Bronx Cheer and APR 120

Today's post is going to be short. And to the point. My left wrist is killing me. Lots of pain around the bottom joint of the thumb. I have my hand in a brace and from experience I know the pain should subside by tomorrow. Starting to think I need this looked at by a doctor. 
Anyway, on the facebook group Square One: Purely Zentangle® where we are challenged to get back to the basics in zentangle, the prompt this week was bronx cheer. That would be all those little blackberry looking bits above. Maria Thomas came up with this tangle as a way to cover up mistake areas, blotched areas in our drawings. Our prompt here was simply to make the bronx cheer part of the drawing. I left the stems off and buried them within the printemps. Added a little waving flux and some beadlines and am calling it done. 

Linking up to the Artist's Play Room for the week. There is a whole week's worth of time for you to add some art of your own!

String 022

This week's string challenge was a lot of fun! I tangled two tile - this was my second. I am getting behind on homework in an online class, but I wanted to get something posted today. 

This was the pattern Linda gave us at Tangle Patterns. (Imagine my tile upside-down.) The string originated from Margaret Bremner.  I tried something a little different with the shading this week. Still trying to decide if I like it or not. 

Good news is I was released from jury duty which leaves more time for art this week! Yay!!! Not that I mind sitting on a jury. (Not sure what a defendant would think about a retired cop being one of the jurists deciding their fate.) It's just more fun being able to stay home and paint and draw and organize and read and . . . well, you get the idea. (Wow!!! Did I say organize?)

String 017 Challenge

I think I am finally caught up (yay!!!) with the string challenges at TanglePatterns. It's week number 17 and the string was provided by Joyce Bruns. After being so far behind on everything - I am determined to get caught up - at least on a couple challenges. I tried something different in that bottom right corner. I alternated tangled sections of hurry and betweed - two of my fall-back-on patterns. I think they work well together. And that has to be the biggest purk I've ever done o.O This was a fun string to play with. Here is the string before I started:

And you are going to have to trust me on this one - in your mind, turn the string upside down and it will match up to my tile above. Haha! And it took me awhile to figure that out! If you are interested in joining in on the weekly string fun, go here and see what it's all about.

Using a Blind-Sighted String

This week's Diva Challenge is to use what Erin calls a "blind-sighted" string. Just close your eyes and draw a string. Give up your control and just draw blind-sighted. The above shot is a somewhat blurry (but the only one I have) picture of my string drawn with my eyes closed. Hmmm. What to do with it, what to draw?

That was so much fun! I must do another! I started with ixorus and that just laid out a plan for me. It's really a challenge to decide what tangles to use where. A challenge to make them flow together. Many times when we draw a string we already have an end in mind. It's hard to mindlessly draw a string with our eyes open. So. Close your eyes and give it a try. And when you are done, visit over here and link it up to the Diva's Challenge. You'll get some wonderful feedback! And while you're there, check out some the blind-sighted string drawings and leave some love :).