Diva Challenge #338 and Intober 21-29

Black and White. Seemed to be the theme for the week. The 100th birthday of the great jazz  composer and pianist, Thelonius Monk, a native North Carolinian, was marked in Durham with Duke Performances "Monk@100" festival. 10 days of concerts with world-class musicians honoring his monumental opus. I was lucky to catch two unforgettable shows and discover saxophonist Joshua Redman, the 1991 winner of the Thelonius Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition.

"White on Black" dixit the Diva this week. I've said before that I'm not a big fan of white on black. My tiles always seem to get muddied when I put on the final touches of white chalk. For this reason, I haven't sprung for the new Sakura pens, although I may do so if my boat comes in;) For the challenge, I grabbed the only black tiles I have, some 3Zs that I surprisingly WON last year from Zentangle. I did my first tile, and didn't want to stop. Before I knew it, I had done 6 3Z tiles to make a mosaic.  (Now comes the hard part: trying to frame it!) I think I have found my fetish white on black tangle: Icanthis.

Full disclosure: This was a Take 2. Take 1, which I can't seem to find this morning, was not really to my satisfaction. Although I almost always post my first result for the challenges, this week had more second takes than usual.

Inktober is almost over! (And I think I'm almost ready for it to be over!) This week:

Day 21: Meer and Day 22: Yincut

Day 23: Pokeleaf and Day 24: Florz

Day 25: Auraknot (Take 2!)

Day 26: Wibble

Day 27: Cadent and Day 28: Joki

Day 29: Q-Belle, teamed up with Ponio, which I missed earlier (Another Take 2!)

Before I sign off, I thought I'd share some ideas from my "Zentangle for the Holidays" class last Sunday. If you're interested, check out the page in the left menu bar. 

Thanks so much for visiting. Have an inspiring week, and a fun Halloween!

Diva Challenge #337 and Inktober Days 16-20

Artoo, the Diva's "baby", celebrated his 7th birthday last week! Ahh, the age of reason! Congratulations, Artoo! Best wishes for many, many more, each one happier than the last. For our challenge, we had to use the tangle "Artoo", by the Diva herself.

Inktober is flying by so fast! I am thoroughly enjoying these tangle prompts. Nothing fancy, mind you, just monotangles in black ink. Process, not product. Ahhhh.

Day 16: Tripoli. 

I used a resurfaced demo tile that I covered in black "Marks-A-Lot", topped with a blue Prismacolor, white and gold Gelly Rolls. (Okay, that was a little fancy.)

Day 17: Shattuck

Day 18: Ix

Day 19 and 20: Hibred, Hollibaugh

Thanks for stopping by! I totally enjoy your comments. (Last week I was particularly interested in our thoughts on gray hair and its crazy ways! Fascinating!) Have a simply satisfying week!

Diva Challenge #336 and Inktober Days 9-15

When I sat down to post today, I thought that I hadn't a lot to show for the week. I did the Diva Challenge quickly, on Tuesday, since it was a monotangle with Striping, with whom I don't play well :)  I had done my InkTober Tangle challenges, too, although the last 3 days were quite minimalist and had to inhabit one tile together.

Striping Bunzo 

Day 9: Hurry

Day 10:  Flux

Day 11: Bales, a sampler

Day 12: Patience

Days 13, 14 and 15: Printemps, Flukes and Crescent Moon

I also found another rabbit hole in my Zentangle garden this week. I've been looking at textile jewelry, and when my husband was preparing for his first flight with his insulin pump and glucometer, I wanted to give him a sign of my love to carry with him. This "talisman" is almost 4 x 4 inches. I started with a Bijou tile, and just built around it, with the limited scraps I had in my closet. 

He's flying home today, so I wanted to get dolled up (ha!) to meet him. I've been letting my gray hair grow out, to experiment, but really dislike how I look like this. 

Grandmama from the Addams Family TV show

So I decided to get out the hot curlers, and discovered that I can now have Zentangle-y hair!

Maybe time for a trip to the salon!

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

Diva Challenge #335: Tint and InkTober Days 1-8

October is the busiest tangling month of the year for me! Every day, a new challenge for "InkTober", a worldwide challenge for pen artists. Last year I participated for the first time. Each day, a new word to interpret in my Zentangle work.  Because Zentangle is non-representational, and because I can't draw a template to fill in with tangles, I struggled, but, in the end, came up with something every day for the entire month. At the end, what a sense of accomplishment! This year I was so relieved to see that Stephanie Jennifer, an awesome CZT (#21--Yay!)  in Singapore published a list of InkTober prompts for tanglers. (Thank you, Stephanie!!)

This is the InkTober list of prompts

And Stephanie's list of tangles

Here's what I've done so far:

Day 1: Bunzo

Day 2: Dicso

Day 3: Feeling Knotty and my tangleation, "Knottibaugh" ;)

Day 4: Diva Dance with a Margaret Bremner inspired rope string

Day 5: Marasu

Day 7: Rixty

Day 8: Twizted

Depending on my week, I may stick day 6, Ponio, in next week's post. It may have to go on the pumpkin I have to start tangling for an upcoming "Zentangle for the Holidays" class!

A special birthday card is in the making. Here's the monogram I'm using:

This was so much fun to shade. The background is a photocopy of a gouache wash with yellow and purple.

Whew! And I almost forgot the reason that you probably stopped by--the Diva Challenge to use "Tint".

Another cracker box emptied for art's sake ;)

Tangle on! Thanks for your (patient) visit! Have an inky week!