Zendala Dare 37

After a good month off from challenges and dares and pretty much any kind of creativity projects, and staring at a nice pile of art goodies from Christmas, it was high time to get back on the horse again this week and start playing! I've got a couple painting projects well under way, jumped back in where I left off with One Zentangle a Day, started Carla Sonheim's Drawing Lab, and found the past three weeks' Zendala templates from Erin over at the Bright Owl. So much to catch up on!! And so many new toys to play with! Too much fun!

Making it in at the very last minute, I finished the week's Zendala Dare this afternoon:

Lanie, Tripoli, and W2

 And tomorrow she'll post a new one!!

I'm so excited about the coming year-I signed up for the Creativity Every Day challenge, there's a few online art courses I want to take, I've started painting again, and I'm also hoping to open an Etsy shop later in the year as well. If I'm really lucky, I just may get to go to CZT training in the fall...It's gonna be a great, great year!!

Diva Challenge #96

Trying to tie up two tangles with one tile...I'm getting frustrated. I don't know if it's the tile limits that are wearing my patience, or something else. I feel like I'm missing...possibilities? I haven't played with a spiral in months, or just a big Zia for the fun of it. I've stuck myself in this pattern of completing specific strings and that's messing with what I feel like I should be able to get out of the process maybe...But I have such limited time to play, I think if I don't stick to some sort of constraint I wouldn't accomplish anything...Vicious circle and I'm getting bored...fast...

This week's Diva Challenge is to use Maria Thomas' flourish pattern Zinger, which I LOVE!! I've seen some great ideas inspired from this simple little design and I really, really wanted to have fun and just play...Then there sits my One Zentangle a Day book with the project I've neglected to finish for the past three or four days...and so I figured I'd just pop a few Zingers in with the day's patterns...

I do need to stop. Stop trying to cram things in, stop playing catch up. And just let it all go, all the pressure and expectations, and just....play...There is so much fun to be had with Zinger and I'm missing the boat!

Anyways...off to enjoy the day, our family, the food. I feel like I want to go lighthouse exploring...I Googled a map of lighthouses in Cape Cod and Southeast Mass...and there are tons more to tour all the way up the coast. Perhaps a new quest, seeing how many lighthouses we can visit?? Yes?

Zendala Dare #32

I suppose I sort of fell off the Art Every Day bandwagon...It's been rather hectic here and I needed to take a break from something...Seems like the first thing I always let go is my art...But I did get a couple things done-I finished my tile for our Zia group Secret Santa swap and popped that giftie in the mail yesterday. Today the kids had only a half day of school so Bug was home extra early with a friend in tow. Hard to concentrate with boys bouncing around in the other room, but I did sit down with the week's zendala dare and came up with this:

Black and white--wasn't sure I even wanted to color it in...

But what good is having that gorgeous set of Prismacolor pencils if I don't use them??

My Secret Santa Christmas tile, now airborne to California...

Tomorrow we head to Ash and Kyle's for an early Thanksgiving (oooo--gonna have me some turkey!!) Not sure if I'll have much creative play time...I still have the week's Diva challenge to do, I'm behind schedule now with my One Zentangle a Day (I so love this book!!) and Miss Holly still sits unfinished as serious painting time eludes me...I'll get there--soon I hope!!

Anyway...thanks for taking the time to peek in and I hope you all have a wonderful holiday!



AEDM Day 16 (...12...)

Well, I didn't actually skip a day of arting, just posting. Day 11's project was a black Zentangle tile, of which I don't have official 'tiles' so I simply tangled on an old black notebook page with my white Gelly Roll pen and I was rather disappointed with the results, so I didn't bother with taking pictures or posting about it. Blah. Not all arting comes out victorious but at least the practice makes one better, smarter having learned from mistakes made, and eager to strive for more successful results, right?

So yesterday morning I stayed with my mother-in-law so sister-in-law could go grocery shopping, run errands, and stop to visit father-in-law at the nursing home. I can't even begin to imagine being in her shoes. Everything heaped on her shoulders...Mostly mornings spent there are quiet and uneventful, save for the cat coming up from the basement to demand some attention. I typically see more of her than of Mom, who spends most of her day sleeping anymore. But Mom actually did get up for a little while yesterday, and sat in the kitchen with me to eat her breakfast. She wasn't feeling well, dizzy and headachey, and soon headed back to bed. I carried on with my Zentangle a Day and this is yesterday's (not official) tile:

 

Patterns of the day were Echoism, Finery, and Flukes. I love the soft feathery-ness of Finery paired with the harder, scaliness of Flukes and the rippling flow of Echoism...

