Unexpected time off...

string for the second one

The recent nasty weather that has swept through the South Eastern US gave me two unexpected days off (county canceled school rather than have students out in the weather and potentially out of power at school).  Of course I had spent nearly the whole weekend helping to try to finish the roof project we have going and being distracted by the progress of Irma toward and then through Florida. So, I have spent about half my two days catching up on laundry and getting some grading done!  However, I managed to stay up much too late last night drawing and so have these to share... two squares for a string, as suggested by Laura over at I am the Diva.

  

The better of the two.

I like the outside parts, the inner triangles did not go as planned and then the swirls
on the inside were a big disappointment... but it is what it is, maybe it will grow on me. 

I also will go ahead and share this one which I did a few weeks ago but never had time to post about. Sadly it sat out on the side table and got a drip of something on it before I got a good picture. I like how this pattern looks like coral.

I hope that everyone weathered Irma OK, if you were in the path. It does seem like there will be lots of people out of power and a good many that have lost their homes and/or businesses. Some of my family had to evacuate to friends at the last minute, but their home seems undamaged, if without power for the time being. We were reading about the devastation in the Caribbean and the heavy damage on St. John hits particularly close to "home" for us because we have spent several very good vacations there and know many of the locations pictured in the news well.  Our thoughts and what support we can send are with all those recovering.

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!

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!

Betweed is My Favorite!!

I have had only a little time this week but I love, love, love Betweed so I had to do one piece! I did listen to the first meditation, but I was so tired I ended up falling asleep.  So here is my entry for this weeks guest Diva challenge, one little sad entry...

I must go back to grading and I think I might just go to bed early tonight so I am ready for my meeting all day tomorrow - yes, on a Saturday. Totally unfair!(don't feel too bad, I will have lots of opportunity to doodle which is almost as good as really being able to concentrate on drawing)

Undulating challenge.

How could I NOT take the opportunity to do a challenge in which we were to use 'undulating' patterns? It is such an enticing word! and I love tangles like that SO much. Especially Meringue, which is a big-time favorite of mine. So, instead of what I should do (I am the worlds best procrastinator!), I sat down with a few delicious blue scraps of card stock and set to work. This is what came out the other end of the pen (and blue and green and white colored pencils).

Free form version of Meringue

a more grid like version which kind of began with Cadent

I also decided to go ahead and make the alterations to the second zendalla from last week's challenge entry because the more I looked at it the more it was clear it could be enhanced. So, if you are curious, I added the altered version to that post. Head on over using the link and check it out.

Now I really suppose I should go do what I am supposed to be doing... or maybe I can get distracted by something else along the way... like my pillow!

Run-by posting; teacher style

Week two of school down. One student in this house is getting settled into his new school (he is a teenager so I don't get much from him one way or another), one is ecstatic about his new school situation (6th grade accelerated classes and all that comes with it - I think he is happy to shed the restrictions and dullness of elementary school) and the youngest seems to be happy at school, but also seems to be sick with something... great, the elementary germ parade begins. At least she is happy laying around reading her new Kindle (birthday gift) and if she gets tired of that there is the huge stack of books she checked out from the library with her very own library card yesterday.

We spent last night eating dinner and watching a movie as a family and that meant drawing time for me. So I pulled out the Zendala template for the Diva guest challenge this week - Erin and her Zendalas... how their regular appearance has been missed while she studies away for her nursing degree! Here my interpretations are...

This one did not work out as planned, but with some alteration it is growing on me. In a month I might actually like it. 

This one feels about how I wanted, I might thicken some of the flower petal lines in places to give it a bit more drama.

Edited: this is the altered version:

Earlier this week I worked on a small piece to replace the one I ruined last week that was supposed to go on the front of a card. It is done on brown paper and I am always surprised at how dramatic a change is affected by adding the white to those. I scanned it before and then after to capture the change.

Before

After

That is about all the time I have. There is, of course, grading to be done, laundry... all the usual. See you next time.

Use My Tangle challenge during a challenging week.

