#190: Pink For Ardath

What a lovely tribute to Laura's beautiful grandmother Ardath.  Losing our loved ones is saddening under any circumstances, but when the cause is a disease that strikes mostly women, I wanted to just reflect on the feminine spirit.

I've had a couple of scares over the years, but have so far been spared this devastating diagnosis.  I can't speak any more profoundly than others have done, so this time I will just post my tile and hope it somehow captures the glowing feminine spirit that can nurture all of us, not just women but men as well.

I had no plan when I started this tile, but this is where it ended up.  I used a sepia pen rather than black for a little softer look and added color with Tombow blendable markers.  

#189: Yuma

This challenge is an interesting one, and not only because Yuma is such a cool new tangle. The subject of Native American Art has been in the forefront of my mind for a few weeks now. We live in Arizona these days, and Yuma is a city here. The entire state is full of Native American Art and culture, as is our neighboring state, New Mexico.

My husband an I just returned from a trip to Santa Fe, where we purchased a wonderful piece of pottery by an artist named Paula Estevan (look her up - her work is phenomenal!), who should be a Zentangler, if she is not already.
 

Most of her designs feature all-over repetition of one design in black and white. The patterns are traditional Native American, but her use of these designs is very contemporary looking, I think. Plus, her pots are paper thin, and if you've ever attempted to throw any kind of pottery, you know making them thin is a magic trick.

We also visited the Georgia O'Keefe museum in Santa Fe. In addition to having the privilege of viewing Ms. O'Keefe's wonderful works, we also saw an exhibit of works by a close associate and friend of Ms. O'Keefe's, Miguel Covarrubias. He was born in 1914 and just passed away this January - 100 years old!!  One of the things in the exhibit was a notebook in which he had made pencil sketches of various Native American designs. I copied several in my own little notebook (photography was prohibited), and I hope to incorporate them into my tangles at some point. 

If you follow Square One: Purely Zentangle on Facebook, you may have seen my interpretation of Fengle, which was inspired by a friend's Henna hand design in Marrakech.

Isn't it amazing how patterns seem to be such an integral part of the human experience?

So, without further ado, let me add my versions of Yuma to meet the Diva Challenge this week. 

The first one I did more or less as practice, and when it was on the tile, I thought it needed something more.  I just happened to read on someone's blog that you can blend Jelly Roll pens, so I gave it a shot.  Kind of fun and sparkly.  Very eyelash-y!

The second one was an attempt to play with the spaces and use the Yuma more or less as a string.  I'm pretty happy with this one - it almost looks Japanese to me.  See how everything is connected?

Happy tangling, everyone.  Thanks for stopping by!

Antonine

 

#188: National Coming Out Day

I'm so very late getting on board this week, as I was on vacation and not able to tangle or to blog.  So, here goes, finally!

I wasn't sure if this National day was observed in the U.S. or Canada, but no matter, it's a good thing.  I can't claim to have always been so open-minded. Like many people, fear and ignorance fueled my thinking. I was fortunate enough to have three beautiful daughters who educated me regarding gay people and their rightful place in society.  Thank you, ladies!

Now I watch with interest the legal wranglings of the various states and courts over gay marriage issues. What the Supreme Court did this week (NOT hearing appeals) opened the way for marriage rights in eleven more states. It's so beautiful to see stories of couples together for forty years finally able to legally marry. Make no mistake - any real objection to gay marriage is financial, not moral.  It's all about spousal benefits. So I say hurray for every state that moves into line, but let's get those Federal benefits covered once and for all.

So, here is my contribution. I used Tombow markers for color. Then I tangled LaBel and Laced, Girdy, Boomerang, and Trentwith and Trumpits. This was fun!

#187: Blind String

When the Diva's latest challenge came out, I was so pleased with that.  I love those deals with a paper tablecloth and you are challenged to close your eyes and draw your table companion.  The results can be hilariously accurate. Or not...    I always enjoyed children's games like pin the tail on the donkey and blind man's bluff which involve a blindfold.  It was really fun to call all your other senses into play. 

