Weekly Challenges & more Artsy Meanderings

Diva Challenge #353

Heart String Zendala

Well...I went completely rogue on this challenge. I don't have zendalas and knowing that we were in for the last of Laura's heart string challenges I had already headed down to my cafe with a couple of eco-printed papers to find out what the challenge would be, hoping that I could make it work if I translated hearts into leaves.

Of course, I could have gotten the challenge at home and found something I could cut into a zendala but where's the fun in that? It's sort of my thing to wait until I have my coffee before opening up the Monday challenges and get going. I used water soluble Staedtler Triplus fineliners and gave the whole thing a spritz of water after I got all the line work done.

Joey#205/IAST#232 

Duo Challenge

Halfway through this I realized I'd forgotten one of my purposes of these pages is to introduce new patterns to my repertoire once I get the required patterns in place. I find I rely too much on the Fescu thing as well as my habit of using Sandswirl and Crescent Moon all the time. Fortunately I stopped myself, did a quick scan over some Square One postings, found Meshmerize and carried forth. This page did not come together for me at all...until I shaded. 

Here's one of the pages in my multi-media journal using stuff from my travel memento box and a couple of zentangle tiles from my "Dud" pile. There are postcards, Paris metro tickets, train schedules and museum entry tickets embedded on the page before gessoing and painting over them. It was so much fun creating this page and reliving my days wandering around one of my favorite cities.

DIY journal

🐾🐾🐾🐾😻

Thanks so much for stopping by. Your thoughtful and generous comments delight and inspire me;-)

Diva Challenge #337, IAST#215, Inktober...

 

Diva Challenge #337

"Artoo"

This week, The Diva's young son "Artoo" turned 7 so to celebrate we're to use the pattern Laura created in his honor shortly after he was born (introduced in weekly challenge #9).

This was an experiment and there were two points in this process I almost gave it the boot, but I'm glad I stuck to it. I used a tile colored with art tissue. I'll re-use the strips of tissue until I've bled out the last dregs of color that I can. At the final stage, I usually just wad up a bunch of damp strips and smoosh them down onto a tile, saturate some more and using a piece of acetate press the wad flat and let it sit for a bit. I end up with just hints of color, which I really love.

I just bought a light grey Staetdler Triplus Fineliner and had an idea to play around with some layers and a bit of a monochromatic color scheme. I started with the darker of the two purples, then the lighter purple and finally the light grey. I thought the line work looked a bit clumsy and thought about ditching it at that point, but I had to keep reminding myself that the purpose was practice and play, NOT about a finished Instagram-worthy piece. Then I spritzed it with water to get some diffusion going, noodled around with a grey Tombow brush pen and then, "what the heck" let's see what a final stem in black on top of everything will look like. Love it! if I do say so myself;-)

IAST #215

Rope String
featuring: "Clob" & "Delys"

I've had a lot lapses with It's a String Thing challenges. Many of them mental. I completed this challenge very early in the week because I gelled with it right from the get-go (usually my first lapse if I don't feel the challenge right away) Rope String? One of my absolute Faves! The creator of "Clob", none other than Jem Miller aka "The Ragged Ray", another Fave! She and I have had several Travelling Tangles collaborations and I'm a huge fan of her work. "Delys"? gorgeous and new to me. I was super inspired by this challenge and got right to it.  Then, I completely forgot (a frequent lapse) to email it to Adele;-(

<<<heavy sigh>>> Story of my life;-)

Moving on... I'm quite pleased with myself for sticking to my Inktober guns. Last year I bailed after the first week. Here's my concertina sketchbook. I'm one page away from finishing the first side:

Day 11
"Run"

Day 12:
"Shattered"

Day 13:
"Teeming"

Days 14, 15 & 16
"Fierce"
"Mysterious"
"Fat"

Aimee Baby!
guess who just celebrated her 6th birthday
Isn't she just adorbs?!?


Thanks so much for stopping by! Your thoughtful and generous comments delight and inspire me 😍🐾😼

IAST #191, Made by Joey #159 and Travelling Tangles

It's a String Thing Challenge #191

Adele's Easter Egg String

featuring: Zenith, Keeko, Echoism and Mel Mel

I had planned to post this last week but time just got away from me. I'll keep this short and sweet as I've got a pile of Travelling Tangles to share along with these challenges.
First up IAST #191: I'm a bit resistant to holiday themed challenges, so the challenge always is to disguise it. I really tried to make the egg go away and I was doing pretty well until the shading;-) I used one of the sunset tiles I created for the current Travelling Tangles swap. It's kinda Faberge.

Made by Joey #159

Finish my Tile Alphabet Series: N

featuring: Natty

additionally: Namaste and Nipa

A few weeks ago I instigated several Travelling Tangle swaps. Here are some of my finishes followed by my starts finished by my peeps.

Bustin' out some Bijou's (or is it Bijoux?)

