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!

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.

Mass De-struction

This week was a helluva ride. It started out peaceful enough--the big agenda item was something innocuous like a haircut. I was breaking in a fairly new stylist--Monty at Carefree Salon. (He's also waitstaff at the Chili's in Tramonto). I was quite pleased by the result and in a peaceful frame of mind.
In short order thereafter, my son landed in the hospital (dehydration. I cannot stress enough: fluids, people! Fluids!) and my car was in serious need of tires, struts and a new battery. Veni, Vidi, VISA!
That kept me busy a good part of last week, with a little daughter drama thrown in for good measure.
In between all that is the kitchen reno. When Sleeping Man gets motoring it's go-go-go! We picked up the cabinetry from our friends at Home Depot, which are now cluttering our patio (the cabinets, not the friends!). They need to be finished, so that's a project for another day. Yesterday, the 42-year old stuff came out, but not without a fight. And, more importantly, where to put the stuff that was cramming a running ten-feet of cabinets?
But still, I kept up my little zinchies!

I'm cutting out little squares from whatevers (and drawing with my trusty Sharpie). Last week it was a soda carton, this week mostly from a waffle box. I don't want to deal with the freak-out factor if I don't have the "right" paper or materials. The Alligator was from a beautiful solicitation from Discover Financial, very fancy. The Chambord label has a star pattern that reminds me of Cathedral Window quilting (and a project I've been planning for, well, as long as my kids have been on the planet...). Which brings me to:

The Inchie word of the week is "Night." I really like Van Gogh's "Starry Night," and wanted to do my take on that, but patience is not on the platter this morning. I did some Googling and found a tutorial on creating this star pattern with vectors. I understand vectors, but for the life of me cannot work with them. And this tutorial just made my head hurt.
Thus, my contribution to this week's Every Inchie Monday is this star pattern. I'm sure there's someone out there that has de-constructed this for the Zentangle method, but I wasn't finding it. If you know of it, please let me know. Meanwhile, head over to EIM for the Night inchies! That's where I'm headed for a good dose of creativity from the brilliant minds that like to do teenie little artworks.

Groundhog Day

I know for some people that Groundhog Day is bittersweet. Finding out there's plenty of winter left can only lead to trouble. It's a big reason I moved to Arizona (and come to find out, it's a dry cold and can be downright frosty!).
For me, it was my Pop-pops birthday and he loved me so, as only grandfathers can. So, HB, Pops! (I think he'd be 111, but he's been gone a long time).
I went straight to the Diva first thing this morning after coffee. I didn't know what I was going to do with the tangle, "Athitzi," by Eleanor Holt, but I went to her blog and there were a lot of spirals, so I went with that. It fit perfectly into my new plan to draw out as many tangle patterns as I can on inchies.
I don't know, but if you're like me you can't keep these things straight. There are so many patterns to choose from! I'm starting to create a collection of tangles so, perhaps, I can see at a glance something I'd like to work with. Or, just get the brain going...you know what I mean?
The plan is to just do one-a-day. That can't be so hard, can it? Here's my first bunch:

I spent a good part of the weekend planning out our very first home remodeling project. Our house is a vintage 1970's mobile home and needs some serious updating. What it really needs are places to put stuff and the first place that we're tackling is the dining area, which will eventually be more kitchen than dining. After many visits to the Home Depot and Lowe's, I kind of drew out the plan for this section on a note pad, inchie-sized. Thus, this is my contribution to this week's Inchie Challenge. (Check them out, there's some great talent! Join the fun!):

I still haven't done last week's inchie, but I'm almost caught up for January. Meanwhile, one inchie a day!

Diva Challenge 202

I feel like I am soooo out of the loop! I'm rusty, I can't find my art supplies! I haven't drawn up anything beyond a grocery list in over a month!
This week's Diva Challenge seemed like a good place to get back into things. The objective was to make a duotangle of Margaret Brenmner's (the ENTHUSIASTIC artist) "Copada" and "Chabacto." All I was thinking about was ciabatta, so I fixed myself lunch, THEN I pulled out a bar coaster. Not having seen or nor tried either, I think it's okay! Certainly a respectable attempt.

(For the record I had the most sinful baked potato with butter, sour cream, broccoli, cheese and bacon. It's how you take a very healthy 100 calories and turn into a 500 pound cholesterol monster!)

