Zentangle challenges

Hi. It's the last week of school here. Lots going on at school, lots of very stressed teachers and kids craving the long school holidays. The heat has arrived, with temps around the mid 30s this week and next.

Today my son graduated high school. He is now looking for working, probably as a carpenter as that was his best subject this year by a long way. We now have no children at school, it's just me, teaching English to high school kids.

I'm taking a couple of days holiday on my own next week. The place I've booked is only minutes walk from a beach. During those days I will be walking on the beach, swimming in the beach, sitting on the headland looking at the beach, then reading, drawing and sleeping. 

Thanks for visiting my blog this year. Thanks for commenting. 

Diva #345 - happy holidays

The Diva asked us to be inspired by the holidays for our tile. I took that idea and added it to the 12 Days of Zentangle Day One challenge.

My Diva tile used the 12 Days concept - a border deep within the tile, a Z string, Hollibaugh, Crescent Moon, Printemps and a grid Tangle. My border space was in the shape of a Christmas tree. 

Here's Moo and the Husband choosing our tree last weekend. Having a live tree and having the house smell of pine tree is a tradition in our family. Notice the dry grass and how hot it looks. We got there early before it got too hot and before the flies came out. Flies in Australia in summer - hate them but have to live with it.

12 Days of Zentangle Day One

Trying to keep up with these challenges. I'm posting my tiles on the Zentangle Mosaic.

Other drawing

I spent hours working on this piece recently. It is A3 sized. The coloured leaves are inspired by a downloadable design on the Sakura website. There's a video that goes with it, explaining how to blend watercolour paints.

I made a photocopy of the artwork and gave it to my Deputy Principal. She's going to hang it in her office.  It made her happy.

Health and fitness

I had my last personal training session for the year yesterday. My present to my trainer, Mean Man, was to do a very difficult type of push up. He was impressed and surprised. He then proceeded to give me super hard exercises to do, and didn't expect me to be able to do them. He was speechless when I did them so well that he needed to increase the weights. The weights we use are kettle bells and free weights - lots of fun and lots of variations. Love it.

I started training with Mean Man in Feb this year. I did not expect to become as strong as I am now, or to love the gym as much as I do. I get so much satisfaction out of smashing out circuits that Mean Man has created for me. Love seeing and feeling the improvement. I have abs of steel. Yay me.


Happy and safe holidays.

Karen