Pink is Where It's At

I had a good week in Maryland. Kali and I went to see the movie Divergent on her night off. I recently read the trilogy and the movie was excellent! Stayed very true to the book. Can not wait for the next installment - in one year. Also, I've been working on book submissions. Kind of hard to do when all my cool supplies are at home, but I'm giving it a shot. And of course I have been readying all 53 of my little twinchies to go out in the mail. Just have to get to the post office and buy a bunch of postage. These were so much fun to make and I just used scraps of color that came from previous projects. (And apparently I make a lot of pink projects.) I hope to show you a few more tomorrow.

1ZAD - Day 3

One Zentangle a Day, so far I am getting the work done. Posting it on the same day might be an issue, though.

On day three we practiced pokeroot, festune, and hollibaugh. For our tile we were to use any of those, or any of the tangles we worked on during day the first two days. For my tile, I traced one onto the next page in my Hand Bound Journal from Dick Blick Arts. I don't always lay down the four corner dots, as you can see here. I just put down a simple string.

Then I started filling in tangles. Pokeroot has always been one of my absolute favorites! That and poke leaf. My intentions with this tile were to stick with the day three tangles, putting a little festune grouping in there somewhere . . .

. . . but I just realized looking at this sketchbook drawing - - - I forgot!

I pulled in knight's bridge and tipple from days one and two instead. This one was interesting for me. I decided to do hollibaugh not as filled as I usually do, and I liked blacking in some sections, while filling out others with tipple.  So, that was day three. I have day four almost completed, which is good since it is now February 5th. 
Kali and I are headed out the door in a few minutes. Back to the doctor's office for me, then on to Panama City to see the Broadway show Beauty and the Beast tonight. Yay!!!!! Keep calm and get your tangle on :).

Christmas Tangling

 We've been here in the mountains for a week now. Time to head home tomorrow. I can't believe it's been a week already. It's rained every day except one, so we didn't get to go sightseeing as much as we wanted. But that's okay. We filled time in with other things. (Color above courtesy of Derwent Inktense Pencils.)

I even had the opportunity to teach Maria's new pattern Diva Dance to my daughter, who taught it to Josh. I stayed busy all week drawing. What fun! I was able to really get a handle on some new patterns. 

And I got some new pens for Christmas :) gotta go home and play!

Diva's 100th and Christmas

Yesterday was our first day in the Blue Ridge Mountains, getting ready for - and waiting for - Christmas! I spent a little time drawing while we watched an endless marathon of NCIS. 
In this tile you will notice a new tangle. It's called Diva Dance and Maria Thomas designed it to celebrate Laura's 100th Diva Challenge! Congratulations, Laura, and thanks for all your hard work for us!

Kali spent the afternoon mixing up a couple batches of cookie dough. Joshua was set to arrive the next day (today), so the cookie dough needed to be made ready for baking and decorating.

Kali is going to be my pastry chef, so the cookies are totally her area. I figured I'd try to post some photos each day, so, photos of finished cookies to come soon!
You can check out Laura's 100th Diva Challenge here. Congratulations, Laura!

Practicing

I am trying to work on some homework assignments for an online class I'm taking - getting further and further behind. (And it's only week two.) BUT - I want to post something every day - if I can. I started this last night. It's in my CZT field journal. I am trying to have a go at every official pattern. Some of the new patterns I tried here are meer, orlique, and cyme. Aura-leah and springkle are not official zentangle patterns, but I like them a lot!

Diva Challenge #90 - String Theory

It's week number 90 at the Diva's Challenge. Laura  took us back to Tangle Patterns' very first string challenge and asked us to try that out. 

This is what our string looked like. If you look closely, you can match it up with what I tangled above. I started doing the string challenge when Linda was in the second week, so now I am finally caught up! Thanks, Laura! Head on over to the Diva's page and check out everyone's strings. Hey! You could even tangle one of your own and share it with us!

Floating on the Bottom

How's that for a depressing post title? Hahahahaha! Seriously, I wish I was a scuba diver! We used to spend a couple weeks each summer in the Florida Keys. The boys would snorkle and look for lobster. Kali and I would swim in the pool and shop :). A couple years Mark had an underwater camera and was able to shoot some pictures of fish. I've never been down there swimming, but if I could - I imagine this is what it would look like - all zentangle-y :).

