Diva's Challenge #297 and 3Z days of Christmas

This week, the Diva gave us some choices for our challenge. I chose "Give the Gift of Zentangle" and "Keep It Simple, Silly".

 I think I kept it pretty simple  ;) As for the "gift", that's on the flip side.

I did quite a few of these last year and left them around, in the library, at the supermarket, in restaurants. Felt quite elfish, actually! I'll definitely do some more, now that the 12 Days of 3zs are over :(

Here are days 8-12. Talk about a busy elf! But what fun we had! 

Day 8: Pokeleaf

Day 9: Aura-knot

Day 10: Drawings

Day 11: Icanthis

Day 12: Crazy Huggins, aka Huggins Hugging Huggins and a reprise of all 12 days!

The past 2 weeks have made me so appreciative of our Zentangle community, or family. As Maria and Rick "drew" us around this  beautiful virtual table, we shared in the creative madness and fun, and then admired each other's work, either online or via the Mosaic app. Thank you for everything that you bring to this table. I am deeply grateful.

I wish you all a happy Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, Pancha Ganapati and Solstice (and anything else we may celebrate that I've omitted!) and a blessed new year!

Diva's Weekly Challenge #296: Moowa and More!

Zentangle HQ is keeping me as busy as a Christmas elf with The 12 Days of 3Zs challenge! Each day, Maria, Rick and Molly give us a different tangle to use. White tile and black ink are de rigueur. You can post your work on the Mosaic app, or simply post a comment on the blog and enter to win fabulous prizes!

 1st Day of 3Zs: Tripoli

 2nd Day of 3Zs: Tripoli and Diva Dance

 3rd Day of 3Zs: Tripoli, Diva Dance and Shattuck

 4th Day of 3Zs: Tripoli, Diva Dance, Shattuck and Marasu

 5th Day of 3Zs: Tripoli, Diva Dance, Shattuck, Marasu and Tipple

 6th Day of 3Zs: Tripoli, Diva Dance, Shattuck, Marasu, Tipple and Molygon

7th Day of 3Zs: Tripoli, Diva Dance, Shattuck, Marasu, Tipple, Molygon and Knightsbridge on an official 3Z pre-strung tile!

Whew! You get the idea!?! Like the song "The 12 Days of Christmas", we try to include all the tangles from the previous days, although this isn't required, thankfully!

And now for the Moowa! My first attempt was in my sketchbook. I really liked the "hanging and dangling" Moowa, but was unable to reproduce it later :\   My second attempt was on a Bijou tile, which I crammed full and then--eek!--had to shade! 

I've also been playing around with  card stock as I think about gift tags and holiday cards.

Last, but not least, a little visit from Bijou this morning. Rick Roberts inspired this. I recently watched the DVD for the black Apprentice tiles, where he tangles an amazing section of Printemps that was so relaxing to watch.  His lines are so close together that you have the impression that he is creating with black as well as white, as each white line drawn creates a black line of the same thickness.

Thanks for strolling through, or should I say "scrolling through"! Have a joyful week!

Diva's Weekly Challenge #295: Reticula and fragments, take 2!

For this week's Diva challenge, I used a tile I had stained with turmeric several months ago. The circles seemed to call out for more circles--a circular reticula and a circular fragment! I don't know if you can really see the reticula, under the stains, but it has an orb in the center, surrounded by more orbs. For my fragment, an orb with crescent moons. I filled in the spaces around and between the orbs with Tipple. I wasn't really pleased with this until I started to shade. I'm glad I always shade :)

Do you see the line and crescent on the turmeric, in the middle? That is not a mistake, but a lesson!!! I quickly learned that turmeric is happy, and just the right size, to clog up the micron tube tip!!! Do you know if there's a fixative you can apply that seals in those little grains and still lets you ink over?
For relaxation, I always pick up my blue Micron.

Joki, Shattuck, Featherfall, Arukas, Sandswirl, Indy-rella et al

Joki, Hamail, Printemps

Gommi

And finally, if you get the Zentangle newsletter or have the Mosaic app, you've heard about this year's "12 Days of 3Zs" festivities.  There are prizes for commenting and sharing your work! And I never win anything, so your chances are even better!!!

