Dive challenge 103

so okay...not every tangle is one I'm gonna like.  I don't care for how this came out, but don't know if I have time to do another and will go with the crowd that says POST it anyway....

It is an important challenge to do right for Laura and her son, so I will try to improve.  And I may go look at what everyone else is doing to be inspired.  I don't usually like to do that.  I want to use my own imagination and the patterns I have already collected to put mine together before I see what all of the ladies and gentlemen in our company do.

Zendala challenge 41...a pretty flower

Immediately upon seeing the shape of this one, I knew I would be leaning towards flowery designs.  I actually did the leaves first, with a new design from just a couple days ago,  Of course you may not recognize it because I did only one line of it right down the middle of the leaf.

 I had fun coloring this one using every pen and pencil type I owned.  Micros, gel pens, prismacolor pencils, even Staedtler pen for the tiny yellow dots on the outside edge.  I don't have every color in any type of pen, so I poked through all of them to get the colors I wanted.

I actually stayed within the lines all the way through and only added a tiny extra on the edge.  For me this is unusual.  But the shape was a good one right from the get-go.

Zendala 40 challenge

Wasn't sure where to go with this til I saw Helen's (little lime)heart tangle pattern.  Looked like fun to try that first, not realizing there were SEVEN points to this zendala.   Figured I do every other point and then put another heart-type in the other points.  Well that doesn't work with an odd number so I had to hang in there and put the hearts ALL the way around.  They took some time, but I did like the end results.  And the ribbon-style edging was inspired by Margaret Beauchamp's latest gallery art we got to see this morning.

So thank you fellow tanglers for you inspiration.

I also wanted to share my newest zentangles on a product other than paper...

The round circles are the little feet on these cutting boards/ hot plates.  They won't take the paint, and I was not sure I could put them back on securely if I took them off...lol  So they slightly interrupt the design. The design shows because after I do the ink, I spray the back with white.  Because this ink is waterproof, it seems to handle the paint product without bleeding.  

Here is a photo, rather than a scan, to show the size.  They were a bargain at the 'dollar' store and perfect for little cutting jobs.  And for showing off a Zentangle!!!

Diva 102 second challenge try...

I tried again, and this time stuck to just the two tangles, but I couldn't resist messing with them again.  They looked too small in the 5 x 7 space so I extended the auraknot with extra aura...lol

Diva challenge 102

Okay, I did this without reading thoroughly  the instructions given by the Diva.  I saw Helen's adorable flower and the other great ones she did. And I thought okay I will try putting these two together.  But when I tried the auraknot, I went slightly crazy trying to get all the petals to work under and over.  So I started another one and only put six points instead of twelve.   And then I had to add a few little tendrils.
THEN I read Diva directions and realized I shouldn't be adding extra stuff.....

Can you look at it and maybe ignore the tendrils???  I did try something different in striping the auraknot and lining the bunzo for a new look.

I will try to get time to do another and do it correctly.

Supertrooper challenge...

My son is a fantastic artist and loves the gory graphics that are in many games.  He and his daughter admired a recent piece of art that was in that genre, and I kidded him that I could take a storm trooper from the Star Wars series and Zentangle him into a similar look.  So here is the image I got from Google and the results when I did a job on him.

 

I would like to think I did okay, but I am waiting to see what he has to say.....It was fun and QUITE a different way to draw for me.  Don't want to stop my flowers and fantasy for this!!! But a challenge is a challenge and I gave it a go!

Diva 101...sounds like a beginners class...lol

...and I am beginning with my first monotangle.   Almost mono anyway, as I put a 'net' behind the tangle to hold it all together.  LOVE this new tangle and decided a good way to cement it into my head was do it over and over.  I also had just received my first set of metalic gel pens and gave them a little try on the extra stripes I added to the shells.  I don't see the shine in the scan, but in real life it has a nice metalic glow when it hits the light right.  Gonna have to use them more in the near future.

Hope I did B-rad's new and fun pattern justice...  So nice to have the diva back and throwing new ideas at us.  Been working on a larger pic, 11 x 14" so I am behind on the challenges again.  

I'm off to get my new permanent glasses for after the cataract surgery.  It seems like this whole deal has taken forever and I am glad to be getting the right glasses finally.  I am getting tired of switching glasses for computer to glasses for drawing, back to computer ones for reading and getting instructions on food items when I make supper (I'm a microwave diva...lol)  

Dive #2 and more...

I hadn't really expected to have another item with the diva dance pattern in it, but then it seemed to be just the right start for this plate.  Rock and roll made a perfect flower type tangle in the middle and then I just used part of fox trot in four of the points, so there we have it---a second try.

