Trying to Relax

After the week I had last, I need some major decompression. I'm continuing my pursuit of zinchies and have done a couple extra already this week. Focusing on an inch at a time is a very mindful and relaxing method to regain my composure. It helps considering I'm looking at the wall where there used to be cabinets and currently are none. It's slow going. Sigh.

LG is, of course, to help honor St. Valentine's Day. (Adele Bruno's story about her pattern is very sweet. When I think LG, I think washer and dryer. Ms. Bruno thinks of her husband). I like hearts and flowers, but right now discussions on flooring and paint samples, floor plans and the like are as romantical as it gets (with a nod to Popeye and Olive Oyl). Oh, baby, baby!
BTW, if you tuned in last time, I was looking for a star pattern and I found "Bales" fits the bill, in an inside-out kind of way.

Betwixt and Betweed Challenge

The challenge from the Diva this week is to just use the pattern "B'tweed." Immediately I figured it would be a zendala on a bar coaster. I'm itching to drop random acts of bar coasters, but only have a few so far. I'm fairly certain that bar coasters and Zen don't really mix, philosophically speaking, but I like working in the round.
The examples of official Zentangles for b'tweed all show the pebbly 'tipple' pattern, so even though this is supposed to be a monotangle, I've included some orbs. Actually, a lot of little bubbles.

The mandala is to be for focus and the object of the designs is to return focus to the center; I think this succeeds in that manner. I look forward to dropping this one into the environment and to see where it goes!

I Could Have Been Lost!

This past week I was invited out for a Girl's Day. Some shopping and some vino were the order of the day, plus some errands as I was going into the Really Big City. The first thing I did was check Google Maps to see where I was going as I was the designated driver. I like maps, real maps, to get a feel for directions, rather than relying on GPS. I plugged in the address of where we were headed and zoomed in to get the cross streets. The resulting paper had very little information on it, and the streets illegible, but it was useful to doodle on! (NOTHING is safe anymore!) The highways made a fine string to draw actual highways. HA!

Imagine, if you will, that I live one square over and four square up and my target was nestled in the middle of the Printemps pattern. BTW, I got around town without a hitch, all the errands knocked off the list, some shopping accomplished and the ladies did a fine job of 'lunching.'

Autumn Challenges

It appears that everyone on the planet has autumn on the calendar, and yes, elsewhere this time of year means "fall" (in the Northern latitudes). Here in the desert Southwest we're just getting out of "Inferno" and heading into just "Hot." Autumn is yet a couple months away.
Some recent travels to Northern AZ and Southern Utah reminded me, that yes, it is September and leaves turn pretty colors, while we're still almost entirely green (which is in itself an anomoly as the monsoon season has been, ahem, generous in its offerings this summer) in the heart of Arizona.
Thus far, I've only really completed one of those challenges, the It's a String Thing 59:

 

The patterns are Oke by Michele Beauch and Meringue by Kelley Kelly on a string by Adele Bruno, the mastermind behind the String Thing. Clever. I added some acorns (and the ubiquitous Tipple) on the bar coaster. The pencil shading has already rubbed off, but I like the medium, working in the round.

Thanks for taking a look see; hopefully I'll finish up those other autumny ideas before autumn actually arrives here! 

I did it! I did the X-Did Challenge!

This past week's Diva Challenge was a real challenge for me. The objective was to incorporate Annette Carlo's pattern, "X-Did." For the better part of the week it was did-not, with a side order of didn't. We were traveling, so there were many miles and a few hotels in between, so I was scribbling on stationery and sketching on receipts. I wanted to do this thing well and good as Annette is a very talented artist and I was not going to not "do" X-Did.
So at home in my normal environs with some index cards and a very sleepless night, the geometry all came clear to me. And all the practice helped me to be able to draw fairly straight lines when I worked out my "real" artwork, no rulers in sight.  The practice rounds on cards looked like argyle knit, so I'll get back to that, but I like the organic feel to the final product.

Kudos to Annette for a very interesting challenge. Check out her blog for her take in a spiral pattern, quite a work and as always, check out the other talented tangly people at the Diva's blog.

Zendala Dare 94

As I wander the treasure trove of the internet and meet some tangly people, I come across variou ideas and challenges. You, too, huh? This one from Erin Koetz Olson is a bit of a challenge for me. I've studied some mandala art and it was always full of a lot of angles; this one, not so much.

I started to add some straight lines, ever so much, and it started to flow, just as it should. I like the movement. So my contribution to Zendala Challenge 94, I call "The Blossom Within."

This art deserves a second look, but with color. For now, the drama moves me; to pause and separate from the drama, if you know what I mean.