My 1st Day of 3Z entry:

and my 2nd Day of 3Z entry:

Looking forward to seeing your entries!

Have a festive week!

Diva's Weekly Challenge #294 and a room with a view

What a busy week in this sparrow's nest!
The sheet of packing paper that was serving as a curtain in our bathroom fell down, so I knew it was time to get creative! I decided to cover the glass with clear Contak paper, which looks a bit frosted. Then, I used my Permapaque white pen to draw a Fife curtain and some "vegetation". This was lots of fun!

That took care of too much on view in this room!

A room with a view to love! 

We celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday with our daughter and son-in-law. I started cooking on Monday, so I wouldn't have everything to do on the day of. I enjoyed taking my time and planning, and loved putting together my table "art" with recycled kraft paper, pine cones and needles, gingko leaves that I happened upon the day before and my fake pumpkin. After the meal, we relaxed by doing leaf rubbings on the paper. I'm looking forward to using the gingko leaves later. They last a long time, and keep their golden color.

This week, the Diva asked us to use the principle of reticula and fragments in our tile. If you have the Zentangle Primer, you've seen this. But if not, it could have left you scratching your head. I haven't taught this principle yet in my classes, but if I may just give a nutshell explanation, here goes:

• Reticula is a fancy word from frame which, like a string, divides the tile. Unlike a string, it creates regular shapes. It can be a grid or a spiral or a sphere made up of other squares or triangles or spheres. In the Primer, Rick and Maria have included 30 reticula.
• You fill the reticula with fragments. (There are 154 4-sided fragments, 66 3-sided fragments and 45 orb fragments in the Primer.) I think of the fragments as little tiles, or stones, or beads that I use to fill in the frame. The general idea is to repeat a fragment, or rotate it as you repeat it or mirror it, but you could also use different fragments within the same frame.
• This is the basic concept. The beauty is that it really opens up a new level of creativity as you work with the smaller fragments as opposed to sections of a string or tile. It moves away from a named tangle, created by a named artist, and shows that, in fact, we can all create original patterns! In the Primer, the reticula are labeled, but only R (for "reticula"), a letter A-L (minus I and J)  and a number 1-33. Likewise, the fragments are just labeled with a letter A-L and a number 1-25 to help you find what you might be looking for. 
• Check out this post from the Zentangle June 6, 2013 newsletter for more information.

For my Diva tile, I used R-E 1 and a variation of fragment G-1.

If you can't imagine what that looks like, and how could you???, here it is:

I used a blueberry stained tile and experimented with tangling on top of and around the stain. Has anyone stained a tile with cranberry? I'm thinking of giving that a go! 'Tis the season and all.

What do think about reticula and fragment theory? Have you tried it?

Thanks for stopping by. Have a beautiful week!

Diva's Weekly Challenge #293 and "zen" some!

This week the Diva asked us to use an oldie but goodie: Keeko. I probably should have done more with it, but, in the end, decided to use it sparingly as the base for a tree, as deconstructed by Helen Bradley.

Here are some other entries from my sketch book this week. (Although my blog policy is transparency, I'll refrain from posting the other 2 entries, which would not contribute anything good to anyone ;) Maybe once I have "worked through" them, you'll get a look. But for now, they have issues that need some resolution!!!)

Thanks to my beloved for supplying this Phil Ochs quote: "In such an  ugly time, the true protest is beauty."

This was inspired by one of Maria's posts on the Mosaic app, where she was "playing" with fractals and Paradox and Betweed. (If you don't have the app, I highly recommend it. I treasure her descriptions of her creative process, which she generously shares with us. Her writing pen creates as much magic as her drawing pen!!!)

My question for you this week: How do you know when a tile is complete? How do you know when to stop? I would love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks for visiting. Have a peaceful, harmonious week.