Raye Burnett sent me this li'l gem

from Eugene, Oregon

Stacey Furtado sent me this cutie

from New Hope, Pennsylvania

Heidi Whitney sent me this Zingo

from Murray, Utah

My finish...

...to Stacey Furtado's lovely beginning

Stacey also sent me this beauty

I pondered it a good long time before putting my pen to it:

I had been looking at Simone Menzel's "Noom" Diva Challenge and thought how lovely Noom and Aura-leah looked together. This seemed like the perfect place to try it out.


Now for my starters:

I sent this to Debra Huff in Oceanside, California

This is her fun finish

This  was my start to the Rooster Swap I sent to Debra

...and her vibrant finish

I sent this ATC to Heidi Whitney 

I love her seamless finish!

I sent this to Margaret Blank in the UK

I love how she finished this!

Another ATC I sent to Margaret

...and her fantasy finish. Cool isn't it?

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

Diva Challenge #310, IAST#190 and Travelling Tangles

Diva Challenge #310

Use My Tangle Monday

featuring: "Frunky" by  Katharina Konigsbauer-Kolb

The first Monday of the month is a challenge to use a pattern submitted to the Diva by fellow CZT's and followers. Frunky is delightful! I've been having some fun with it in conjunction with the current Travelling Tangles swaps I'm getting ready to send out this week. The theme of this months swap is "Look to the Sky". Over the weekend I created a set of tiles using layered art tissue colors representing a sunset. Then I did another one 'cuz it was so much fun. I have many tiles;-)

I started off with patterns like Printemps, Sandswirl and Popcloud. On Monday when the challenge appeared I was excited to play around with "Frunky" with its cloud like qualities. Then I picked one to complete for the challenge. That was a challenge in itself as now I can relate to the difficulties my swap partners may have finishing one of my tiles. I usually don't use a lot of color in my line work, so once the blue cloud area was done, what next? I went to Margaret Bremner's blog "The Enthusiastic Artist" and looked at how she goes from color to color and breaks up the space. I decided to draw in a light stacked string, chose the dominant color for each section (shaded with colored pencil then a warm grey Tombow brush pen to deepen the shadow) and tied it all together with black line work here and there.

IAST Challenge #190

featuring: "Nouvart", "Windfarm" and "Box Spirals"

I was a bit late out of the gate for last week's "It's a String Thing" challenge. After all the Mac 'n Cheese comfort zone drawing, I was resistant to the constraints of this challenge and almost took a pass. As usual, once I get over myself, some very interesting things happen. Below is my first attempt. At first, I hated it. I put it out of sight and the next day, hated it less. Then suddenly I had the urge to try it on a Renaissance tile (also way out of my comfort zone) and pretty much zipped right through it. That's the one I ended up submitting at the 11th hour, but the more I look at the first one the more I like it. 

IAST #190

I'm into a new round of Travelling Tangles so there will be a lot to share. I'll be doing another post later in the week to include Joey's challenge, IAST #191 and more Travelling Tangles, so please stay tuned;-)

My finish...

...to Heidi Whitney's start

another finish...

...to another Heidi;-)

Heidi is an Art Tissue addict too;-) Here's a link to Susan Rink Olsen's Tissue Paper Transfer tutorial on her Facebook page Suzen Art.

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

Aimee loves hair ties

It's a String Thing Challenge #185 and Travelling Tangles

IAST #185

Wibble, Flec and Edgar

Adele's challenge this week was to use a few ribbon patterns, including 2 new patterns by regular IAST contributors.

Here's the line work

I thought I'd include it since I actually remembered to take a picture of it;-) I decided to keep this pretty simple. I did employ Maria's technique of using a coat of clear nail polish on the background. It does deepen the color ever-so-slightly.

I finished 2 lovely starters from Kate Ahrens of the 1 Art Lady Kate, Tangles and More blog. Kate, thanks for taking me up on my offer to swap;-)

A while back I offered several tiles up for swap here on the blog and Kate was one of the few brave souls who took me up on the offer. Who wouldn't be thrilled to open up the mailbox and find this:

For those of you who are unfamiliar with The Travelling Tangles Project, check out the group Facebook page. There's some amazing stuff happening there and lurking is encouraged;-)

Kate and I arranged our exchange independently of the group. The value of exchanging art is incredible. It's a wonderful personal connection to each other and as scary as it may be, it knocks you out of your comfort zone to develop your art in ways you probably could never do on your own. Anyhoo...jus' sayin'...

My finish...

...To Kate's start

I wish the photographs could do justice to the rich intensity of Kate's backgrounds.

I went a little crazy😁

Kate's start

My finish...

...to this start by Anne Marks

traveling from Victoria, Australia

My finish...

...to this lovely start by Susanna Redaelli

traveling all the way from Milan, Italy

I finally got around to this...

...hand marbled tile from Sandy Kelly Jones

Many of my Travelling Tangle ZenPals have sent along hand colored tiles to play with. I'm hoarding a little stack of them. Sandy sent me this ages ago and I just now found it's greater purpose.

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