In Honor Of . . . My Dad, Zendala Dare #17

The Zendala Dare's challenge this week is to honor someone who has been touched by cancer - either still fighting, or someone who lost the battle. She gave us this template:

and asked us to keep that someone special in mind as we tangled this mandala. 
I thought about that one for a few minutes. In my circle of family and friends, my mom, dad, mother-in-law, nephew, an aunt, several uncles, a sweet photographer friend, several friends at church, even myself have all heard that doctor's diagnosis of cancer. I think the one that impacts me the most is my dad. He battled cancer for years, running tests every 3 months for 4-5 years. Dad died a little over six years ago - not from cancer, but from a heart issue. Of all the illnesses my parents went through, from Dad I received his cancer genes, and from my Mom - her diabetes. 
This tile was fun to work on. In his healthy days, Dad loved being out on the water. Riding around in his boat, putting across the lake, throwing a line out for a fish, setting up a trout line, fishing for cod off the docks of Newfoundland, or casting a net for shrimp - it didn't matter as long as there was water. This tile just reminds me of water and boats and maybe some fishnets in the background. 
Thanks for a fun challenge, Erin! Head on over to The Bright Owl and check out the Zendala Dare. It is not too late for you to post a zendala of your own - in honor of someone you love!

Oodles of Flowers

It's time for the Zendala Dare #16! Here was this week's template:
Each week, Erin gives us a blank mandala template for us to work the magic of zentangle on. We tangle any patterns we want to use, then we share them on her page The Bright Owl for all to see.

I actually drew two tiles this week. I need to practice my line work, so this was my first effort. My straight lines are alright, but I really have problems with round lines. I'll keep working on it.

This one I am little bit happier with. This shot will give you a little perspective of the size paper I'm working with.

I began by watercoloring a couple tiles. I usually do at least two in case I mess one up somehow. Doesn't usually happen, but sometimes it does. Once I decided I wanted to draw flowers, I chose the pinkish tile over the blue. Pink reminded me more of flowers, the blue more of water. I traced the template onto my tile lightly with a pencil, then started adding in lines with my micron.

I just kept filling in spaces. I didn't start out planning on doing flowers only, but it just seemed right as I went along. Then I started filling in spaces with the black micron.
  
And - - - my finished tile. I stood there and stared at those four open pink spaces. I thought about filling them in with leaves, and then thought, no. Less is better. It doesn't hurt to leave some open spaces. To check out everyone's zendala work, head on over to The Bright Owl here. There's plenty of time for you to work on one yourself and join us!

Zendala Dare #15 . . . Already?

It is so hard to believe that we are already at week fifteen of Erin's Zendala Dare! I love doing this challenge every week. I was so busy last week - working on a new facebook page and working on my blog - I just never got around to last week's zendala. I plan on doing it later today so I can get caught up :). Above is the template Erin gave us this week. It reminded Erin of candy. To me it looked like Christmas packages and I was determined not to tangle a bunch of packages. 

So I just started thinking about random patterns that would work well in lines. And I switched a few of them up to make it work even better. Threw in a couple of my own patterns and this is what I got. Hopefully it isn't too random, but at least it doesn't look like Christmas paper - haha! (Actually I love Christmas paper, I just didn't want to do the expected.)


Patterns - auraknot, hollibaugh, crossroads, muzic, melody/variation, newell, woods/weave mixed together, knightsbridge/variation, fescu, and my patterns blox and pipez.


To check out all the zendalas, head on over to Erin's page The Bright Owl here. 

Can We Punk in Pink?

Hopefully I'm not breaking some kind of code. 


Some kind of steampunkiness code. 


I got to playing around today with this pattern auraknot - trying to get it down - and I ended up with a steampunked wall - on a piece of pink background paper. In - what else? - my mini smash journal. I love it! Steampunk is so much fun! And I think auraknot will be, too, as soon as I'm used to it :).

Diva #78 Reloaded

Finally one I'm comfortable with! Hahaha! The Diva's challenge this week was Zentangle's new pattern - Auraknot. Oh my. So wanting to be feeling this one, but not getting it yet - as you can tell from my last post :(. BUT I kept plugging along and finally drew this one this morning. I decided it needed to incorporate something I'm comfortable with - thus, pokeleaf, my new favorite :). Please don't hurt yourself laughing at my previous attempts. I am tempted to delete that entire post - but I am told there are no mistakes (whoa!) - and so, it remains. :sigh:


You can see more (and surely much, much better) auraknots here. :happy face:

Diva Challenge #78 - Auraknot

This week's Diva Challenge was to practice, and get familiar, with Zentangle's new pattern - Auraknot. I watched the video you can see here.  It made perfect sense. Then I picked up a pen and tile and went to work. Let me tell you I was so confused. I did mark my first point like Maria suggested, and that is the only way I was able to complete the above tile.

As I looked at it, I realized it was hard to tell where the auraknot was - because of all the 'aura's I drew around it, so I went over the basic outline with a thicker pen.

Not totally happy with my results, so I did another. I think I like this one better. 

Then, I decided to add a triangle into the background like they show on the video clip. I like this and I probably should have stopped here . . .

. . . but I'd been wanting to try something with pencils that didn't involve water. I like the way this looks - at this stage. 

Overall I am OK with my first attempt with auraknot. Truthfully, I got better results than I thought I was going to get - hahaha! It is a bit intimidating, but oh so beautiful when done right. 

To see everyone's auraknots, please visit the Diva's page here.