And that wasn't the end of working on plates, either.  I did these two as a 'pair'  and I loved how they turned out on the pearlescent white of the plate with that 'carnival' coloring on the outer edge.

And the last one I finished just today.  A pottery-looking feel to it, so I did a rugged chunky type of tangle on it.  It came out rather golden in the pic, but is more of a terra-cotta color for real.

Diva challenge 100...

whew...I'm finally catching up!  The Diva has her own tangle named after her, and she deserved to get it after putting 100 challenges out there for all of us.  I love seeing what she comes up with, and this one is super.  I didn't quite know what to do with this new tangle....so here it is.

I tried to get all three styles, but the 'foxtrot' one is spread into the four corners. And I threw in mini ones scattered because no other tangle seemed to fit for filling in those spaces.  This time I didn't want quite so much white, so there they are!

 I like the take on the circular piece with the extra pointy pieces thrown in.  Maria did it in one of her samples, and I stole the idea for my rock and roll part.

Celtic knot 17...late again

...but at least I did it!  It's kinda odd in these colors.  I used various pens depending on how dark I needed and used a color pencil even...  Again, I used a piece of scrapbook paper in a fine print teal-blue shade.trimmed to 8x10"  It fits Judy's idea, but I'm not sure if I like making my own knots.  She spoils me with all her great ready-made ideas...lol

Celtic Knot 18...catching up some more

I'm going backwards somewhat.  Put patterns together for the celtic knots 16,17,18.   Then decided if I got 18 done, it might be on time!!!  So I went looking for a shape that would 'knot' together and came up with a cookie-cutter heart.  Used some pink print scrapbooking paper I had on hand to practice, and it came out well enough to go ahead and do the tangle.  Some folks will think 'Valentines day early', but I never pay attention to holidays, just do what seems right at the moment.  And showing love is always right!!

It was a bit of erasing and trying again to get them to overlap the right way.  Judy you will have to let me know if I got it right...lol

Catching up...

Been busy, but still got in some drawing.  Haven't done the challenges lately as I kept being pulled to try something else.

Like water coloring...
Did this as a template for a ZIA and thought it might be worth scanning and keeping for a different take at a later time.  I'm using an inexpensive set of colors in a plastic box, til I see whether I want to pursue this further.  Here is the fist  attempt with this as the background...

I'm always second-guessing myself and this one made me unsure as to whether I should have put the clouds and 'birds' in the pic.  But the space looked so empty before I did.  Let me know in comments what you think, please??

Also did a zentangle classic.  Black and white and just patterns, no particular theme.  Was in the mood.

Then I got that second snowflake dish done...A matching blue, but I liked the patterns better...

Now that I have a bit more time, I am going to try to catch up on challenges...

Zendala 36,on time

This one has lots of simple repetitive lines, as I was recovering from 3 teeth being removed.  Novacaine does funny stuff, and my mind is not all here(even less than usual) so  the tangles I chose to use were as simple as possible and it kept my mind off my odd -feeling jaw.  This morning I feel much better and jazzed it up a bit more.  I used the beetljoos in a balanced pattern instead of creeping all over!  Then added a tiny string of beads all around the edge to connect it all together as I am inclined to do.

Zendala 35 too late but fun!

I've gotten behind on the dares and can't seem to catch up!!!  Here is the snowflake idea that Bright Owl gave us last week...

I cut out two of them and decided to put them on two blue plates that match.  But I found there was a lot of BIG spaces if I didn't add some lines.  So here is the result ...

They are tricky to work on, but give some fun results.  And these would be actually usable for serving cookies or such.  The ink doesn't touch the food because it is on the bottom of the plate!

Now....off to see what the zendala 36 requires, and maybe even a celtic knot challenge if I can squeeze it in.

Roses

Had a 'rose' type tangle that I wanted to use for the first time.  It has been in my sketch pad for a while and I don't remember where I got it, it was that long ago.

I scratch any interesting patterns in here and it is my source for everything I do.  There are a few I remember, but most I have to remind myself of by scrolling through these pages.  I wish I had the stamina to put together those beautiful organized albums I have seen on other blogs.  But ...it ain't gonna happen!

So I dug out my red Micron 5 and went to work with some cool leaves in the center and worked my roses from there.

I loved everything but those outside edge 'triangle' roses.  They didn't come out as dainty as I had wanted.  But once I had put ONE on the paper, I had to add enough all around to balance.  A mistake that couldn't be erased had to become part of the pattern.  It's a 5x7 piece.  I may try this again on a plate, and I will skip those icky roses. Loved what the shading did to really pull the pic together.  So glad I figured out how to use the prismacolor pencils to shade.