When it comes to Zentangle, the blind string challenge plays right along with all that.

 

However, there is another sobering side to this issue.   I am very nearsighted, and being the "mature" lady that I am, my glasses these days are the graduated tri-focal kind.  The difference in my distance and reading prescription is vast.  When I am doing close work, like threading a needle, reading tiny print like the back of a CD case or, yes, ZENTANGLE(!), I actually take my glasses off and put the object about eight inches from my eyes.  Then I can see just fine.  But I have a real fear of age-related vision problems.  Cataracts, macular degeneration, and who knows what else could spell a real disaster for me.  Because of astigmatism, cataract surgery would not be the magic bullet that it is for some people.  I could lose that close-up vision clarity at some point.  My aunt, who loved to do needlework, suffered from macular degeneration and eventually became blind.  This is so scary to me. 

I guess what I mean to say is I am thankful for ever-improving medical treatments and I rejoice in every day I can wake up and see this beautiful world!  And do Zentangle!

All that (sort of bummer) stuff out of my system, here is what I came up with in answer to the challenge.  I did two strings, which I have posted here:

 

The first finished tile is a bit fuss-budget-y I think, but the other one turned out pretty well.  I got obsessed with twirly things going on.  I also did something I swore I would never do - used Bronx Cheer to fix a "mistake".  Once I got going, though, I kind of liked them.  You might have to flip the second one around in your mind to match the string - sorry! 

 

 

 



#186: The Leaf Is the String

Our illustrious Diva, Laura Harms, has issued an autumn leaf challenge this week.  Autumn has always been my favorite season of the year.  I grew up in Chicago and also lived in Michigan for a number of years, where fall color is a tourist event! 

Laura posted a photo of bright yellow trees - so beautiful!  In Chicago, there was a nearby cemetery that was so beautiful in November at the tail end of the season just before winter stormed in.

October always featured brilliant blue skies as a contrast to the bright red leaves of the maples and oaks and the golden elm leaves (all gone because of Dutch Elm disease, sadly) But in November, skies are typically pale gray.  Not necessarily storm clouds.  Rain at that time is not the thunder booming summer kind, but that cold bleak drizzle that can go on for days. The red and gold leaves have dropped and been swept into piles and bagged.  The bonfires are over, Trick-Or-Treat candy is eaten (or tossed by the moms), and it is almost Advent time.  Have patience - I'm getting to the cemetery part. 

The planners of that property must have thought of just that time of year, and didn't want the view for our departed loved ones to be completely dreary.  Most of the trees there were leaf-bare by that time, but spaced out between those bare trees were bright yellow trees that kept those leaves until the very last minute.  Silhouetted against that pale gray sky, with the dark, drizzle-wet branches of the other trees as a foil, those beautifully oval shaped yellow tree forms were just spectacular.  It took my breath away with its beauty.  I hope my dad (he's there) gets to enjoy that view every November.

Now, however,  I live in the desert.  Not exactly out in the wild - in the greater Phoenix area.  Fall color here means the sage bushes display pretty purple flowers and it's almost cool enough (in the 90's) to plant some flowers in the outdoor irrigated patio pots.  Trees here don't turn color, don't shed their leaves, and what leaves they have are pretty tiny and not suitable to be traced for a tangle string. This presented an additional challenge to the challenge.  I could have just done some leafy patterns - there are plenty of those.  But I liked the string idea.

Enter the dollar store.  I found a pack of artificial leaves, which will look very pretty strewn around my Thanksgiving table down the road.  They were small enough to fit very nicely on the tile, and I think it worked.  I used a tan tile with Sakura sepia pen and Copic sepia pen (very different shades).  I did my shading with a reddish chalk pencil, and confined it to only around the leaf shapes.  So here is my response to the leaf challenge! Now I can look at everybody else's. 

