Diva Challenge #312, Made by Joey #161 and Travelling Tangles

Diva Challenge #312: "Coffee, Tea or Me!"

or Spill Your String

I love a good "spill" challenge and of course, my spill of choice is coffee...well, only in the name of art;-) I have a pile of coffee spill tiles I set up a couple of months ago. It was completely weird that I grabbed one of them when I got the email twing that the Diva was streaming live on Sunday night. I have very sketchy internet at home and wasn't expecting a stream on Easter Sunday. I grabbed a couple of tiles and a few pens and hoofed it around the corner to my cafe and caught Laura well into this weeks challenge. It took me a while to figure out what the challenge was as I couldn't see her stain on the video. It all happened very fast so I didn't get a chance to take a pic of the tile before I started drawing.

Coffee spill on watercolor

I did this one last week

I've been fortunate to be able to catch several of Laura's streams (including some of her Travelling Tangles finishes) and it only served to confirm something I've been trying establish in my work, that one only needs to master, say, 20 patterns. Patterns and variations that you can just draw from memory. The magic happens in the composition. It was this blog post by Margaret Bremner where she explores the super simple pattern "Echoism", that I try to come back to when I find myself going all ADD searching for inspiration.
I was inspired to issue myself a challenge. For the next two weeks, unless a challenge requires otherwise, I'm sticking to my top 20. Here's the list I made this morning whilst planning my Zentangle To Do list for my next two days off:

clearly, grid patterns aren't my thang;-)

Made by Joey Challenge #161

Finish My Tile Alphabet Series: P

featuring: Pea-Fea

additionally: Pokeleaf, Phroz and Pixioze

Some of my recent Travelling Tangles finishes:

My finish

Andrea Karen Kine sent this "Sky" themed ATC

from Wooster, Ohio

My finish...

...to Andrea's 3Z start

My finish

This one was inspired by something I saw on The Diva's stream Saturday night where she was working on some of her Travelling Tangles. 

to Debra Huff's "Sky" inspired start

Sketchbook

This is my recently completed sketchbook page inspired by the Primer Studies exercises going on at the Facebook group Tangled and Journaled Too! There were severval Zentangle original patterns listed to be explored and "made your own". I don't own the Zentangle Primer so I follow along and interpret as best I can. There are additional patterns I've included that came on my radar last week that I wanted to keep handy.

Many thanks for stopping by! Your thoughtful and generous comments delight and inspire me;-)

Diva Challenge#305, Joey Challenge #154 and more...

Diva Challenge #305

DuoTangle: Marasu and Molygon

This weeks challenge is to use only 2 patterns, or a Duotangle in Zen speak. A duotangle can include multiple variations of each of the two tangles but I kept this one relatively simple. I  had a couple of watercolor zendalas I'd created for this month's traveling tangle swap and then forgot to sign up.

Anyhoo...I LOVE Marasu. Molygon is one of those patterns that challenge me much in the way that Tripoli does. It starts off okay but goes off-the-rails quickly. I kept a tight leash on it here, but I'm hoping to have another go at it.

Made by Joey #154

Finish My Tile Alphabet Series: I

featuring: Icanthis

Additionally: Ilana

Continuing on with my Bijou series for these challenges.


Here's a Travelling Tangle I just finished:

My finish to this...

...inspiring start sent to me by Anne Marks in Victoria, Australia

Sketchbook study:

Strings

These were the strings I started with

I started this page quite a while ago and just finished it. I've been following along with the Facebook group Zentangle: Tangled and Journaled Too, while they work through The Zentangle Primer. I don't have the book so I just look to what the others are doing and put my spin on it. I really love the back-to-basics, but the intense study of really just a handful of patterns, elevates the exercises to something even more inspiring when you push yourself to explore these patterns in depth.

Thanks so much for stopping by. Your thoughtful and generous comments delight and inspire me!

Diva Challenge #300, Joey Challenge #149, some Travelling Tangles and Sketchbook Fun

Diva Challenge #300

Moebius Syndrome Awareness Logo

This week, the Diva celebrates milestones. The first is an amazing 300 challenges! That is some serious dedication . For 6 years she's managed to inspire a legion of Zentangle fans into creating and sharing little pieces of art every week, but in the process of sharing that art she has nurtured a community which has built some wonderful connections. But she doesn't just post a weekly challenge, she opens up a little window to her world, sharing pictures and stories of her young family's adventures, milestones and struggles.

Her youngest son was born with a very rare nerve disorder called Moebius Syndrome. One in a million rare, where lateral cranial nerves are either missing or broken resulting in partial facial paralysis and some speech impairment, along with other health issues. Laura explains it beautifully on her blog (link above) and I suspect most of you are here from there.  

The most important thing that Laura wanted to share was her frustration at people making assumptions about his intellectual capacity based on his physical appearance. The brain is not affected. He's as smart as a whip, super charming and funny as hell. January 24th is Moebius Syndrome Awareness Day. Here, the challenge is to use the logo as a template and integrate their color purple if one so chooses. I had a couple of purple and blue watercolor zendala's left-over from a swap a while back.

Made by Joey #149

Finish my Tile Alphabet Series

D-featuring "Dicso"

Additionally: Drupe, Demi, Dragonish

Moving on with my Bijou alphabet series. I tweaked Joey's original string and pattern placement to fit my smaller format and font style and learned some new patterns- Demi and Dragonish. The focus pattern is Dicso (not Disco). Dicso represents the 5 basic components of any tangle (most of which can be accomplished with only one or two of these components. (D)ot, line, C curve, S curve and circle (o). The beauty of Dicso is that it's drawn in one continuous movement and  can be enhanced and varied in so many ways.

Here are my latest (and the last of my back log) Travelling Tangles and the link to the Facebook group. If you don't know about this group, please check it out. There's great stuff happening;-)

Now that I'm finally caught up (yaaaayyy) I'm getting ready to start a new round. If there's anyone out there who wants to swap tiles with me, please leave a comment below and if you're not already a member of the group, pop on over and join and I'll tag you when I'm ready to send. My goal is to create 6 starters by Saturday. I'd love to hear from you. I'll give you guys first crack at them and the rest I'll put up for grabs sometime on Saturday.

My finish to a lovely postcard starter by Aleesha Sattva from Thailand

Aleesha started off with a paint "Spill" and lovely pink petals

This is my finish to Mary Dewick's elegant start

This travelled all the way from the U.K.
love her shading!

My finish to Marguerte Samama's little black bijou

I feel like I almost obliterated her elegant start.

Marguerite sent this from the lovely Netherlands. Land of my favorite cheese

and finally a little sketchbook activity:

for the Facebook group, Zentangle: Tangled and Journaled too!

following the Zentangle Primer lessons...

...though I have no Primer. I'm just figuring this out as I go by looking at what others are posting. It's back to basics-Plus. What I love about this that we're prompted to revisit some oldies but goodies that, at least for me, I tend to dismiss sometimes in the pursuit of the next new pattern. The exercises ask us to explore further into these patterns by playing around with line weight, shading and enhancements to create variations of each pattern. Then move into tangleations, combining one pattern/variation with another. It's really enlightening to see the almost endless ways 4 simple patterns can evolve into something remarkably dynamic. 

I continued this approach with my string challenge last week. I finished at the 11th hour so I didn't get it into the blog until now.

Thanks so much for visiting my blog. Your thoughtful and generous comments delight and inspire me!