We are Victorious

It's a good thing I'm kind of ahead of myself as all of a sudden it's "INFERNO" season. That's when the temperatures are too hot to rain (115 to 120F) then it cools ever so slightly but the humidity goes up. Yes, from single digits to forty percent or better. It wants to rain.
When it does rain, we stop what we're doing and watch the sky or even better, stand out in the drizzle and act like we've never seen water fall from the heavens. Well, we get about three inches a year, so it's not a normal occurrence.
We haven't yet seen it where we could use a little less of it--where it pours all at once for twenty minutes. The weather wonks call it "monsoon" season. Back East it was "HHH" for hazy, hot and humid.
I guess i just need to add another "H." And it's not for "hilarious."

Here are some thoughts on "Physics" for the EIM. I'm glad I saved Einstein for this week.

That's a solar flare thanks to NASA; a hydrogen bomb test code-named, "Ivy Mike," from the DOEnergy files; another NASA image, the Helix Galaxy, also known as the "Eye of God," and Albert Einstein, who advocated a liberal dose of imagination in life. I'm glad his brain did a lot of heavy lifting so we don't have to!

Last week was an investigation into "Victory" for this week's TwobyTwobyTuesday. I liked what I did, but one in particular needed a quick revamp:

Funny, that's what the Diva was thinking for her challenge to us tangly people. I didn't so much rework an old piece (the point of the exercise) so much as just re-do it.

The one on the right was done while I was still in that "will-not-shade-at-any-cost" phase, while working through the exercises in "One Zentangle a Day." The scribbles are an indication of what the string looked like. The new one has dimension (including using the General white charcoal for highlights), a full-range of tones from light to dark, but lacks variety in form. Everything is a similar size. I need to diversify!
(BTW, I still haven't finished that book. WAAAAY too many different types of materials needed, even for me! Yet, it's a great introduction to method outside official Zentangle releases and a source book for tangles and methods).

I finally did last week's IAST. It seemed disingenuous of me to skip over an important milestone for Adele's blog just because I didn't like the string. I shy away from representative images as it shuts down  my creative juices and I just could not make this one work in its original form. So I rotated the string and made a mirror image of it. The result is a full-moon garden which evolved when I didn't worry about what it should be. The stripe represents the Milky Way, much like graphic representations of the stars in Native American petroglyphs.
So much for non-representational artforms....

Colored with Spectrum Noir professional pencils. (ANYBODY out there have the Essentials set??! Must have...And then there's the whole batch of watercolor sets they came out with! No more art supplies, ha!) And I'm very happy with my new Brother all-in-one; color scans are spot-on. I love Photoshop, but if I don't have to use it, all the better.

To my friends stateside, a very happy Fourth. And to all, have a brilliant day! c

Life and Liberty

It's that time of year here in the States that we celebrate our very existence. Two hundred and forty years ago we got really rambunctious and wrestled for our independence much like a three year-old at a candy store. I can't say that life has improved but we still have some inalienable rights--to say what we want, bear arms or arm bears and defend anyone else to pretty much do as they damn well please.
So, we have a giant party that has more to do with the pursuit of happiness than life and liberty. There are barbeques, parades and if the weather cooperates, FIREWORKS!
(Here in the desert, they can get called off for mostly wind and high fire risk. If we don't get rain this week, there may have to be cancellations. I hope not. I like watching them).
Thus you have my contribution for the EIM, "party."

I compiled a few flag images while I was working on next week's TwobyTwo. The word there is, "Victory." Please take a peek at the some of the prompts I put together; it was a lot of fun and if the mood suits, participate? Love to have you join the fun. Go ahead and look. I'll be here waiting for you.
Anywho, these are what came about as I tinkered with some ideas.

I selected flags that are appropriate for an era--the bottom one represents the original thirteen colonies with the Declaration of Independence; the middle has the Marines raising the forty-eight-star flag at Iwo Jima (Arizona was the 48th state, admitted Valentine's Day, 1912) and the top is our current flag, the Statue of Liberty, our Pledge of Allegiance with the sonnet, "The New Colossus." To me, these images represent the fight for those freedoms.
Indeed, the pen is mightier than the sword.
I like to think I have super powers wielding my trusty Sharpie. This is what we accomplished this week:

That's for the Diva 272, black and white and red all-over. Not the most original comp, but it kept me busy filling in all those squares.
Thanks for checking on what I've been up to. Be sure to see what all the other artists out there have been up to...Hope you have a brilliant day. c

Persevering

I don't know if it's the heat or what-have-you, but I'm just muddling through some of these weekly challenges. Or am I making things more complicated than they need to be?
Oh, that could NEVER be it!
HA!
Last week's IAST was to work up Fengle as a string then work it. A couple sleepless nights and boy did I make some messes there. This is what I actually confessed to making:

Fengle

For the Birds

From there I tried the media treatment at the Diva. Let's just say that whatever that is didn't work for me, with a LOT of paper hitting the recycle bin. I have plenty of markers and they just didn't blend like that. I thought of taking my trusty Sharpie and using rubbing alcohol on it. Then I thought differently.
Zentangle is supposed to be meditative and relaxing. I didn't want to get caught up in the materials so much as the method. And while this shows none of the point of this week's challenge, the result was less stress and more Zen:

Then it was a last minute attack on my very own TwobyTwo. This week the word is "diamond." At first it was all about the sparkle, then I considered the geometric shape. Oh, there's trouble just waiting to happen there!
In real life, one of the things I do is print giclees, or more technically correct, archival inkjet canvas prints. While producing the latest project for a client, I ended up with a lot of sample pieces. So I cut one section up into diamond shapes, after spending hours figuring out the angles and tried to glue it all back together.
Uh huh, not happening.
It all curled up. It'll be pretty once I straighten it all out. Maybe.