When I was at CZT training this past month, there were a couple ladies there that had large artbooks with pages filled with every pattern type imaginable. When I got home I knew I wanted to give it a try. I got a little side-tracked along the way and came up with this, so I will give it another try soon. I built this on a 9" x 12" sheet of Bristol from a Strathmore pad. I started with the pokeleaf at the bottom and the pokeroot in the adjacent corner. I thought fengle would make one awesome starfish, so I did that next.  I just started adding elements here and there.

When I'd get stuck, I would start adding in some color with Pitt markers and Copic markers. Then I realized that ixorus would make some awesome swimming creatures and I kept adding indyrella around the bottom.

My favorite element is definitely that fengled starfish with the danglies and springkles! It also has a little rounding enhancement.

More color added in - when I got to this point I thought I was finished.

Silly me! There was still some room to add in some popsicles (hahahaha!) and those dandelion-looking floaty-thingies. Add a whole bunch more color, and voila! Floating on the Bottom! Just because I can :).
So much fun! I will definitely be doing more of this real soon!
The challenge this week in the Artist's Play Room is ~ juicy! Beneath the seas, lots of water, lots of bright juicy colors - it's just what Jenn ordered up this week. Check it out here and join in the fun!
I am also trying to link up to Serenity Now where Amanda hosts the Weekend Bloggy Reading. You can share your best post of the week and check out other bloggers' fun posts! Why don't you head on over and join in the fun?

Mi2 - The Diva's Challenge #80

I Am the Diva - I love this lady's blog! She is a wife, and a mom of two very active little guys. She is a certified trainer for Zentangle, and she gives and gives from her heart to the Zentangle community. Laura, you are an inspiration to me! Thank you for all the work you do for us!


This week's challenge was to use the pattern Mi2 - that's the one you see waving across the bottom half of my tile above. Gotta say I wasn't excited about this challenge. I've tried Mi2 before - those tiles are long since visiting the county dump. But, I stuck with it this time - I mean, Laura asked us so nicely - and the above pic is what I came up with. I am satisfied with the way Mi2 turned out, although I won't be rushing myself to check it out again any time soon. Hahaha! Also included in the tile are pokeleaf, pokeroot, fescu, and beadlines. You can see everyone's Mi2 offerings at Laura's page here. You could even draw one yourself and show it us :). I would love to see it!

Diva #77: Fiore di Pietro

Fiore di Pietro, this week's Diva Challenge, for Peter's Memorial Book. This pattern was designed by Rho Densmore as she grieved the passing of her brother-in-law. Rho is putting together a memory book for the family and has asked to use our drawings in the book. Rho, yes, you may certainly use my drawings. What a wonderful thing you are doing for the family! You are all in my prayers.

Above was my two-page spread. I drew this out in my new smaller Smash Journal. The pages are small and compact, fun drawing in these books. Patterns on this page are: fiore di pietro, pokeleaf, and sunz (my pattern.) Coloring was done with Pitt Artist Pens.

Rho's new pattern was a real challenge for me. I spent 3-4 hours drawing this 2-page spread. I'm still relatively new at this and speed is not my friend. My fiore di pietro is different on this page, a variation so to speak. And totally not planned. It just turned out this way :). I do know what I did 'wrong', but I like the two different versions. This page patterns are: fiore di pietro, pokeleaf, and pokeroot. You can see all our contributions here, at I Am the Diva! Jump in and join us!

Zendala Dare #12

Behold. The blank mandala Erin gave us this week. This is a weekly challenge where Erin posts a blank on the Bright Owl, and we fill in the tangles! I thought this was a fairly easy one, but it actually turned out to be the most intricate drawing I've done. I think.

And this is what I did with it. I tried some new tangles that I hadn't used before: pokeleaf, pokeroot, fencee, and a variation of purk. On my hand-drawn tile I have a border of snookums in that vast whiteland seen above, BUT I picked up the wrong pitt artist pen and ruined it. Ruined with a capital Ruin! So badly I couldn't figure out how to resurrect it. So, I removed snookums in photoshop. On my real tile I am probably going to remove it with a pair of deckle-edged scissors. Please head over to the Bright Owl and check out this week's zendalas. There is plenty of time to join in the fun and add one of your own :).