A Tangled Tuesday

I'm posting a little early this week because, well, I'm ready! I haven't written at all on Life in the Trenches this past week...my mood being all in a bunch, but I've been busy playing with challenges (a serious thank you to Laura, Erin, Patty, and Tammy for coming up with these to keep me happily occupied rather than wallowing in my misery!!) So, off we go!

 

First is the weekly Zendala Dare #20 from Erin at the Bright Owl:

 

I started with the center, feeling rather organic and let it grow from there.
Patterns: Botanica, Boxwood, Chakras, Cruffle, and Laine

Then Laura's Weekly Diva Challenge #84 was to close your eyes, put your pencil to the paper and draw a blind string to tangle. I must say, I did a pretty good string for not looking at what I was doing!

 

 And so using my blind string I jumped into Patty's Tangle Journal Prompt #31 to tangle with purple and yellow! I love purple so this was a joy to do and the yellow is a little hard to see in the pic, but it adds such a cool punch! Thanks Patty!

 

Patterns: 'Nzeppel and Coaster

One of the art journal prompts this week from Daisy Yellow was to create a map of someplace imaginary, which immediately made me think of 'Dawn's World'--where my husband says I live. Hey, it's my happy place and people like me there!

 

 

 Almost done...this is my bittersweet Back to School Idea Journal page...Bug starts fifth grade tomorrow!! Nooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!! Where did summer go???

 

 

 Last but not least, well, quite possibly least...it's my least favorite of the week. I am trying to tackle the pattern Tripoli and I think it's still beating me...But I'll keep at it. Another huge thank you to Shelly Beauch who kindly helped me with a little Tripoli tutorial--she makes it look so easy!! I really  don't like how the graphite shading picks up a glare from the camera flash--I really prefer to shade with a black colored pencil...

 

So there's my week in review, at least artistically...Thanks for swinging on by. Hopefully I'll get to rambling once more over at the Trenches this coming week once we get back into our school time routine and the house is all empty and quiet again...Hope to see you next week!

Daily Paper Prompt #22-Mapping

Today's Daisy Yellow Daily Paper Prompt #22 was to make a map. My husband always says I live in 'Dawn's World' and I always tell him, "At least it's a happy place!" So, here's a little corner of Dawn's World:

 

 

 

Artful Wednesday and My Crazy Dog

Well, Laura from the Diva's Challenge is off vacationing, visiting family and so we had no tangle challenge (yet...??) this week and I've kinda been wondering what to do with myself...Not like there isn't plenty here to keep me busy, but it's nice to have a challenge floating about in the head as a distraction to the reality that we've still not moved yet. Praying and breathing...breathing and praying...

 

But, Ms Erin over at the Bright Owl offered up this geometric goodie for the weekly Zendala challenge. I wasn't quite sure to do with all those....squares...It was so boxy! But this is what I came up with:

 

Cross Roads and Intersection

 

That challenge done and time on my hands, I had another string I'd drawn from the concentric circles challenge that I never finished, so I tangled that up yesterday morning. It's always a good day when you can begin with a tangle:

Gneiss, Crescent Moon, Holz, Striping

Then! Then, then, then...My Tombow pens finally arrived and I couldn't wait to try them out. It's a whole lot different controlling a watercolor pen rather than using a paint brush and I suppose I have a good ways to go on learning how to use these new toys:

 

 

The Tombows also apparently work better on certain types of paper. This is my idea planner/journal that's a mixed media tablet and the ink just wouldn't blend for me so I had to finish with watercolor pencils....I so wanted this to come out better than it did...Live and learn and buy better tablets in the future (along with better watercolor pencils...oh the sweet joy!!)

 

 

And now for a few giggles--this is my retarded dog, Tucker. He's a year old Boxer mix who's tried to eat, well, anything and everything he could get his teeth on. I love this dog like mad in spite of him trying to eat our house--he makes me laugh every day, crushes me with 90lb snuggles, he's always available for hugs and kisses, and he's just nuts!

Along with trying to eat the house (literally--he's chewed chunks of siding off the back porch), he's demolished our back yard. He ate our garden fence. I've seen him romping through the yard with railroad ties dangling from his mouth like they were little sticks he was munching on, and here he is eating a garden stepping stone:

The previous owners left a good dozen or so of these decorative stepping stones (there's another in the upper left corner Tucker's played with) They're not light weight resin--these are HEAVY!! I don't know exactly what they're made of, but Tuck drags them around like nothing...

