spiral challenge

It has been some time since I have posted anything. I've been busy preparing for our trip and working on stuff for church. I have been doing drawings but have had no time to post things. I am particularly pleased with my spiral so I thought I should post it. It was a very zen monotangle using one I found called Showgirl. A fun and simple to do tangle which I find to be the best ones to get me in a zen zone.

Happy Birthday Erin Dare #90

This week's Bright Owl dare is this lovely template and in order to celebrate Erin's birthday she requested that we use our favorite tangle pattern. I just love the way Paradox emerges as a swirling flowing organic thing. It is alive to me. So I filled the middle with it and then wrapped them up in pretty bows just for Erin.

Aquafleur

So the folks at Zentangle - Rick & Maria announced a new official tangle called aquafleur. I must say that it took me some time to get this one the way I liked it. I was being too stiff and formal when I first tried. I have relaxed and started to just let it flow and I like the results much better.

 Here are some of my first trials in my journal.

And then I got the hang of it. I like how this one looks.

And then I moved on to an ATC using the pattern and some watercolors. I was also doing this to experiment with some new pens I found. I really like the new pens! My micron pen on the left (it was beginning to run out of ink) and the new illustration pens from Michaels (Artist Loft brand) on the right.

I'm sure I will be experimenting and using this pattern again.

Dare #151 Moebius Syndrome

This was a challenge that really spoke to me. Sometimes I get discouraged with all that I need to do and don't get done and on and on.....Then Laura at  I am the Diva brings us a challenge based on the syndrome her son has and I am humbled at all she accomplishes in her week. I have NOTHING to complain about!

Here is my Moebius Tangle.

Zendala Dare #87

I enjoyed this Zendala very much. I actually started with the dark "zig-gag" and then did the purk in the middle. tried to balance the darkness of the center with something lighter in the middle back to darker again near the edges. It was fun to do this challenge. I am now working on one of Ben Kwok's animal templates as we got a bonus one this week so now I have two of them to do!

Dare #150 One Little Word

This week the Diva has us focusing on one little word. At first I was going to cheat and use the same word "possibility" that the church is using... that just didn't sit well with me.  Then I seriously gave thought to a word of my own for the year. I kept coming up with the word "Joy" but for some reason I hesitated to put it into a drawing. And then as I was contemplating what excursions I would like to try on our next cruise (Jamaica here we come! April will be here before I know it) and found myself giving actual real consideration to a few that would stretch my comfort level. We are going to swim with the dolphins which I am uber excited about. And then my hubby wants to go para-sailing. He has done it before and I have always declined, but there is one that lets you go tandem and I am actually thinking about going! ME!!! Terrified of heights - won't go up a ladder ME!

So my word for this year is "Challenge". I have enjoyed doing the weekly challenges from various groups. They stretch my creative mind and now I need to stretch the rest of me. Oh boy, what have I gotten myself into? This one will need  prayer. Lots of prayer!

I also challenged myself on this to use all grid tangles (I prefer the more flowy ones) and I used ones I had never done before. Some I like and some I don't, but that's OK. One of the great things about challenges is that you do something new and you find out what you like and what you don't.

Dare #86 Grateful

Last year I took lots of photos and tried my best to follow the calendar put out by Ann Voskamp in her 1000 Gifts challenge. 3 things everyday that you were grateful for and you ended up with 1,000 of them . Well I did good for a long time and ended up with almost 700 before I somehow lost my mojo. I am still taking pictures of things and I am seeing things around me every day to be grateful for but I am no longer trying to find the prompts she has for each day. I think what happened is that I got stuck on one that I couldn't take a picture of - so instead of skipping it, I just stopped. Perhaps I should take it up again and see if I can't get to that 1,000.

Anyway, this week's Bright Owl challenge is to use the template #86 and make it a frame for your gratitude. I am thankful for my church family and last year we focused on the word 'communicate'. The focus this year at church is the word  'POSSIBILITY'. I looked up the word in the thesaurus and found a bunch that I wanted to focus on and included them in my drawing.

Diva Challenge #149 - Twenty Fourteen

As we start the New year  I think back to last year at this time. I was not drawing. I was doing cross stitch and sewing. I found Zentangle in the spring and have been doing a whole lot of drawing since then! 2014 is going the be the year of the Doodle - Not strictly Zentangle but exploring new ways to use tangle patterns in all my crafts. We will see how that goes.