Happy Autumn (I missed posting on the equinox, but close)!

# 185: I want to dance, dance, dance...but I can't dance!

Oh, I have rhythm all right!  In second grade rhythm band I always had to play the boring old block. I never got the stick with the ridges that made the whizzy sound. Never got those shaker things with the metal disks attached that made such a pleasant ding-a-ling. Never got the ultimate prize of that angelic sounding triangle. Antonine, you play the block.  I was mortified in my little group of seven-year-olds that I should always be assigned the clumsiest, least fun implement yet again.  Many years later, I realized I was the one second grader with nearly perfect rhythm!  I was charged with setting and maintaining the tempo for the whole noisy little band. Oh!



But dancing?  No ballet or tap lessons for this clumsy cow. The square dancing unit in gym class was supposed to be the fun one for the year. But as much as I loved the idea and the lively music, I just couldn't make my feet take me smoothly to the next partner swinging along. Allemande which way?  Uh-oh, too late. Try to catch up...ugh. Then there were the ballroom dancing instructions in seventh grade. The waltz. Should be smooth and fluid. Mine was always clump-two-three, clump-two-three.  Fox trot?  Say what now?  Those little footprint guides leave me completely mystified. There is no connection between those numbered, arrow sliding diagrams and my actual pedal appendages. Oh dear.

But DivaDance?  That should be pure pleasure for a challenge. Ya think?

And Phicops is a great tangle!  So why am I struggling with this one?  All week!   I tried first in my sketchbook to get some ideas, but I scribbled over several attempts.  I guess I could have looked at what others were doing for some inspiration, but my inner child was in charge.  Me do it myself!!  I did four tiles, and in each case, I started, started another one, came back to the first, tried to salvage it, finally just slogged through to get them finished.  Yep, it's fox trot and waltz again.  At any rate, here they are, in all their (not) glory.  Sometimes you win the challenge, and sometimes you are happy to just finish the course.  Happy Friday!

Diva Challenge #184 - ING, and other good stuff

Three challenges

Diva Challenge #184 - ING

The dictionary description of "ing" says:

a suffix of nouns formed from verbs, expressing the action of the verb or its result, product,material, etc. 

 All I keep thinking about is Westley telling Count Rugen "We are men of action. Lies do not become us."  How is it that The Princess Bride provides an applicable sentiment for any discussion?  It's better than the Book of Proverbs!  Well, that is a discussion for another day.

"Ing" is an agent of change to action.  It changes whatever it is attached to.  It is a vehicle for countless nouns to be reborn as something new.

This was my first encounter with ING, and at first glance I was unimpressed.  Then I started playing with the surfaces created by the triangles, and things got interesting.  I found that, like the inspiration sculpture, there are surfaces and recesses created, and they are just wait-ING to be Tangled.  I really love the innie and outie aspects of ING. So patterns you use on the surfaces of ING can become something new. And there are optical effects created that make what you see change into something new as your eye travels over and into the pattern.   I will definitely use this one again.

Here is what I came up with for the Diva Challenge:

ING with Printemps, Quabog, and White and Black Pearls

 

 

 

NEXT UP:  Joey's Weekly Tangle Challenge #25 - Leaflet

I've never used this one before, but found it was quite fun to draw.  I added a little hatching in the center and on the edges for depth, and I like the effect.  I did a practice page in my sketchbook which is actually better than the tile, but I am stubborn and always like to submit a "real" Zentangle tile. 

Leaflet



ONE MORE:  Square One: Purely Zentangle - Using Quib

I'm usually not a ribbon-y tangler, but for these last two tiles, I seem to be in that mode. It's fun, and that's what I like about all these challenges.  They force you to do something new and different.
 

Quib

So, another week down, and I managed three challenges virtually stress-free.  I can do this!

Happy Tangling, everyone.