Diva challenge #2

It's very late, but it fits more properly the challenge rules of this week.

I started this with those floppy flower-things on the right, and put in what I expected to be a soft pink with my Artist Loft pink pen.  Well it came out very HOT pink, and now I see it on the monitor, it looks almost lavender.  I actually like it more in real life with the hot pink. 

First time I have seen such a difference in color on the monitor.  Does anyone see the hot color???

Bookmarks...

Close-up

Sometimes it is fun to work on little projects to expand your pattern use on something that is disposable.  Just in case you don't like the results of a hard pattern...  I managed to finish all of these but one.  Couldn't get the pattern right, and couldn't salvage it by making another pattern out of it.

I forgot, when they scan, the background is white so they look different than when I take a photo.

I also had time at the beginning of the week to do some ZIA's from the animal kingdom.  I googled a few real animals to use a guide for shape.  Then proceeded to tangle them into fantasy worlds.

These are fun to do, and I think I'll try one on a plate...

Hearts and Flowers

Feelin' alll the love.....so I went with red and lots of hearts.  And some flowers thrown in.  There is also a heart with some of the challenge 97 tangle in it. And I think it might fit the challenge 98...kinda.  The heart shapes loop over each other.

In this close up hopefully you can see the "kneeses"

And a couple more close-ups

I tried to find every 'heart' shape tangle that I could to work into this ZIA and I also found out accidentally how to make a flow of color on a plate.  I can color in solid, but I hadn't thought I could make a soft muted background type of color til I tried to 'erase' a tangle I had put in the middle in the biggest heart.  I used alcohol to see if I could erase the ink and found there was so much color from the pattern that it made a big pinkish mess.  So I thought of smoothing it out in the section, and then patted it all over with the Q-tip I was using.  Waited til it dried and put fresh red lines on the outside edge and there it was.... a background on a plate.

I'm so excited to see what I can do next with this idea.

Meanwhile, I also worked on a couple 'critters' ZIA's .

I found a good image of a REAL snail, as I couldn't seem to draw one I liked.  Then put in a fantasy world of tangles.

Same with the bunny rabbit.  Used as many 'soft' looking tangles as I could find and then added a fantasy garden around him.  These are both 8" x 10" to fit in a standard frame.  The sepia browns I felt would go nice with a wood like maple.

Zendala 34 on a plate...

Doin that 'killin' two birds with one stone' thing.  Wanted to do the challenge, but really wanted to do another plate.  Naturally, why not do both???  Here is my challenge on a very pale green Ikea plate.  Love the black on this muted color, rather than stark white.

Sorry I couldn't get a clearer close-up.  I am a bit tired and don't have the energy to do it all over again. The major change I did was that straight line from the points.  I arched them to get something out to the edges of the plate.  And I liked the softer look of round to go with the rest of the pattern.

Hope it fits the bill...

50th Anniversary Surprise

Took time out from Zentangling to go to what I THOUGHT was dinner with our four kids to celebrate our anniversary.  Well, we were brought to a hall that we had been to about a month ago and told to go in, and there were a whole bunch of familiar faces saying SURPRISE!!!

The kids and grandkids had pulled off a surprise party in great style.  My children are hard workers, but they don't make a lot of money, so this was wonderful in so many ways.  They worked together and did the hard work of doing everything themselves.  No catering here, no fancy restaurant, or big fancy presents,  just lots of love and family and friends.  JUST my kind of party.

I'm getting bits and pieces of the work involved as they all tell me what was happening behind the scenes.  My grandson was in charge of the cooking, as he had training from his tech school.  All the girls were decorating and making deserts.  The guys setting up tables and chairs, etc, and chopping and peeling in the kitchen.  They were doing the shopping for the party under the guise of taking their sister who came up from Maryland out to "see the sights and go for lunch, drinks, shopping, dinner," etc.  It wasn't quite as much a surprise for my husband, as they had to get names and addresses from him for the folks that were invited.

 Here we are just coming into the hall

 Here we have just gotten a lovely cake made by our granddaughter

Here we are laughing over our trying to feed each other 'cakeballs' that are delicious and a favorite of ours.  See further back in my blog if you are interested in  our fun attempts at making these fun deserts.

But I think he was still surprised at all the people and all the work that went into it.  There were lots more pics of all the folks, but these give you the idea.

I finally got that second eye surgery for cataracts, so I will be back to tangling very soon.  Gotta send nice thankyous to all  involved in the bestest time we had!!!