Zentangle drawing

On Sunday I bought myself some stencils to use with my Zentangle art. You'll see evidence of these below in my Diva Challenge, Made by Joey challenge and in my other drawing. 

Today is my day off work - my health issues limit me to teaching only 4 days a week.

Today I'm:

• drawing and blogging
• driving my son to college - he could catch a bus but his bed is soooo warm and I'm such a good mum, yadda yadda yadda
• catching up on marking and lesson planning
• going to the gym for a 30 minute session with my personal trainer, Nick. My weight is not budging but my size is going down. I now see the gym as a place to unwind and relax, even though I 'unwinding' means I push myself to jelly legs state each time.
• Going to school in the afternoon so I can run a Google Apps for Education professional learning event for staff. This is a new, exciting and unexpected direction for me and I'm loving it.
• Having play time with Arthur the cat.

Stencils

Here are the stencils I bought on the weekend. Looking forward to seeing what I can do with them.

Diva Challenge - #316 - stripes

This was fun. And how suited to the brick stencil!

Made by Joey

This week is the letter T which brings me Tamisolo, Tessell and Tattle.

Other drawing 

Followers of the Zentangle App would have seen a recent Kitchen Table Tangle about Dingbatz. Here's one I drew in my Zentangle Journal. I continued to play around with Molygon.

Zentangle + Spray Mists + Zentangle Primer Reticula + Stencils = these tiles

Kitty Pic

Here's Arthur getting in the way - again - this morning. Me sitting at my desk or computer obviously means time for cuddles. 

Arthur update

Had to take Arthur to the vet this morning for an emergency visit. His dew claws were bleeding. Not badly but enough to need attention. The vet thinks he was climbing a tree after getting his nails clipped last week, he slipped, scrabbled for a hold, then partially shredded his claws and took skin off the pads of his dew claws. Sounds worse than it is, although Arthur would still like lots of sympathy. Here's a pity pic.

Have a great week and thanks for dropping by.

Miss L

Diva #286

This week's Diva challenge is a quick draw for me today as I'm just about to go away for a couple of days. The trip is just me and my car, Bertie. Bliss. Look out for photos next week.

Anyway, this week the Diva challenged us to use straight lines. I thought I'd quickly do a spiral. Alas, box spirals are hard to draw free hand. Here's my first fail (I had a second using a ruler which turned out even worse!).

Below is my third attempt. All the tangles are fragments from the Zentangle Primer, except for the tiny red paradoxes in the corner squares. 

Zentangle Journal

This entry incorporates fragments from the Zentangle Primer and layering of tangles covered in one of Eni Oken's books.

Other drawing

Staying with Eni Oken, I have some of her shading guides. For a change in pace for myself, I tried to follow her instruction closely. Normally I use instructions as a rough guide. 

Here is Tri-Roda and Aquafleur shaded as per Eni's guide. The only ink in the Aquafleur is in the outlines of the shape. The dark bands are graphite.

Lunch date

This coming weekend is our 22nd wedding anniversary. To celebrate The Husband had a couple of days away, or 'down the coast' in local Canberran speak.

We had lunch at Rick Stein's Bannisters by the Sea. Rick Stein is an English celebrity chef. He's made lots of cooking shows, owns a few world class restaurants and writes cook books.

Lunch at Bannisters was one of the best meals I've ever eaten. The was simple, complex, fresh, tasty, textual, lovely. Here are some photos.

 

Have a great week.

Miss L

Diva #282 - Spill it

This week's Diva challenge was to use a tile that we'd spilt something on. I chose to drop some food colouring onto some tiles.

Here are my tiles. Lots of them this week. You'll understand why there are lots in a moment.

Where I was when I did my Diva tiles

The last couple of days have been challenging for our family. My husband became very ill on Sunday night. I took him to hospital Monday morning. On Tuesday afternoon he had emergency surgery. The good news is the surgery was considered a day procedure, so he was allowed home that evening.  The bad news is that he will require more surgery in several weeks time and who knows what other follow up. 

The positives out of all this is that the problem was caught and fixed. Thank you Medical System that we have in Australia. Top notch. Wonderful. I was able to care for him and be by his side, which is pay back for the countless days The Husband did the same for me over the years with my health issues (cancer survivor of nearly 10 years). Moo also stepped up by sitting with him Monday night, while BoyBoy did his part keeping the house and pets going.

How does this related to the Diva Challenge? I did the tiles while sitting waiting in hospital. All them done on my knee, not a table in sight.

So grateful for this art form, particularly how portable it is. 

My travelling Zentangle Kit

I have made up a little travelling Zentangle Kit. It includes a lovely, small, hard cover Jasart sketch book with 200gsm pages. This, plus pens, pencil, tortillon, and eraser all fit in a pencil case. This case goes with me to work and to medical appointments, any where where I expect to have to sit and wait for a while.

