Everyone needs a little Dance once in a while!

This was my second week of work for the school year, first week with students back... it felt like Thursday night after a long week by Tuesday morning when I woke up! I definitely need a little Dance in my life this week. I only have enough energy to make it some Diva Dance, however, so I am glad that that was the challenge over at I am the Diva. I don't use this pattern a lot because I am a little too planned most of the time and it ends up not random enough... however, I really like it in this one. Of course I left out the Lisbon... I have used that pattern before but it was called something else... Navaho, maybe?  I am going to have to try for another version of this some tim this week including the Lisbon, maybe coming out of some Mi2.

 Have a great week, and have a little dance sometime!

Pre-first day of school de-stressing

This week was crazy busy. I worked hard all week long and seemed to only stay in the same place... I felt like I was walking the wrong direction on one of those moving walkways at the airport (oh, it would be nice to be at the airport... that would mean I was going somewhere or meeting someone who was coming to see me!). By Friday night at 7pm, still at school, knowing full well I was no where close to being ready for students on Monday morning all I wanted to do was go home, eat dinner with the kids, maybe consume an adult beverage and draw something simple that needed no thought whatsoever. The Nzepple guest challenge over at The Diva was just the thing. I don't normally think of Nzepple as a focus tangle... it is something that I would use in the background to fill in. So using it for a mono tangle would be interesting. I did not try to get creative, I did not try anything fancy - remember, I just wanted something simple, clean, mindless...

It is a little simplistic for my taste, but it is what my brain needed at the moment.

I hope to be able to keep up with challenges as the semester unfolds. Right now I need to finish a big assignment for my endorsement class that is due tonight... the weekend before school starts.. who planned that deadline?! Have a great week!

Back to school, back to posting?

I cannot believe that it has been so long since I posted here. Facebook has been the Bain of blogging in my opinion. I van still post and get feedback without the need to blog about it... however, there is less reflection then as well. Faster, but not as rich - isn't that always the way. I would really like to get back to challenge participation as it gives me a 'problem' to address which makes for a better result than if I am just stumbling around on my own.

So, with that in mind, here is an entry for the Peanuckle challenge over at "I am the Diva".

I was able to get together with my sister for a few days earlier this summer and we worked on quite a few tangle peices, even one larger cooperative piece. I think it turned out rather well.

Two tiles are mine, two are my sisters - can you guess which is which?

I have a lot of other work from the last year and I will have to work on posting some of it here. But for now, I will leave just this one.  Have a great one!

Making my own jewels.

Around the turn of the year in late December or January I became interested in the "gems" trend. Mostly I like to figure out the 'how to's' of a new technique and then I can use it when I want but don't usually get hooked for too long. Such a thing happened with gems. They are interesting, and a bit of a challenge at times, but not something I would use all the time. I made these two pieces and then was kind of over it.

February Fling

I traveled to New Orleans for a set of workshops at a national meeting in February and got to see a good friend from far away in the process. It was really good to catch up with her and we had a wonderful time. I had some time at the hotel before she arrived when it was too late to be walking around the French Quarter by myself so I made a couple of pieces on the brown paper I love to use. I will show both the un-shaded versions and the results of both shading and highlighting.

I gave this one to my friend.

This one I have in a small white frame.

Long lost!

Oh. My. Goodness! It has 6 months since my last post!

This spring was a terrifically busy semester for me with a new class with a few new things to teach (Internship), a packed Research class with LOTS of grading of long papers and a great Physics class that was really pretty easy - although I should probably have been more diligent about a few non-AP curriculum things that would have made for much more grading. I will see how it all turned out when the AP grades come out in July I suppose.

Anyway, I have not really had consistent time to draw, and really no time for responding to challenges. I HAVE done some drawing here and there, but not for challenges and never with time to sit down and post. Well, school is over.  I have had a week and a half to catch up on sleep and house cleaning and even get a household project done! Then The Diva Challenge about the Beads of Courage Color Run really jumped out at me today. So here goes.

the original wash

I am not one to really work much in color and I have tried to do color washes and never really nailed it.  I *think* too much about what I intend to draw on the colors while I am painting and then they come out all stilted and 'planned'. Then when I was going through the portfolio of art projects my daughter brought home I saw the gorgeous "warm" color wash she did in class. I asked her if she trusted me to draw on it and she gave me permission! I had to be very brave to begin drawing and then when it went well at first I needed to be even braver to continue, afraid with each step that I would mess it up! So this was actually done since school was out, but I think it applies for this challenge.

Lots of tangles: Puff, Gnili, Swanz, Mooka, Inapod, Beadz and a little Fescue

Then over the weekend she and I sat down to make more washes and I made a large one I liked. The colors in the Color Run photos reminded me of these color splashes.  I don't have a photo of the original, but I think the result is pretty interesting, sort sea-scape-ish, but not on purpose.

Lots of patterns in this one too: a little Mooka, Punzel, Socc, PopCloud, Flux, Zenplosion Folds, K'leesi, Fracas, Indyrella, Finery, and two tear drop shaped areas of Zen Weaving (shown in the detail below). 

one of my favorite areas

Now I need to be brave again... She made another red, orange and yellow wash that looks great and asked me to draw on it! Ack! I will let you know how it goes (and maybe do some catch-up posts of things I have done since, well, last December)!

To the TREES!!

Just a quick posting, after so many months, in response to Dilip's guest post this week at I am the Diva. His challenge this week was to monotangle a tree or two in support of reforestation and restoration of the environment. I love this idea and have always had a special attachment to trees in my surroundings so I could not pass it up. There are many practical uses for trees of course and many reasons they are great to have around, but I think I am mentally healthier with them around as well. I remember how important they were to me on a day many years ago when I first learned of the death of a very close loved one. As soon as I could manage it I felt I needed to go for a walk in the woods near my house to be alone with the trees and try to process the loss.  I needed their silent, solid presence to hold down a world that very much felt like it was tumbling out of control.

So, despite it being the busy end of semester time with grading fatigue and a sore wrist from too much writing and typing, I iced my wrist a bit and got out the drawing materials... Had to dust them off even!