#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.

I Am The Diva Challenge #183 - UMT X-Did, Plus More Than I Can Chew

 

I'm pretty sure this is what you call biting off more than you can chew.  I, uh, think that's what I did this week.  Last week I was looking at a few other Zentangle blogs and websites with challenges, and I thought, why not expand my horizons and go for a couple more? 

 

1. I found one called Made By Joey that has a weekly challenge.  I had missed the current one, but the one from the previous week, #22, was to tangle two of something.  In this case, it is permissible to answer older challenges, as there is no close date.  I liked this challenge when I found a particular string that fits the requirements - sort of...More about that one later. 
2. Then I found a Facebook page called Square One: Purely Zentangle.  There was a suggestion to submit tiles using Auraknot.  I started that one immediately, as it is one of my favorites.  Now looking back at the Facebook page, I can't even find that particular challenge, so I don't know what the heck I was looking at - something from last year that nobody cares about now?? 
3. Third one was to use five overlapping circles as the string.  I'm at the point now where I don't even know whose challenge that was or where to submit the results.  Do you start to see the extent of my obsession this week? 
4.  Finally, there was the Diva's challenge, which was to use Annette Carlo's X-Did.  Such a cool pattern that LOOKS pretty straightforward.  You might think that...

I ended up with five tiles to answer the four challenges.  I'm posting them here and will try to find out how to get them submitted to the various challenge sites. (I've got the Diva process down pat now - I think)

 

 



Let's start with the Diva's weekly challenge, just because that's what most people will look for on this post.  I started with a tile using String 120, which I thought would be a good fit for the X-Did pattern.  I love the argyle look of it, and thought I had it figured out.  On my tile, however, it just didn't cooperate.  I made mistakes, although I chose to just keep going and see how it turned out.  Well, sorta meh...  Not easily dissuaded once I have that bone in my teeth, so to speak, I did another tile that leaves out the bands in between rows,  I think it worked better. I need more practice on this pattern, but it will be worth it. 

For the Made By Joey Challenge #22, it was two of something.  I found String 104, and my first thought was it's a two-piece suit!  (C'mon, you know it is! It even has a belly button!)  So that's what I tangled with Popsicles (modified for modesty - ahem!), Ragz, Crescent Moon and Pillows.

Square One: Purely Zentangle on Facebook was calling for Auraknot.  I got this one, coach!

 

 



Finally, for the mystery challenge of five overlapping circles (if anyone knows what that one is, please let me know so I can actually post)  I used Phicops, Hurakan, Petal Ribbon and Quabog.  The last circle just has some black stuff in it (hehe) Oh, and then I added my own little CO2 circles.

 

The moral of this story is to limit myself to maybe one extra challenge per week.  My brain is on overload, which is the opposite of what Zentangle usually does for me. I'm learning.

Happy Tangling, everyone!

Challenge #182: Yipes Stripes!

What is it with stripes?  Everybody from Bert and Ernie to Marlon Brando to Audrey Hepburn wants to be in them.  (OK, so Harry Belafonte  in those pants is a little weird...) There's just something about Russian sailors, gondoliers and Candy Stripers that makes people think all kinds of things (A-hem!) The only pattern that may be more fun is polka dots, but it's a close race.  There's just something very INTERESTING about stripes.  Maybe our brains are wired to be alert to them for some reason.  We know they camouflage wild animals.  There's probably a reason Venetian blinds are so consistently popular -  weren't they around at Monticello?
We all just love stripes!  So our Diva knows a good thing - great challenge!
So...

Once you start playing with stripes, it's hard to stop. Bijou came to play, and I hear Beetlejuice may be reappearing at a theater near you sometime soon. (Joy!)  

 

So, I started striping away, and here is what I got!

 

Diva Challenge #181: Water

The Diva's challenge this week was all about water, as she and her family recently enjoyed some time frolicking in various aquatic activities.  Like many of you, sometimes a challenge speaks to me and other times, it is a struggle to catch the wave, so to speak. 

For this city girl, aquatic sports growing up consisted of a run through the sprinkler and getting my bathing suit on to help dad wash the car. 

I did a tile with a beachy theme, and even pulled a few out of my archives that are somewhat oceanic (the archives being a couple of repurposed Illy coffee pod cans that hold about 100 tiles each - I don't organize well in notebooks, etc.)  Still, I wasn't feeling that personal connection with the theme.

Thinking back on my feelings about water, I found I do have one really emotional connection to water.  I remember reading an article years ago in, I believe, Readers' Digest, that definitely had my number.  A writer was on a book tour in Wales.  The weather was dismal and the surroundings were rather bleak, and she wasn't having any fun at all.  She checked into her hotel, which was a rather shabby affair with a small, gray and chilly room  She thought she was in for a miserable stay until she opened one more door.  There, in the bathroom, was a magnificent oversized copper tub, shining like the Ark of the Covenant in the wilderness!  The rest of the article was a rapturous description of steamy, fragrant bubble baths in that tub.  I love this woman!

Total bliss!

I am a bubble bath aficionado from way back. As a child, I would start the bathing experience by setting my Garfield Goose bath pellets (a Chicago thing) under the tap and watch the colors fizz and swirl into voluminous bubbles.  I would "swim" and float in the water, draping the washcloth over my torso to keep every surface of me warm.  I would sing and imagine myself as a princess in a beautiful castle with a maidservant to add fragrant bath oils and ready my giant fluffy towel. As an adult, I have been known to stay in the tub for hours, reading by candle light, sipping a glass of wine, refilling with hot water as necessary to prolong the bliss.  My poor husband anxiously inquires "Did you die in there?" No, Sweetheart, but I have gotten close to heaven!  The bubbles, the fragrance, the soothing warmth and buoyancy of the water, all contribute to daydreaming and a decidedly meditative state.  That is my water life. 

But, to continue the theme, here are the other tiles I did, one this week, the others in 2012 and 2013.  Happy waterways!



I enjoyed using Agua and thought just a touch of blue fit.
 

 

Fun octopus and starfish  imagery.

Not exactly aquatic, but still has the feel.

An early tile on Bristol board before I started using Zentangle tiles.

Weekly Challenge #180 - MacDee - Back to School in the '50s

When I was in grade school, the ultimate harbinger of Back-to-School was a new plaid item of clothing.  Store windows and catalogs were full of cotton woven plaid dresses, wool pleated skirts and jumpers, and trim little plaid coats with matching wool leggings for the coldest weather.  Those got slipped off and hung on a hook in the cloak room with our coats. The dress was either tucked inside the leggings if they had straps or they were just worn underneath.  Girls were never allowed to wear pants to school, and tights weren't even invented. We wore skirts with anklets or knee socks. 

My grandmother made all my school clothes with the skill of a designer seamstress, although back then, I just wished I could have clothes from Sears Roebuck or JC Penney like all the other kids.  Little did I know the value of a custom-made wardrobe!  Every summer, starting in about July, I would be called in from play to try on the latest article under construction.  Who wants to come inside and stand there sweatily suffering the pinning of pleats on a wool skirt or the length of a long sleeve with white pique cuff on a brown plaid dress?  I was such an ungrateful wretch!  But come the Monday after Labor Day, my new wardrobe was ready and I couldn't wait to wear it.  No matter that it was still in the 90's and dripping humid  and stuffy in our non-air conditioned school.  Waaaaahhh!  I want the new dress!



Those are not pants under that coat, they are leggings with straps that have her dress tucked inside!

That plaid jumper could have been wool or possibly a heavy twill.