Eaxy?? The Diva's Weekly Challenge #292

This week the Diva challenged us with Nadine Roller's tangle Eaxy. The idea is simple enough: upright X's support horizontal X's, which then support more upright X's, and so on.
I won't show my different attempts at learning the tangle, but I'll just say that my very first go at it was the best. The more I tried (thought?), the worse it was! I tried to put it on gridded paper to help me line things up. Nope. I tried to look for the meta-pattern of big and small boxes. Nope. So finally I decided to put away my paper, take an official tile, close my eyes, breathe and think of everything that I'm grateful for, and place my corner dots. Once I had done that, I remembered a photo my friend Didier shared on Facebook yesterday. He had visited a beautiful park in Lille, France, that had once been a city parking lot. (Here are some pictures of Le Jardin des Géants, but they are nothing compared to Didier's.) I remembered a particular path with interestingly shaped pavers. That became the center space of my Eaxy tile. And the rest fell into place. Another moment of Zen, letting go, and marveling at what happens.

Merci, Didier!

Next time you have a high focus tangle, I hope that you will let go and find your Zen.

Have a peaceful week.

Diva's Weekly Challenge and more!

On Monday of this past week, we welcomed our first batch of trick-or-treaters in our new neighborhood. There were far fewer than we had expected, so I now have some 3 or 4 pounds of leftover sweets. Send a self-addressed box and I'll be happy to share!!
Lar and I celebrated our 19th anniversary on Tuesday with a nice lunch, a walk on a new trail and a movie at the theater where we first met! My card for him this year was another Zendala, inspired by the last InkTober challenge: friend. He is my best friend, and so much more. And I am the luckiest lady in the world!

I completed several black tiles for the Diva's challenge this week, and honestly, wasn't really happy with any of them. They all seemed to come out muddied and flat. I would love to know if you have certain tangles that work better for you on black. Here on those that didn't work for me!!

Have a lovely week! Thanks, as always, for stopping by!

Diva's Weekly Challenge #290 and Inktober 24-30

I made it! I finally managed to complete the weekly challenge and post it by Sunday midnight. Sooo proud of myself ;)
The Diva asked us for a duotangle, using Flux and N'Zeppl.  Since I used my resulting tile for the InkTober challenge, I'll include it at the end, in chronological order.

InkTober Day 24: Dozen

Day 25: Tired (Quite à propos, n'est-ce pas?)

Day 26: Box, aka Wishing I had studied drawing perspective. (Sorry for the blue tint.)

Day 27: Creepy

Day 28: Burn

Day 29: Surprise

Day 30: Wreck AND the Diva's Duotangle. Weeds can totally wreck an inlaid stone terrace, you know.

And just for fun, 2 pictures from a walk in the Carolina North Forest, where I was trying to boost my creativity and come up with a drawing for "Burn".

Thanks for your patience! Have a fun, but not too scary, week!

Diva's Weekly Challenge #289: Leafy Goodness and InkTober 18-23

I'm still playing catch up with the weekly challenges! Seems it's all I can do to post on the Monday after the challenge comes out! Challenge 289 was to incorporate autumn leaves into our tile. Normally, this is a personal fave. I love autumn. I love leaves. What's not to like? 

Here in North Carolina, our leaves are not at their peak. It's been quite dry, in spite of Hurricane Matthew that devastated the eastern   counties, many of which are still housing folks in shelters. (The historic town of Princeville opened back up only last week to its residents.) It's also been unseasonably warm, so many of the leaves are still on the leaves with a bit of color, but lots of green. Mother Nature seems at a bit of a loss, sadly. And so was I. I enjoyed searching for leaves this week, during several outdoor ventures. I finally found one yesterday that was a) not shriveled and b) nicely colored. I traced it and just filled it in with line work, then surrounded it with Printemps. Not my favorite, but here it is.

Somehow, I have managed to keep up with InkTober this week.

Day 18: Escape

Day 19: Flight

Day 20: Squeeze

Day 21: Big

Day 22: Little

Day 23: Slow

Thanks for stopping by! Have a wonderful week!