Dare #83 - Baby it's cold outside

This weeks Bright Owl Dare is challenging us to think winter. As soon as I saw the template I saw faces. Elf faces. So here are my Christmas elves. I think they might need color, but for now here they are.

Christmas rush

Tis the season for the Christmas stress. I want to work on my art so I can decompress a bit, but I feel like I must do other things. So I will post pics of some of my gifts.

Kitty from a Ben Kwok template. I forgot to scan her after I colored it.

The patterns spell out her name and how she is related to me.

Going 3 dimensional with this one

Healing hands

last diva dare of the year - Happy Merry

Luckily I had already drawn quite a few Christmas themed ZIA's and completed one this week based on the advent candles. Praying that each and everyone of you has a blessed holiday and a safe new year. We will see the Diva back on weekly challenges in January.

Challenge #145 & #147 combined

I was sitting in the foot doctor's office with the hubby waiting for our turn and I decided to play with the new tangles Quib & BooKee together in one piece. Since I had only seen BooKee once this morning just before leaving for the appointment, I did what I thought I remembered. I was also a bit sleep deprived so all things considered I think it came out ok. I think I need to shade it a bit and it was not in my normal style to use the blue & brown pens. Not a normal day and not a normal piece of work. It is what it is....

Zendala #80 and Weekly dare #144

How great is this week's challenge? Bring color & bugs into a tile and the minute I saw the Zendala I thought of lady bugs. This seems to happen a lot. The combining of challenges. Yippie! I had fun this afternoon. Now I need to make myself a template for my hubby who wants me to do a turkey for Thanksgiving. I'll post that if I get a successful one.

Diva dare #142 - out of the comfort zone

I noticed that very few people actually posted this challenge on the facebook groups. Most of the time we are proud of what we do and are eager to post when we try a new pattern or figure out a great new way to combine things, but this time I think everyone just hated the final products. The challenge was to go out of the comfort zone and do something completely different.  Here is mine.

I didn't even bother to take a proper photo. Just a web cam quickie. I used dark paper, white pencil (I had no white pens), and a grid pattern. I must say I am getting better at doing grids, but they still come out a bit fluid because that's how I roll. I am not really happy with the results, but I am proud that I DID share this tile because each new learning experience is valuable.

Diva Challenge #141 Fengle/Quandrey Duo Tangle

I fell in love with this challenge immediately. It has only been about an hour since I read it to the time of posting! Yep I drew this puppy in about 40 minutes. Thanks to Laura over at I am the Diva for posting these challenges.

catching up with dares #75, #76, and Diva dare #140

Life has gotten crazy lately. I'm still tangling away, but have not had time to post. Oh well, Life does that sometimes. I am just glad I have my art to try to keep me sane as we head into the holiday season.

The first one is Dare #75 using the tangles beginning with UVWX - I used Up & across, vortex, wired and X

 

Dare #76 I used tangles Y&Z completing our alphabet challenge

and then I did the Diva Dare #140 using pointillism to do a tile which came out very summer beachy to me.

I am now beginning to do some work for Christmas gifts. I found this really cool idea to make lighted artwork so I'm going to give it a go and see how it works. Hopefully it works well and I can make several. An experiment. We will see.....

8's Parte Dos & Cruze

I had a real challenge with this pattern. I just had such a hard time to grasp the diagonal . I don't really know why. I have since looked at the work that others have done and I think I needed to have my dots spaced differently. Oh well, it is what it is. on to the next challenge!

Many Little Creatures

I have had so much fun doing the animal templates from Ornation Creations 
Here is a line up of some of the ones I have finished. Soon I will have a whole zoo!

Zendala Dare #74 and Knights over Tipple

Ohh boy I am behind on posting. I have gotten carried away on the animal templates posted in the Ornation Creation facebook group and forgot to post my challenges. I have been having fun though so I guess it's a good thing that I have neglected the blog. Anyway  we were challenged by the Diva to do challenge #137 Knightbrige and tipple together. I did it twice. Once in the Zendala #74 and once freestyle in my 6x9 journal. I think they both came out well but my freestyle one is my favorite.

Zendala dare 73 and MNOP dare

Once again I have combined dares. I am really enjoying filling the zendala dares in with the alphabet patterns. This time I used Mumsy, Nippa, Owlz and Pokeroot - and it was calling for some color what do you know that was the diva dare as well - 3 down today Yahoo!!