since then I have learned a few things about blogs, but not much, just enough to get it together for this post. I chose to work at blogging like a zentangle tile, without any real intent of the outcome, but rather to enjoy the process. That was mostly what happened, although Cris was very generous with her knowledge about blogs and some of the techy stuff you need to learn.  I am very grateful to Cris for her acceptance, encouragement and guidance.

At the time that I was working on these tiles, there was a major storm brewing in the east, named Hurricane Sandy. I live on the shore near a large body of water. We were having a wind storm here a couple of days before hurricane Sandy hit the east coast of the US. I get a little nervous when these storms approach. Doing these tiles really helped me to relax while the weather was brewing.

I imagined these two storms colliding, one from the north and one from the south. The storm from the north stirred up the atmosphere (top right) and the storm from the south came in from the ocean. They met and exploded (in the centre of the ensemble) and then calm and order started to resume (left side of ensemble).

When I shaded the tiles I used a couple of different techniques. Sometimes I shaded the space within the string and sometimes I used a light source for direction.

I have sent these tiles off to my fellow CZT, Lisa. You can see her ensemble here. She will gather them all from 9 CZT's and then redistribute them to each of us. Thank you Lisa for all of your hard work with the swap. I look forward to receiving the work of my fellow colleagues.  It will be a memorable ensemble to have, share and show.
I welcome any questions or comments you may have regarding my little piece of Cris's book.
Happy Tangling :))


This is the cover of Cris Letourneau's Book
and below is a link on where you can buy her book.



The illustrations below are from Cris's book. She was generous in sharing this image with me to post here. I think it may help if you are looking for my version of the completed tiles. This is the reference from Cris's book.





January 26, 2013

Moebius Syndrome Awareness


Challenge #103

This post is because of the Diva's Challenge #103 to help create awareness to Moebius Syndrome. Her son Artoo has this disorder. Laurah is going to share a link to the slideshow from this challenge to show people in her support group. This will let them know that others are aware of this rare disorder that only occurs in one in a million. Artoo and his family are also one in a million.
 Most of her family was ill this week. It was my intention with each stroke of the pen to send this family get well wishes. I used several tangles that are from The Diva's personal tangles. I think she will recognize them.
 A true Zentangle tile is presented here. It was definitely not about the outcome of the finished tile but it was done with definite intention. I hope their week has improved since Monday and that this tile helps bring awareness.  

   

January 17, 2013

Auraknot and Bunzo




#102

I have tried my hand with these two tangles. It really was a challenge to get them to play together.
What an adventure. I went back and looked at the video on the Zentangle® website (which is always a joy) and I was inspired to move towards a more celtic looking pattern. I played with that for a while. Then I wondered how bunzo could hang out in that environment. I decided to morph bunzo into a clover as it floats through the knot. If you look closely there is one four leaf bunzo clover, can you find it?
Thank you for stopping by to have a peek.  I really enjoy seeing what others come up with as well. I am looking forward to having a look at the others tonight after my yoga class. 


January 09, 2013

B-Rad's Phicops and the Diva's Challenge


Happy New Year


Phicops

This is such a fun new tangle from the Diva and her husband B-Rad. They must have had a lot of fun over the holiday's creating this beautiful tangle. Thank you for sharing it and for the challenge to use it. 
When I first looked at it, I immediately saw the Sydney Opera House. I had a look at my own photo's from my trip there a couple of years ago. Yup, that's the opera house alright. 
It also reminded me of the tangle angel fish, so I added that to my tile. Then I added some organic tangles to go with the flow of the others. Phicops is a pleasure to tangle.  


I looked at this photo and used it as inspiration for my string.


This show's a similarity to Phicops.