Now back to my grocery list!

Twitchy for Twinchies

I miss the Twinchie challenge and I think I need to do something about that, the adage of "if not me, then who?" But I'm working on the "if not now, when?" part of it.

In the meantime, I like the Inchie challenge, Trillian at Every Inchie Monday does a great service to a world of artists who challenge themselves weekly to produce very teenie art. It's a great group of talent and make sure to check them out (and try your hand at it, too!).

Based on her prompts, I've put these together.

Week 1: Eggs

This came right out of an advertisement for Sherwin-Williams paint. For me, there's no perfecting this concept: Robin's egg blue eggs in a nest. It's beautiful. I'm working on a collage of elements from all the egg ads i found in ladies magazines along the way. Soon.







Week 2:  Giraffe

An emerging trend on Facebook has people changing their profile pictures to images of giraffes after failing to solve a riddle. I saw this on the London Mail. 

The riddle poses the question: ‘It’s 3am, the doorbell rings and you wake up. Unexpected visitors! It’s your parents and they are here for breakfast. (really?!!) 

You have strawberry jam, honey, wine, bread and cheese. 

What is the first thing you open?’ 

Facebook users who fail the challenge must change their profile picture to a photo of a giraffe and re-post the riddle, according the article. (Did anyone actually do this?! What's a giraffe got to do with it??) I don't "do" Facebook, so I don't have to "do" this, but if I did, this would be the image I'd choose. Because you KNOW I'd have answered, "WINE" and I would have it wrong as far as the riddle goes. If, in fact, my parents arrived here, there would HAVE to be wine involved. 

Let's move along, shall we?

Week 3: Elephant

I peeked at all the artwork that the group at EIM created for this entry. Some were cute, some were stylistic and most were of the front side of the animal. Like the parable of the Blind Men and the Elephant (check out the Wikipedia page here to get a handle on it, if you're not familiar), I wanted to try a different side. Okay, the backside. 

I came across the image of this pachyderm parked on the bench and had to do a speech bubble, which should bring me to the next prompt on the list!

I'll still be working on this weeks by the time the next one rolls around, but for me it's not so much to get the job done ON Monday, but to take time to just do the work, to make the art. 

Make sure to check out all the inchies for 2015. It's eggs-cellent! 

On the Upswing

Where's the time go? WOW!
The time vampires have really made inroads into my house. Some traveling kept me from home, but then catching the mightiest of flu bugs really leveled me for a few days. I'm feeling better, but whatever this is, you DON'T want to get it.
I'll just stay over here.
I'm playing catch-up in so many ways. And holiday decorating? Baking? Greetings? Are you kidding me?!
As they say in the land of my birth, "Fuggedabboudit!" More on that later.
I'll start with some random "stuff," then move along to some holiday inspired artwork.
First up, a random number selected string with an emphasis on water-related tangles:

Fifty Percent Chance of Rain

Next up, a design I doodled en route to Philadelphia. I had a little note pad stashed and this is what I did. I was going to leave it for the next passenger, but I left another instead.

The object was to visit sleeping man's parents as they are 88 and infirm. Better now than later was the mantra. Got to see his sister and his brothers and their wives and adult children. We spent some time revisiting areas of our youth that I've not seen in, ahem, 35 or even more years. Nothing looked familiar; it was very disconcerting.  And EVERYONE looked and sounded like extras from "The Jersey Shore" reality show. 

When did THAT happen?

Then this germ kicked in and I might as well have been on Mars.

A friend suggested taking Oscillococcinum by Boiron to combat this thing and WOW! This stuff is amazing. 

Now that I'm back home for a bit, I feel almost my normally deranged self again, ready to tackle some of those challenges that have piled up, and they all seem holiday related. 

This week's IAST:

And last:

Festive

And if you do the Diva Challenge, too, you're having fun with Arukas. Maybe? I don't know yet if it behaves well with others. This was my first and so far, only, stab at the new tangle.

Last but least of the yuletide artwork, my twinchie for "Santa." 

There's still my Inchie to do from Monday (and I know already that I'm a little left of center on that one, per usual) and a couple Monday Mandalas to do before, well, another Monday comes along! And I want to thank everyone who commented on my Malibu Ken post; I guess I gave a lot of people something to chuckle about!

Tomorrow's forecast says, "Fifty percent chance of rain!" Funny, that!