Toss and chase

Got it!!

He's actually gnawed tooth marks into these things...It's a wonder he's not broken any teeth! But...that's my Tucker boy! Love him to bits!!!

So that's what I have for the week. Halfway through a tangle I started yesterday and got stumped on, so hopefully work more on that today. I have some Game of Thrones ideas floating in my head I'd like to get on paper...very, very super cool!!! But, I hope you all are having a great week, thanks for stopping by and we'll see you next week!

Wednesday Once Again

Welcome back to Artful Wednesday! I'm a little surprised every week when I pull the new pictures up how much I'm getting done, yet during the week I feel like I should be doing more...I suppose so long as I keep on going with whatever I seem to be doing, I'll be okay. It sure beats not creating anything at all...

So, this first tile is for the Diva's Weekly Challenge:

Duo-tangle using only Assunta and Mooka--Assunta is far from one of my favorite patterns (middle section) and I almost wanted to skip the challenge, but then, what challenge is that? So, I bit the bullet and dug in. I did a quick peek at the other challenge entries and was blown away--some are really beautiful, like this one. Click the link, you won't be disappointed!

 Then for Erin's Zendala challenge over at the Bright Owl, first in black and white:

 And colored in:

I'm also linking this to Daisy Yellow for the Random Color Prompt #8, Turquoise, Magenta, and Orange-two birds, one stone...There was another that threw lime into the color combo but I seem to have lost the link to that challenge...oh well!

 Another spiral just for fun and a chance to play with my new Tombow pens--LOVE!!!

 This little one is for an ATC swap on the Zia Yahoo group...It was supposed to be on cardstock or heavier watercolor paper and I just did this on a piece of sketchbook paper--hopefully I'll pay better attention to the swap rules next time! Oops!

 A bit blurry, but my moon and stars Idea Journal page for the week:

 And from my art journal, which I'm struggling with...I did this background a few weeks back and it was so bright I wasn't sure what to do with it. But the July 30th prompt for A Year in the Life of an Art Journal was Love, so I threw a few quick things on there that I love: my guys, Zentangle, Sheetz lattes and the beach...I needed a bigger page to put in the dogs and birds and friends...It still feels really scrapbooky to me and I'm not sure what I'm really doing, but I keep watching tutorial videos on YouTube for techniques and inspiration and I'm hoping to get better at this in time...

So there ya' go. I have a pretty busy day ahead with a showing this morning, then celebrating my uncle's birthday over lunch, and a 31 party tonight...so, should be fun once we get past the showing, anyway! Thanks for stopping by and I hope you'll come back next week!

Artful Wednesday Again

Welcome back to Artful Wednesday once again. It's been the weirdest week...First, it felt like it was taking forever to get to today, since I'd done the Zendala challenge over the weekend, then the Diva's Challenge went up a day late, so I had to seriously sit my butt down tonight to get a tile finished to post! From one extreme to the other, but viola! I made it and here are the pics:

The Diva's Brayd Challenge-Brayd being, well, the braid looking portion, ala Shelly Beach, one of my fave tanglers! Toss in a little Mooka, Rain, Nipa, Mysteria, and Scoodle and call it done!

 This week's Zendala dare over at the Bright Owl, was to do your Zendala in honor of a loved one who's had or is battling cancer. My dad lost his fight to lung cancer almost four years ago--where does the time go??? So this one's for him-all the tangle patterns began with 'D', for Don or Dad:

Daggerly, Dekor, and Drupe, then some simple dots and diamonds to fill in the rest...I think he would like it =0)

 I filled in the rest of the week with a couple other little projects. I had drawn the string for this zentangle for a Diva challenge that was to be done with concentric circles. I had gotten so overwhelmed by all the circles, I couldn't process any further what to do with this tile until now. A simple duo-tangle using Striping and Knightsbridge:

Then this little number was inspired by a magnet I saw at Books-a-Million last week, another page down in my art journal! Yeah! My sister-in-law loved it so much, she requested prints, which I'm hoping to mail off to her later this week....



I think I'm gonna do my new kitchen in MA in a coffee theme...



So that's what I've been up to this week. I hope you enjoyed everything. Sad note: I didn't win anything at the farm show on my zendala, but it still got me a free admission, and I met the sweetest sheep that I think must've been part dog--I never knew such  friendly sheep! Seriously wanted to sneak her home with me...Yeah, that's what I need--not!! Hahaha! Have a great rest of the week! Thanks so much for stopping by!