Leaves of Greens

Yesterday I was driving with my son as passenger. He is always asking questions, always interested in how the world works. He carries with him that sense of wonder like toddlers do with their pleas of "Why?"
He's 25 now and the questions get more difficult than, "why is the sky blue?"
Yesterday he pondered why our Park Service vehicles are all a color green.  A hideous aqua color, especially for a car or truck.
I'm usually pretty good at research, but I came up with nada on that one. We talked about it and concluded that it must be a color that kind of blends into forests but still stands out. Then we discussed how leaves appear green, but when you break that green down as, say, in a painting, it's many shades varying from white to greys, and colors from bright yellows to deep teals and everything in between.
Which served me well working on this week's Diva challenge.
I tried a couple in plain black on white and it wasn't flowing (and you're not seeing!). But then I thought of those leaves and this is where it took me:

Leaves of Greens

This is a duo-tangle of her tangles named after her two sons. (I don't have the patterns down quite right, but this just FELT right. I hope Laura doesn't mind too much). The boys are in sick-bay and I hope I'm channeling some love and healthfulness for their recovery, sending some Zen-fulness their way. I photographed it under the shade of the olive trees, which explains the mottled shade.
I'm grateful for the Diva and her efforts to inspire a bunch of tangly people; be sure to check out what she has going on and see what others have done with this challenge (including the correct patterns!).

Jumping From One Thought to Another

I'm going to have to be brief today as I have a lot of running around to do. But I do have some explaining to do.

But first, I hope you take in the TwobyTwobyTuesday blog. I would like to grow the audience and the participation for the twinchie art challenge this year. It's every other week and the prompts are already posted for the whole year. The next one up is "Unicorn" for March 8. All mediums and talents are welcome--it just needs to be two-inches square (or even cubed!?)
This week's twinchie word was, "leap," and that got us to thinking...

Ooooh, danger!

My first thought was of Stag's Leap, a vineyard that produces wines that I like. Then I thought of "Artemis," a Cabernet Sauvignon they bottle that is quite yummy. [Artemis is the Greek goddess of the hunt, which would be an appropriate deity to call upon if you were trying to hunt deer]. From there, we thought of Artemisia, a group of plants that sport white or grey leaves. The group includes a popular garden plant (Dusty Miller or Artemisia stelleriana) and wormwood (or Artemisia absinthia, the stuff from which absinthe is made).
And that's how I got to this, a Zentangle-inspired tangle of leaves:

It's kind of a hybrid between Sampson, Verdigoh and Amaze, I guess. I drew upon this source for inspiration.
It's not the craziest nor the most convoluted thinking, as it was a linear path, right?

The other item I'm posting is for the EIM word of the week, "earth." Trillian, the woman in charge there, put it as earth, little "e," so I went with dirt and my little garden trowel that helps me dig the weeds out of same:

For now, that's what I have. There will be more this week, so please entertain the idea of returning!

A Year and a Half

Sometimes it's worth it to look back, to attempt to measure changes and to reassess. Perhaps to forecast a better tomorrow by adjusting what is not working or to just be grateful for personal growth? The Diva this week ventured that something could definitely be gained by taking an older piece of work and taking a new stab at it, much like Antonine occasionally does for Throwback Thursdays.
Surely there's always room for improvement, right?
I've been a tangly person for about five years now. I found the art form when I was looking for a creative outlet and for something that could distract me from chronic pain, rather than a pharmacy's worth of narcotics.
A year and a half ago I found a huge creative community on-line that I had not yet tapped into. I can only think I was not prepared for that as I'd not gone looking into the wide blue yonder, highly unusual for me.
I broke out a new sketchbook, a new blog, finally set up my Flickr account and was ready to tackle the world!
Alas, an early attempt at this tangly stuff was quite lame, er, rudimentary. I still posted it for all the world to see:

Day Six

That was in response to the sixth day of my incarceration, er, ah, "One Zentangle a Day," a book I finally just gave up on. It was a great introduction to the artform, but too many different art materials for all the different projects, even for me!
Let me get this right out of my system: I HATE MOOKA!
All right! Now I feel better! But it was the obvious choice of something I could retry. For Diva 255:

Diva 255
Flux, Mooka, Amaze, Printemps and a
Smattering of Tipple and Fescu

I gave Amaze it's own space and that works for me. I would have liked more Flux, but it wasn't having it. And in full-disclosure, I drew an outline for the Mooka so the curls would look right, er, ah, come out in a pleasing manner. I can't say I've yet made peace with the tangle, but at least I found a way to work with it.

The String Thing this week didn't do anything I expected:

Something's Fishy
Just Dillo

And here is a just-for-fun piece I did. I got the idea from a response I saw for Diva 252, to use Bales as the string, with the result looking like a Cathedral Window quilt. (if you know who that is, I'd like to thank her by making proper attribution!) It's probably my favorite quilt pattern, thus I had to give that a try:

Diva Dance, Bales, Sanibel, Snood, Crescent Moon,
Tripoli, Confetti, Printemps with Tipple, Paradox, Hibrow,
Phroz, Fluke, Amaze, Zonked, Knightsbridge, Cadent
and Acrosstick

It took me the better part of a day to do it--not that it was the ONLY thing I did--but I'll try it again! It was quite the distraction.
For the record, I was able to cut out all the medication save for the occasional aspirin. My vice of choice is, as always, a nice glass of vino.
If you thought you'd also see my inchies this week (or want to spend another five minutes with me) I've posted them here. I know your time is valuable, thank you for sharing some of it!

