Love is All You Need

The challenge from the Diva this week was about love.  Love overcoming Hate.  Something that I wish that could prevail more often in this world.  Some days it seems like people work so hard to hate and tear each other down.  Imagine what the human race could do if all that energy was used to find common ground and build one another up.  I should think that what we could do as a people would be pretty amazing indeed.

This challenge found me with a lack of imagination but I did try.  My first tile didn't come out as I had imagined it would.  About halfway through I almost abandoned it but kept going.

Love, Love, Love, Love

In the end I liked parts of the tile but as a whole I wasn't happy with it so I tried again.

This time I drew out the word love and went from there.  It might be a bit busy, but I do like it better.  In this one the shading makes all the difference.  Before the shading, the word and the background was all a jumble to my eye.  As soon as I started adding the pencil for shading however, they started to break apart.



L-O-V-E

The V is inspired by the Missoni for Target ads that are all over the place.  I confess that I don't get all the excitement, but the pattern is certainly hard to ignore.



New Books!

I just got me newest Zentangle books! I got an Amazon gift card for my birthday and used it on some new books to feed my addiction.

I can't wait to get into them and see what new things I can learn.

I got the new edition of AlphaTangle by Sandy Steen Bartholomew, Zen Mandalas by Suzanne McNeill and Zenspirations by Joanne Fink. After just a peek in each book I can see there is a lot for me to learn and tons of inspiration!

Sorry that I have not provided any links for you but I'm using the blogger app and haven't figured out if I can do that here yet. Just look for the books on Amazon though. You'll find them without any problem. :)

Happy Birthday Friend!

This year I turn 40 as do many of my friends.  To mark the occasion many of us have thrown ourselves a birthday party.  I love it.  It has been great to be with my wonderful friends and to celebrate this milestone with each other.  I also love that almost all of them will be 40 before me.  ;)

For my friend Steph's birthday, I decided that I would make her a Zentangle.  I chose to do one in a 5X7 size.  I waited until the last minute and wanted to use a standard size to make the VERY last minute framing go smoothly.  I totally lucked out on the framing as they not only had one I liked, but Michael's was having a BOGO sale on the frame that I liked.  I should have bought more as when I went back the sale was over.  Oh well, I'll have to keep an eye out for next time they have one.  I know know what frames to pick up.

Happy Birthday Steph!  I love you my awesome friend!

Steph's tangle unframed



All framed up.  The edges were lost as I didn't leave enough room but, I don't think that it looks too bad.



Better Than a Pair of Ducks

This week the challenge from The Diva and Maria of Zentangle is to create a tile using only one tangle: Paradox.  What I love most about Paradox is that it looks so very complicated when you see it, but actually creating Paradox it really quite simple.  Hey! I bet that is why the tangle is called Paradox.  (Wow, am I quick.)  I have tried a tile or two using just Paradox before and while I've been perfectly happy with them, I wanted to try something new.  I had wondered what they triangles of Paradox would look like when attaching the points in the center, like a Trivial Pursuit game piece,  but have not tried it before.  So, when I saw this weeks challenge, I decided to go for it.

I started with the main grouping in the center and then added those at the edge.  After I got them all filled in, I liked the tile well enough, but thought there was far too much empty space.  I thought about just blacking out the white but then I changed my mind.  I was afraid that the Paradox would get lost.  I decided to add another triangle to the "circles" to connect them all together.  I like how it turned out.  It sort of looks like a complicated piece of jewelry.

I have another tile that I started before this one but I didn't like where it was going.  If I finish it, I'll post it here later.

Butterflies!

While working on my housewarming piece for my friend, I kept looking at the butterflies.  I really like them in that piece.  Plus, butterflies!  So, I decided that I was going to work on a series of them.  I have another friend that has a series of snowflakes at her house that are lovely.  Hers are photographs but are small squares that are framed very simply.  They look great in a grid on her wall.

So far I have done two.  I decided to add a color to the bodies.  So far I have silver and gold but will try some of the gel pens that I have gotten for the following drawings.  I really like the two so far.  They are light and elegant, to me anyway.  I'd love to hear what you think!



Silver Butterfly




Gold Butterfly



Kiss My Grids!

The challenge this week from The Diva is to create our tangle using only grid patterns.  I love the grid patterns.  Grids help me to stay evenly spaced.  I like even patterns.  I think it is because the freehand patterns tend to intimidate me a bit.

Every time I think of the name of this challenge, I can hear the actress on "Alice" saying "Kiss my grits!"  Then I am thinking of grits and want to make some.  I know that grits aren't for everyone but they are certainly for me.  I grew up in Tennessee and a full breakfast is not complete without them.  When we were on vacation I had Grits and Fried Green Tomato Napoleon with fresh Gulf Shrimp.  SO GOOD!  Anyone who doesn't like grits, I think it is because you have not had good ones.  Cheese grits are divine and all grits should be creamy and loaded with butter. :)

So, on to the grids.  I'm getting hungry here.  My first go at the challenge I did on the back of a note card.  A friend recently got married and brought me her old note cards to tangle on.  I have been using them for doodles and practice but thought I'd see how they work on a "real" tangle.  The paper did well.  There may be more this size in the future.  Using the theme of the challenge for inspiration, I used a mouth as a string.  Then the idea of grits are there in the gingham pattern.  I think of gingham as a "southern" pattern.  I used my own Huggybear pattern in the background. I skipped the little white dots this time.

I wanted to do a tangle for this challenge that was different , so I tried again.  This time I used 3.5" square of watercolor paper and gridded the whole thing.  I wasn't sure what to do for a string so I just looped around and ended up with this popcorn looking shape.  I used Eye-Wa for the background and a dressed up Bales as the center.  Bales looks like Puff though.  I have been wanting to learn Puff but the center squares keep me away so maybe I'll try Bales this way when I want to make Puff.  I hope you enjoy them.  I can't wait to see more of what you all have done!

Housewarming

I have a friend who loves nature and has just bought a new house.  While I haven't seen her new house yet, I think that she has more wall space than at her old house so I decided to make her some art!  Hopefully she will enjoy it. 

This piece was my biggest one yet.  At 12" X 18", it took a little wile to finish.  It was inspired by an album cover from one of Erik Friedlander's albums.  Since I used a standard size, I was able to find a really nice frame at Michael's right off the shelf.

I plan on giving it to her this weekend. 

The finished piece in it's frame.



A little closer look at the piece.