Today once again I'll be playing catch up at home. This whole week seems to have gotten away from me and we have a full weekend ahead with bowling, and the church's Christmas Fair on Saturday, then a Thanksgiving service Sunday afternoon at the Seaman's Bethel -a historic chapel, nearly two hundred years old and the 'Whaleman's Chapel' of Melville's Moby Dick--how super cool is that?? Next week is Thanksgiving break already and I have no idea what we're actually doing for the holiday...I don't dare blink, otherwise it'll be Christmas!

Click here to see more artists in action or to join in the challenge: AEDM

AEDM Day 14 (...10...)

Well, most of yesterday was spent dealing with my Lack of Phone issues...I bounced from the Verizon store to an AT&T store and ended up on the phone with Verizon's customer service (always the way to go!) who've kept me from jumping ship at the exhoribitant cost of almost $300 for early termination of my contract--yikes!! Sorry AT&T...I told the guys who waited on me that I'd be back. I won't. At least not for two more years...But I am happy with Verizon (when they give me what I want--I truly am a brat, I confess...) I'm getting a super cool phone--a Droid Razr M and all is right with the world once more. Like anyone really cares about my phone issues, right? I know--it just took all of my morning to get that sorted out and after spending all of Monday playing, I'm way behind house-wise and I didn't get much caught up after lunch but I will jump on all of that today. Projects are piling up!

I did sit down after dinner to do the day's Zentangle project. Patterns for the day were Vega and Purk (one of my favorites!) And I did a little fill with Tippled Hollibaugh for this result:

 

I was worried the Tipple might muddle the effect of the Purk, but my only issue with this is that it's hard to discern the smalled Purk sitting on top of the larger. It's a little eyeball bendy and I like that!

 

Today, as I said, is playing catch up on finishing the laundry and housework since tomorrow I'll be at my sister-in-law's for a good chunk of the morning--a good time to catch up on reading! I'm trying to finish Fevre Dream so I can at least start 11/22/63 before we go see Stephen King speak in Lowell! Too many irons in the fire! Aaahhh! Haha--it's good to be busy with so many happy things! Thanks for stopping by and have a great Wednesday!

AEDM Day 13 (...9...)

What a beautiful day we had yesterday! It hit about seventy here, just a gorgeous sunny day. The kids didn't have school, off for Veterans Day, so rather than sit inside playing video games all afternoon, we grabbed the neighbors' boys and headed for the beach. Too much fun! They climbed all over the rocks at Fort Phoenix, then after a bathroom pit stop at Dunkin Donuts, we decided to hit the road for Horseneck. I am so in love with that beach! The sand is incredibly soft and silky and the beach stretches away for miles, just rolling waves and sandy shores as far as the eye can see...heaven!

So the boys splashed and jumped in the waves and I gathered up some of those milky white rocks you can only find at the beach. I chatted with folks passing by (especially if they had dogs!) Everyone loved seeing the kids out in the water having a great time--absolutely perfect day!

I wasn't sure I'd have enough time to finish the day's zentangle, even though I had sketched it out earlier in the morning. Made a quick dinner while hubby went to visit his dad at rehab and sat down to ink in my tangle...The day's assignment was to create a design with tangleations of previously given patterns. You could spend all day just playing with tangleation possibilities and something like that could easily overwhelm my OCD brain (is it enough? Should I do something different? Will it look good? What if I did this instead? Endlessly until I didn't manage to create anything...) So I kept it simple and quick and did this:

 



It's all right...like I said, there are simply hundreds of possibilities and I could've spent all day pondering what I 'could do' rather than just do it...so, maybe when I have more time to play I'll try more tangleations and see just what I can come up with then...

Beach pics:

Climbing the rocks at Fort Phoenix

Playing in the waves at Horseneck

Too much fun!! And so much to catch up on today along with figuring out what to do about my phone that fell in the water yesterday...and doesn't seem to want to work for me this morning...Oh boy!! Happy Tuesday and thanks for stopping by!

 

AEDM Day 12 (...8...) and Zendala Dare 31

Running a day ahead somehow! I even spent a couple hours raking leaves after church this morning, but got my Zendala dare done in no time...I did know exactly what I wanted to do once I saw the template-it just screamed Cubine to me. So sat myself down and ta da!! The template also kind of seems like a kalidescope, which could be really pretty in color...if I can get around to a second shot...but for now, here's my Cubine zendala:

 

Cubine with a Gneiss star in the middle

And this is Day Six of the One Zentangle A Day course--patterns given were Amaze, Mooka, and Flux...added a little Printemps in the corner. It feels too light, no depth or contrast. Ah well, we'll have to see what tomorrow brings, right?

 

So, off to feed the pups and round up Bug from wherever he got to this afternoon. Heading to visit Grampa at rehab for a little while tonight. No school tomorrow and the weather is supposed to be gorgeous! I'm thinking we might head to the beach for a little seashell scouting after a stop at the library to see what kinds of goodies we can find there! Thanks for stopping by!