So I tried to "just do it" on paper. An attempt at "Tumbling Blocks."

Yeah, well....
Then I tried another cut and paste and the resulting fridge magnet will do.

At EIM, the word is "radio." When I moved to Phoenix, 95.5 was a smooooooth jazz station. It's now a "whatever we want" station on IHeart radio. I give you, "The Mountain."

I actually did one Zentangle JFF:

And I'll leave you with a revisit to Diva 268, to use more black than "usual."
Be sure to check out the various blogs, there is plenty of inspiration to be found out there. Pay particular attention to the "Beads of Courage;" there's a lot of good going on!

(If you're looking for me, I'll be out in the yard. I sent 100 grapefruits to the local food bank yesterday and I need to do it again!)

P.S. This is what 100 grapefruits look like:

The Second 100

Frightening!

I would like to thank the wandering internet soul that checked out all ten of my top ten visited posts last week. It is my hope you found what I have created and what or how I say what I say resonated with you and left you refreshed or inspired somehow. (Should you want to do that, they're posted on the bottom of the page or you could pick something randomly).
I'm excited that this blog has survived almost two years and appreciate that you have taken some of your valuable time and spent it here with me. You're all so swell.

My current offering is limited so far to this week's EIM. If you're not familiar with Every Inchie Monday, it's a challenge blog dedicated to one-inch art. This year all the words factor in the novel, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams. This week the word is "ghastly."

At first I took pause to figure out how to describe this adjective until I started my research. WOW! Choices aplenty.

Ready?
We have (Left to right, top to bottom) Sir Graves Ghastly, a 1970s TV personality out of Detroit; Gastly, a Pokemon character that is 95 percent gas; The Ghast from The Vault of Ghastly Tales; a music artist that goes by Ghastly!; "Weeping Woman," by Pablo Picasso (what a vivid and quite unpleasant depiction of his mistress Dora Maar, in my mind, anyway); and the cartoon character Major Doctor Andedonia J. Ghastly.

But all of that pales in comparison with our choices for the next president of these United States. While the campaign has been dragging on for over two years, it has never been far from entertaining. I could get quite animated about my politics, but I prefer to leave that away from here. I give you:

Ghastly
Digital Composition of
Political Figures of 2016

Now THAT'S "ghastly."

I hope to revisit the Diva, who quite decidedly needs to take a break this week and Adele who will be posting later (I got mine in first last week, so when you go there, what do you see?!!).
I have projects aplenty and I need to get to them.
Have a brilliant day!

A Space Odyssey

I hope you didn't miss me too much or worry that I'd fallen from this planet. I kind of took a necessary technology vacation, unplug for a good week. You ever do that?
Not that I was sitting still. There was the pool to open and the citrus need to be fed this time of year, time consuming projects both. No idle hands here! (And good therapy for my recovering hand).
So I didn't really get to the various design challenges, either. Time to refocus and get caught up to date!

I have some pretty pictures to share for the TwobyTwo. I've also been doing some much-needed organizing and found my daughter's baby blanket that my mom stitched for her. If you've been around, you know my daughter works, goes to school, has a serious boyfriend...you get the idea. It's been a long time since she's been a baby.

   
The second one is part of my receiving blanket. Yup, still got it, still in great shape. It can't be more than thirty years old, right?
You can stop laughing now.
I missed posting last week's EIM, button. I have a collection of vintage button cards on my nightstand, doesn't everybody? So here are some thirty-plus year old buttons:

This week's EIM is robot. If you're playing along with the galactic hitchhikers, the obvious choice is Marvin, but then there's Rosie from the Jetsons or B-9 from Lost in Space (you know? "Danger, Will Robinson!!"). I certainly can't go with something obvious, so while it's not really a robot, it is an intelligent non-human character:

Hal 9000
2001: A Space Odyssey

Two down, two to go...
The IAST this week played with flowers. It strayed into cartoony territory, but I like Zingers.

Say it with Flowers

Last weeks:

Cloud Nine

And the one before that. Since this also fits the Diva this week, I'm cheating and applying it there. (And yes, I used a pencil, so that's cheating, too!). I wasn't excited about it, but the woman next to me at the doctor's office waiting room thought this was an amazing design. The stippling kept me as busy as I needed to be for the waiting part.

The last one is last weeks Diva, bringing me up to date. I'll have to try these patterns again sometime. Like sometime I need to really sit still for a long while and focus. I don't think today is that kind of day. I might wander the weird wide web and see what the others are up to, though. I suggest you do, too! There is such an amazing amount of talent out there, and the ladies that come up with these challenges are quite devious, er, ah, dedicated.

Have a brilliant day, thanks for stopping by!