Here are some drawings I've done lately, based on the chapter about reticula and fragments in the Zentangle Primer. 

Head space

Last week I wrote about being in a black place. That has lifted somewhat although it takes daily effort.

Thanks for the messages of support. Your comments did make a difference. Gotta love this Zentangle community!

Lately I've been reminded of the Serenity Prayer. You would have heard it - it is used by the 12 step programs. I'm not in one of those and don't need to be, but the words of the prayer do resonate.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

One last thing - I've been skiing again

This blog post is soooo long! But I have to share some more pictures.

Last Saturday The Husband and I had another day skiing. The weather was frigid cold, the snow was deeper than it was last time, and our ski fitness levels had increased. We managed to ski for 22km, over 16 runs, over 6 hours. It was a brilliant, brilliant day. So happy to have rediscovered this sport and to have worked out how to get ourselves down to the snow.

Looking up Pretty Valley from the chair lift

Me about to drop down into Pretty Valley. Copper Head Rd, my favourite run, is way off to the left of the photo.

Me taking a break, bottom of Pleasant Valley. It was COLD!

Thanks for taking the time to visit my page. I will get back into visiting yours. Life just needs to settle down a bit, that's all.

Miss L

Diva Challenge #279: "Duotangle Meer vs Auraknot"

This week's Diva challenge asks us to combine two tangles: Auraknot and Meer. I decided to keep both tiles simple. The second uses Hollibaugh to create layers of Meer. 

Other drawing 

Not much drawing at all over the past week or so. Last week is a blur. I cannot remember what I did at all. Maybe I've just been tired?

I did spend time adding to my Zentangle Journal. I'm actually enjoying working on this more than using normal tiles. 

Recently I finished reading the chapter about strings where we are encouraged to venture beyond them. In this tile, however, I stayed closely within the strings. Normally, however, I'm pretty relaxed about staying within them and often don't use them at all. Maybe that's what I took away from the chapter - that it is OK to stay within them on occasion? I'm most proud of my strings of Mooka that coil up the tile and my Huggins, which is a tangle I worked on with Shelly Beauch recently and which still causes me grief. Not in this tile though.

Skiing

Last weekend was a real super wonderful amazing treat. We went skiing. The Husband and I can both down hill ski at an intermediate level although we choose to stay in green runs, which are the easiest level. Although we live only 3 hours from the snow, we haven't been able to get onto the slopes very often since before BoyBoy was born.

Speaking of BoyBoy, we took him with us. He is 17 and has never down hill skied.

After a difficult start and nearly giving up, BoyBoy got the hang of skiing and was beating me down the hill on most runs. Whether that was deliberate or because he was slightly out of control, we don't know. His crash rate fell away and he understood why The Husband and I love skiing so much.

I got quite emotional at times over the two days. It was such a joy to be back on skis after a long break. It was also a chance to enjoy skiing the slopes that I'd first learnt on in my teens yet doing so with my husband (who is THE BEST husband ever!!!).  Ah the memories. 

Most of all it was an incredible, powerful, wonderful feeling to see my boy skiing confidently down the slopes. On the Sunday I was racing down this lovely wide open valley, with BoyBoy right behind me. I was a very proud mother then!

The Husband and I overlooking Perisher Valley.

BoyBoy with an ice crystal 

Snow gums while waiting for the chair lift, Pleasant Valley. 

Have a great week and thanks for dropping by.

Miss L

Diva #277 - Running around in circles

This week's Diva challenge

The challenge this week was to draw inspiration from circles. Here's my tile. If you visit my blog later in the week there will be more tiles for this challenge.

Zentangle Primer

I've been doing more work in my Primer Journal. This week I tackled the front cover. The border features tangle fragments that I saw on Adele Bruno's site recently, plus squill, ellish, skye, rixty, tripoli, flux, florz and shattuck, with a few bunzo-esque pieces thrown in. The gems have some extra sparkle courtesy of a couple of layers of Mod Podge.

ZIA 3D paper shapes

On the weekend I went to a craft fair at my local art centre. One of the stalls that caught my eye and imagination was by Altapapercraft. They had a display of 3D images made from cardboard pyramids. 
You need to go to their instagram or facebook page to appreciate. I can't adequately describe their work. http://altapapercraft.com/

You could buy the artworks already assembled and framed or you buy their kits and try it at home. I bought two of their kits and have spent much of Monday drawing over them and converting them into ZIA.

Here's my 3D star and 3D fish. I already had box-ish frames. Just took out the ZIA that were in them before, added some pretty background card, tangling the backing card and viola. 

Cake decorating continues

Here's my latest attempt at this edible art. I've found that my work colleagues are quite happy to eat the results.

Have a great week and thanks for your comments.

Miss L