Joey's Weekly Challenge #115 / Salad Days

Yesterday at lunch with my husband, I remarked that I had never been really clear on the expression "salad days". He whipped out the tablet and read: "Salad Days: noun. The period when one is young and inexperienced. The peak or heyday of something." Those two definitions, to my mind, are contradictory, and have always confused me. To my further puzzlement, I learned that this expression originated in 1606, in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, when the latter lamented her "salad days, When [she] was green in judgment, cold in blood"!
I digress.
Joey's challenge this week was inspired by her spring planting and the Roman numeral XV. The patterns all related to veggies: Chard, Corn Rows, Black-eyed Peas, Garlic Cloves and Seedlings. Pretty clever, that Joey!

Happy Planting, Joey! In closing, I "leaf" you with a picture of my salad days, circa 1992.

The Diva's Weekly Challenge #268: Ellish

Urbandictionary.com defines "ellish" as "a word used in the northeast for "great / cool / good". News to me! And also the newest tangle from the ZT mothership, as well as the focus of this week's Diva challenge. I wasn't particularly "drawn" to this tangle, but once I got started, I had an ellish time! I did leave off the bottom loop, which made it more 8ish, and even flipped one around for fun.

Thanks for visiting! See you next week!

PS: A second ellish! (It's starting to grow on me!!) This was done on Elephant Poop Paper. I love the feel of the microns on it. It's quite rough and very absorbent. Graphite doesn't really work on it, so I used some cross hatching and rounding for shading.

Joey's Weekly Challenge #114

My son-in-law messaged me on Sunday. "Thought you might find this interesting...You could always try doing a reverse of one of your zentangles." Glue gun stencils. I had a glue gun, and this looked like lots of fun. When I saw Joey's challenge on Monday, I knew I had to give it a try. I didn't have any ink spray, but I did have an old perfume bottle and a old pen nib that needed cleaning. I soaked the nib in the remaining perfume and watched a lovely teal appear.

(NB My attempts at Skye in the background!)It wasn't very dark, but I decided to continue. I'm rather pleased with the results. This might just be a first in the Zentangle community: a scented tile!!

Thanks for the inspiration, Drew!

And thanks to this week's visitors for stopping by! Have a wonderful week!

Back for Black!

I can hardly believe it's been over a month since my last post! With your permission, I'd like to share what I've been doing instead of blogging!

On April 24, I took off for a 10-day visit with my best girl friend, who lives in Normandy. She was about to celebrate an important (we'll leave it at that!) birthday, and I wanted to join her. She treated me to road trips to Rouen, Etretat, Les Andelys, Honfleur and Monet's house and garden in Giverny.

I returned to my beloved Lar on May 4, and a few days after, enjoyed  a visit from my dear English friend, Sonia, who now lives in Atlanta. It was quick, but delightful!

On May 14, my daughter graduated with her degree in web development.(Here's the card I made with her favorite quote.)

And on May 15, I started a new series of "Introduction to Zentangle" classes at our local library.

Whew. I rarely have that much going on at once!!! Interesting how I am easily overwhelmed now that I've retired!

Any hoos, I have been trying to get back into my Zentangle world. There were a few drawings in airports, and a couple to help me "digest" everything I'd seen in Normandy, but I'm still feeling a little rusty!!

The Diva's Weekly Challenge #268--"A bit-a-black"--was my first endeavor to pick up where we left off! I chose to use the demo tiles I made for my class last Sunday. (Apologies for the poor resolution. My scanner apparently reset itself to 60 dpi while I was away, and I just now caught it.)

Before:

After:

The next day, I decided to use the same string and tangles on a Strathmore black tile. I wanted to try my new white Uni-ball Signo, which Margret Bremner recommends for a hotter, more opaque white than the Gelly Roll.

By the way, you have probably seen Margret's new tangle "Skye", which is based on a Celtic knot pattern. It is GORGEOUS, and I have been desperately trying to learn it for the past 5 days!! Here's my latest attempt, which I had to sketch in pencil first :( 

Well, it's a start! 
So good to see you again! Thanks for stopping by, and for indulging me in this lengthy return to our wonderful Zentangle community. Have a wonderful week!