TGIF

I rarely sit to blog on a Friday. I'm usually doing a lot of running around in advance of the weekend, which I try not to do as the freeway is almost always tied up because someone was in a hurry to meet their maker.
But it always seems like I'm doing something when I should just be home.
I'm doing a fair job of keeping up with the zinchie project, making a couple almost every day. My next part of the project will be to get them all in one permanent place--like framing them up or some such thing.

Broke out the black Strathmore and the white Y-K pen today! That was special!

I'm having a fun time reading the blogs and comments that explain how some of these patterns came about. (Gord?! Really?!) Most of them have been catalogued at tanglepatterns.com, where blog-owner Linda Farmer has a collection of wine-themed patterns all her own. (She also has a conversation about how to organize patterns and I really need to do something!)

Gotta get back to what I should be doing. The weekend is fast approaching!

Drupe Flower

Adele Bruno of Tickled to Tangle put out her challenge of the week to use string 056 by Jill Dobis and some tangles that start with the letter "D." At first, I thought there was too much going on as there were a lot of loops in the string and some fancy patterns to chose from. I started to take some out of the picture then added some favorites for a high contrast image.
I like the official "Drupe," which forms a blossom. At the last minute I added some "dust bunnies," a pattern by Margaret Bremnan, in pencil to carry through the garden theme.

If I try this again I think I'd place the "drip drops," a tangle by Debbie Purdue, a lot closer together to create a definitive pattern. What do you think?
Make sure to check out how all the talented artists responded to the challenge! I always look forward to seeing what everyone else was up to.

Stripes, this time with Sparkle!

I see a pattern here! Over at "It's a String Thing," the call is for more stripes. This time we have a swirly string from Sue Agnew, 055 for week 55 and a monotangle (use just the one pattern) of stripes and apply sparkle liberally. I have been playing with stripes as that was a recent lesson in "One Zentangle a Day," so I have SOME experience under my belt. However, my experience with sparkle...well, suffice to say I shy away from it as it kind of needs some serious planning. Especially in this case, with only the one pattern.

I explored various line widths (which is unusual for me) and assorted stripe patterns.The sparkle was preplanned and set in universal light (all coming from the same direction). I liked being able to focus on one tangle and going for a bold lighting effect. I think the stripes could have used more curves to establish form, but for such a teenie canvas, this is all right. To compensate, I did more shading than my usual work to build depth.

After the Rain

It's been clean-up on our little farmette, tons of mud and yard refuse, so no surprise that all that found it's way into my doodling. The first attempt was just way too chaotic; the second string same as the first just seemed very visual--the pinecones, the single daisy blooming in all the yard and a penny from 1964.
Funny. My brother was born in '64 and will be shortly celebrating his 50th birthday. I have to clean the mud off of it, but I'll send it to him. It's also the fiftieth penny I've found in my yard since I bought the place. Life is funny that way.
That I can't draw my own thumb, not so much.

And then the sun came out

Last night the skies opened up and poured rain. And then it rained some more. And then, well, more rain. That's how it goes in Phoenix; we don't get much rain, but when we do, it's in torrents. This was the first real storm we've had at our house and it was exceptional. The water rose to about a foot (30 cm) as is evidenced by the flotsam and jetsam that found its way onto the patio furniture , the wheels on the cars, the yard refuse piled up against the fences. It looks like I own beachfront property out there. The water found it's way into the house from beneath and above. So there's work to do outside and in.
But first, some meditations. Images of plaids danced through my head and meandered onto paper this morning.

The first one was just a rendition of yards of fabric and the second I called Scottish Sunrise. The plaids almost demand to be altered and varied and manipulated, but for now, I needed simple. I should dig some fabric out of my stash and practice their patterns, but today's not the day for that. Thankfully, it has finally stopped raining. Breathe deep and tangle on.

It's a String Thing #52

While I was wandering the rabbit warren of the web, I was introduced to the "It's a String Thing" challenges by Adele Bruno, CZT. This week's challenge is a string (outline drawing) of a birthday candle to celebrate her one year of presenting challenges to all those tangly people with a list of allowable patterns. Here's my answer to the call (and I used up all the tangles!):

I wanted to do a more traditional Zentangle, so I chose to keep the candle as white space and work around it. The result looks to me like a woman in a long dress with a cape fluttering in the wind, like Little Red Riding Hood or something the Bronte sisters could conjure on the Scottish moors. Perchance, I might think too much!
i've included it on my Flickr photostream; perhaps we'll see this on Ms. Bruno's blog next week!

Bonjour, Bijou!

C'est fantastique, n'est pas?

While i've been working on some fridge magnets to decorate a relatively new fridge (it replaced a 41-year old harvest gold charmer that came with the house. Know anything that has lasted 41 years? And still WORKS?) and was thinking, wouldn't it be great to do a bunch of Zentangles about two-inches square? The black fridge is just demanding to be decorated!
Of course, somebody had already figured that out, that "somebody" being those tangly people at Zentangle [NB: I had nothing to do with it.]

So, this week's challenge from the Diva was to break out the Bijoux, work on those "twinchies."

While I was at it, I worked on another challenge I found along the way (another idea I got scooped on!), to use my name as a string, but went with my "art signature" as it's kind of loopy (like me!), and some other ideas that my brain's been playing with.

I also finished a project I started on yesterday and finished in Photoshop (gotta keep the digital muscles flexed, too!). I'ts not perfect, but supposedly no mistakes, right? I had onions on the brain as my daughter was visiting and one of her favorite meals starts with caramelized onions, goat cheese and bread. Today I'm putting onion sets in next to my roses (I read they make roses smell sweeter, crazy, huh?) and tomatoes (to keep pests away). And dinner? French onion soup! Tres magnifique!

Check out the how-to for "Allium" by JJ LaBarbera here.

With gracious thanks to all you tangly people for inspiration and encouragement. And for also checking out My Flickr Page. Merci beaucoup.

Day 21 Repetitive Patterns

I've been working on the daily exercises in Beckah Krahula's book, One Zentangle a Day, and today is for transforming repetitive patterns. At first, I was a little intimidated by the patterns for the day, but I just took my time with it. And I was going to cram a lot more drawing into this one, but left a swath of white space as it was getting too busy. I drew circles to help tone down the angles. The end result has an Art Deco feel to it, don't you think?

This is also on my Flickr page here. Thanks for taking a look!

I need to get busy as we have guests for dinner, the always entertaining Robert and his lovely wife, Michele with one "L." He's usually busy managing his gallery and painting his landscapes, but in summer the pace is a lot slower (as in, open by appointment only). So, we can relax on the patio with snacks and frosty beverages and perhaps, just perhaps, watch the rain. If we're lucky.