From Here to Eternity

I don't know about you, but I'm ready to move along from all the hearts, even if it's to shamrocks, chickens and bunnies that are poking up on the calendar. It's not that I'm a real curmudgeon, just we're both under the weather (what a silly concept, since it's sunny and 80s--absolutely glorious!) and it took a lot of effort to be all lovey-dovey.

Three Heart  Bijoux for
IAST 131

I met the love of my life 12 years ago Monday and it has been such a thrill! And while we were all so peachy over the weekend, we ventured out to spread our germs, er, ah, go shopping for meaningful exhibits of our love. Cards and flowers were bestowed upon me as were white chocolate-covered long-stemmed strawberries he made. Awww!

The man bears striking resemblance to "The Most Interesting Man in the World," has a resume to match the fictitious biography and when he drinks beer, he prefers Dos Equis. Dark.

Jonathon Goldsmith aka
The World's Second Most Interesting Man

Which is the perfect segue to the EIM theme for the week: Beer.

Beer

What we have here is Emilio Estevez in the grocery store pouting a beer on the floor from the movie "Repo Man," my modest attempt at recreating the logo from a Billy Beer can, a line drawing of a frosty mug of beer and a small portion of the lids from Dos Equis, which can be measured in pounds, that we just can't seem to part with. For the record, I stick to wine!

In between putting these images together, I knitted a swatch that I wanted to make for "sweater," the TwobyTwo challenge from last week. I just kind of eye-balled it and was surprised to find out that it indeed was a two-inch square! That's the most success I've had knitting a sweater ever!

That's what I have so far this week. I'll be back to doodling before the week is out, I'm sure. Thank you for stopping by.

Update 02.18.16: The link to this week's Zentangles is here.

All Hearts and Flowers

If you know me, you know I'm not quite the girlie-girl kind of woman. Sure, I like my share of bling and baubles, glitter and glitz. I just much prefer jeans to dressy dresses and stuff.

So it shocked more than a few people when I broke out a LBD complete with high heels and hosiery to wear to a concert with Gilbert, Jesse Cook at the Del Webb Center in Wickenburg Saturday night. I also had some jeweler friends, Linda Bortone and elizabeth Hake (little "e"),  make sure I was properly accessorized. [NB: You can meet them at the Celebration of Fine Art through March 27].
I guess I can clean up good, as one friend put so eloquently. And it was an important event as the music is the soundtrack for our love affair, this our valentine to each other.
We're also quite amused that a Canadian born in Paris plays Spanish flamenco, right, eh?
And if you think it's boring, try this out. (yes, you can hear the pots and pans--they really do play with them!)

It should be no surprise, then, that I wear Birkies for slippers. Most of the year it's pretty warm here (Finally, it's going to be 80 today! Woohoo!), so fuzzy slippers don't quite do it for me. Although I keep trying to make a pair just because I've kept the instructions for forever.

Birkenstocks in "Titanium"
Wearing them right this minute!

That's French for
Slippers

So that takes care of the inchie challenge for the day, though I really thought I'd try to draw Cinderella's slippers as I felt like a princess on Saturday night. Then there's our household joke, "someday my prints will come." See, we're photographers in real life. Prince, prints...get it?

Yeah. Right.
That mutilation of the English language (and I guess the fuzzy slippers) segues to "sweater," the twinchie this week.
Composed of elements for clothing in a crochet magazine (with apologies to Huey Lewis):

Square

A little bit off of center, yes? No real surprise, if you know me!
I also like my Zentangle on the non-representational side (that's the idea, right?) rather than all the hearts that are popping up this week.
Not that there's anything wrong with that! (With apologies to Seinfeld).
So, for the Diva's heart-focused challenge this week, you'll find a heart as string buried underneath all the patterns.
Somewhere. Really.

Heart in Flowers
Nymph, Cadent, Bales, Lanie, Flux, Tipple

I finally posted a bunch of stuff on my Flickr feed. I should keep up with that more; you'd have the perfect excuse to burn some time and to see more of just about everything!
And, yes, I can do hearts! Have a whole week full of love, heart and emotion! Do the tangle tango! Or a rousing rumba!

So Where DID Molly Go?

Over at La Casa Diva, the challenge for the week is to get to know Molygon, a brand new official Zentangle tangle. My attempt could have been straight out of my high school notebooks which were littered with eyeballs, a doodle I drew all the time. Fast-forward 40 years and I haven't progressed??

Where is Molly Going?
Diva Challenge 253

I think it's surprisingly free-floating considering my teeth were chattering while I drew it (and the underlying string almost entirely ignored!). The art tent I've been working was a balmy 46 degrees INSIDE yesterday. I was threatening to write a blog post entitled, "Fifty Ways to Rock Thermal Underwear."
Mind you, that threat is not quite over.
Has it snowed where you are? We got a smattering earlier in the week. Ah, life in sunny Arizona! I am freezing!

The theme at EIM this week is bulldozer, which unleashed a bunch of ideas, not the least of which was a drawing of wait! get this! a bulldozer!

From top left: Bulldozer, Bobcat, Feather Headdress
and a Triangle

A bulldozer, got that, right?! Next, we have a leading manufacturer of heavy equipment: Bobcat. Bobcats, the animal, are much cuter, especially with those tufted ears. The bright yellow triangle is from the corporate logo for Caterpillar. And the Indian feathers? Well, they have nothing to do with this; I drew it for last week's theme of village. I didn't want you to think I totally cheesed out on that and just borrowed a photograph! And I didn't want to try to draw a caterpillar, the insect. Another day, perhaps?

Thanks for stopping by. I wish to extend a big thanks to the individuals who post these challenges and make them work. Check out what's happening at EIM and the Diva and perhaps take a moment to visit the TwobytwobyTuesday challenge. This week it's "sweater."
Ah, maybe THAT will warm me up!