In Living Color

We ran off to visit family in Colorado last week. "Run" being a relative term as it was 11 hours each way, but if my sister, the Professor, could travel 2000 miles to visit her daughter, we could go 700, right? I'd never been in that part of the States, among these massive granite peaks. I was not handling the altitude well or this weird time warp sensation as they're just now having spring weather, and we're well into the throes of the season I call, "Inferno." Lupines and columbines are for February. Snow?!!! (Sorry we missed the skiing at Breckenridge on the Fourth of July. NOT!)

And a happy belated Independence Day to my stateside friends! We are blessed with the Freedoms hard won on the battlefields many moons ago. We are free to use our creative voice to say how we feel or what we deem important. We can love, run, pray, sleep, eat and just be.

Me? I'm glad we're not travelling anywhere this week and I can just be--and not sitting in a car! I'm glad to be resuming my regularly scheduled programming--I started this creative week over at EIM. I like the challenge of working on just one teenie inch and it's a fun group of women from around the planet. (I don't know why there aren't any men in this group to create inchies). The prompt for the week is "yarn." I always have plenty handy, but I really wanted to illustrate "spinning a good yarn," as in telling a story. I couldn't really squeeze that into an inch so I went kind of old school (with a tip of the hat to Chrissy who loves her bling!). While I was looking for some materials, I found an advice column and on the reverse was a picture of a ball of yarn and thus a twinchie was born!

The other thing I've worked on is the Diva Challenge, with guest blogger Jen Crutchfield. Her challenge this week to all tangly people is to use color, but limit it to two or three. I typically limit it to two--black and white, with shades of grey in between--so anything outside of that is a stretch. I also try not to peek at what others are up to until I get mine finished. You know? No cheating!? But I stole a look at the work of one of the ladies who does both of these challenges--Jean Chaney. (She's a CZT here in AZ! She also typically thinks WAAAAY outside the box for the EIM. Endearing quality, that!). Jean drew a tangly piece based on a process called "Zentwining," created by Lynn Mead.
I like drawing twisty turny ribbons so I thought that'd be an interesting way to go. I even cracked open a package of artist tiles instead of just opening my journal. I can do this! Well, I made a few attempts and it wasn't anything like I figured it would be, but my teenie brain saw a similarity to the ribbons and well....

Collection of some bracelets
Including a new agate one
from the Professor

Materials--Some Colors!

I ended up collecting two Pitt pens, one conte pencil, eight colored wax pencils, one graphite, one Y&C gel and three Sakura glaze pens, way more than just two per the instructions. I was very excited last week to have actually FOUND my colored pencils, which have been packed away for a few years and left unused for much longer than that, so I may have gone overboard! I practically forgot how to use these things, especially all together (such as how useless a conte is over a wax pencil and if I'm going to go all out, use the good stuff and skip the leftover kids craft supplies).  I'm much happier with this result than what I had going on, but I'll have to try hand at Zentwining another time.

Only next time in black and white!

Thanks for visiting my twisty turny world. Be sure to check out what these other creative types are making!

Peacock Feathers

As I wander the internet and blogosphere, I meet some wonderful people and some crazy awesome talented people. A couple weeks ago, I stumbled upon Tina/Aqua-Art new tangle pattern that she calls "Yuma." I like Tina's style and I was intrigued by the Yuma pattern, as I am Arizonan, after all.

Yuma gets a bad rap for being just an overblown trailer park for snowbirds. It's hot, it's sandy. It's everything that people think of when Arizona is mentioned. I've not spent much time there, usually stop for a bite en route to California. Supposedly, it's the lettuce capital of the USofA. If you have a head of Fox lettuce in your fridge, it most likely came from Yuma. But none of that comes to mind when you see her new pattern.

I also participate in Adele Bruno's weekly challenge, and sometimes I actually submit my response by the Saturday deadline. She also came up with a new pattern she dubbed, "Uncorked." There may have been wine involved. I immediately thought the two patterns could do a duotangle tango. Again, there may have been some wine involved. (Usually). Her challenge this week is to use her Uncorked, with or without another choice.

I also participate in the Diva's weekly challenge by Laura Harms and this week the challenge is to use the tangle Yuma. (Happy Canadian Thanksgiving, BTW). She is quite talented and manages a huge community of tangle artists from around the globe.

So, Lo! and Behold! Twist all of these together and I got this:

Oh! and full disclosure: I had to get Photoshop involved and I know, that's a big NO-NO! But in order to fully realize that artistic vision in my head, that's where I had to go. (That and the Morgue Files to see what peacock feathers look like!)

Other tangly people drag out their Copics and Sakuras. I use a Sharpie, plain paper and voila! So many blessings for a brilliant, sunny Arizona day to all the viewers of this blog entry! Be sure to check out the multitude of talent across the planet for the two challenges from this week.