Fresh Greens

There's plenty of green all around. The yard is full of trees leafing out, particularly the grapefruits with bright shiny leaves, the apricot that just finished blooming, the mulberries and mesquite are starting to cast shade (and catkins! Ah-choo!).
From every window I peer, I see green! I am blessed to have such a residence, as most homes in the desert are surrounded by various shades of beige or perhaps, block walls.
And of course, EVERY one is Irish this week! My own heritage is heavily influenced by the English isles, but my children can claim their paternal great-grandfather emigrated from the Emerald Isle and other ancestors that resided in Ireland for a time.
In that vein, the various challenges have themes of green. Break out the crayons and markers!

Last week, the IAST had a shamrock string. I have a pot of shamrocks, indoors, natch, and the leaves are quite angular and oh, so petite. It just helps to explain this one:

Colored Pencils

This other one was drawn first with watercolor crayons. The waxy surface was tough to make marks with my Sharpie. The more water I added, the less trouble I had.

It's a learning curve of sorts, isn't it?

Then I wanted to see if I could get Sharpie marks to run and blur. They're alcohol-based, so alcohol must do the trick, right? I finally got real action with 97% isopropyl:

Then I played with some water-based markers. I should have known the colour combination would yield mostly browns, but I was trying to use colors of my shamrocks (they're magenta on the underside of the leaves). This is for this week's Diva and I call it, "Losing my Marbles," as I've been having "fun" with my health insurance:

Note: I still have some marbles left!

These itty-bitties are for the EIM. I'd love to visit Tahiti and live in a tiki hut over the aqua water, been to Nevis, which was delightful and still undeveloped when I was there, we'd like to have our own Florida Key and Gil has been known to fly an ultra-light plane and that would have to be our mode of transport.
Cue Wagner's, "Ride of the Valkeries."
While drawing the deserted island, I was reminded of Yosemite Sam, "I HATE coconuts!"
Alas, there's a Four Seasons hotel there now.

And last, but not least, my offering for next week's Two by Two, "Zodiac." The twinchie challenge marks it's first birthday this week! YAY! I'm grateful to have the opportunity to create and publish that blog and for meeting participants from all over the globe.
My birthday is in September, I'm a Libra. I was always kind of annoyed that I wasn't associated with one of the cool animals or creatures, but rather the only inanimate object of the Constellations. I've come to terms with that and for it being an "Air"sign. I thought hard about this and I love the billowing thunderheads in summer. They form out of nothing, create drama in the skies and nourishing rain when the mood suits. My "air" drawn with watercolor pencils:

Thanks for stopping by and looking! The hand is healing nicely, BTW.
Perhaps stop by the 2 x 2 and create something different there?! It's a birthday party!

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!).