We have had some challenges this week totally unrelated to Zentangle, but having Zentangle to occupy spare minutes and let my mind take a break has been really good. The tangle for this week, All Boxed Up has many charming variations... I am not done experimenting with it yet, but these are the first two

Forgive the huge format and fuzzy photo, I am posting from an iPad (which does not always have a friendly relationship with anything Google, like Blogger) and I am no where near my scanner so fuzzy photos will have to do. The two similar sections of this next one are inspired by an absolutely mesmerizing pattern in the elevators where we are right now. I will try to add a photo of it later. This does not do it justice, believe me.



I will have some time on my hands so I may post a little more of what I have been doing if this process is no too painful. See you soon.


So this is me, trying again later since the pics did not post the first time. I went home and grabbed a different computer so more posting will certainly happen this week. Long story short, my son somehow acquired a Staph A. infection in his bloodstream that then set up shop in a couple of places in his leg bones, one of which required surgery to clean out. So we have been at the hospital a full week so far, four days of that in the ICU, with at least several more days to go on IV antibiotics. We are hoping for no more staph in the blood, keep your fingers crossed! I will post a picture of the name plate I made for his door sometime this week. Later!

Caution, curves ahead, or not!

WooHoo! School is OUT and post-planning is done (although there is always more that could be done to prep for next fall... sigh) and now I have about 10 days to clean everything that hasn't been cleaned in, well, lets just say a while and leave it at that...then we have plans! I also have 6 months worth of errands and doctor's appointments and things that are too hard to do when you are stuck in a classroom all the time. Whew! I am going to go to a friend's house on Friday to sew for a while, so that will be fun.

This week's Zentangle challenge was to use ONLY straight lines with no curves. Tough. I am all about the curvy patterns. SO this is what I came up with (thanks to LonettA for the inspiration for the white 'wash' with a black pattern on the black tile - her challenge tile from last week is awesome!).

I like that the white highlights on the Paradox make interconnecting curves... even inside a pattern that is all lines! Ha, I snuck some curves in, anyway!

I got a little creative with the Footlights pattern and squared off the parts that are usually round. The woven pattern was a make-it-up-as-you-go-along, the rest are familiar old friends. 

This one was just for fun and to let my fingers do a little curving after all those lines. Ahh! That's better! See you next week!

White on Black and other color adventures

Greetings from the sunny side of the end of the spring semester! School is out for the kids and I have only two more days of post-planning before MY summer begins... I survived the first year of teaching! And most importantly so did my family, and all of my students (some of them just barely!). A few of my students will be, shall we say, revisiting physics again sometime before graduation, but it was largely of their own doing - or NOT doing as the case may be. I did my best by them and just like in many other aspects of life, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

So this week's Zentangle challenge was to use white on black or tangle on something unusual...

I happened to have some black card stock and I have been getting really comfortable with my white gel pen lately doing drawings on brown paper, so I went for the white on black. I actually used a pencil to shade the white shapes a bit, and a white pencil to do some 'shadowing' as well. I chose tangles that began with A (Arc Flower), B (Beadlines), C (Chemistry), D (Drupe) and F (Frickle)  as I was in the middle issuing grades and it seemed appropriate to get all those letter together for a little party.

I received a very nice visit today from a parent of a student that I spent some time with this semester coaching through some rough patches with the material. She expressed her gratitude for my attentions and told me that I had made a difference in his attitude and enthusiasm and confidence in himself. I was so glad that she shared that with me. I have had perhaps more than my fair share of really wonderful teachers in my time and thinking that maybe someday I could be that teacher for some student was an inspiring thought as I have gone through the process of becoming a teacher. Her contention that I have had such a positive effect on this student as a first year teacher is more than I could hope for.

I wrote a couple of teacher thank you notes for my own children's teachers this week. As a way to make them special I included these little pieces on the front of each card. I am really liking drawing on the brown paper. I need to find some that color that is a little better quality than the kraft colored  card stock I am using. It is a little coarse and soaks up the ink a little more than I would like which slows down the strokes and makes them wider than I would like in places where I pause.

I have another exciting thing to share... I received in the mail today my copy of the Cloth Paper Scissors Zendoodle Workshop Summer 2015 magazine to which I contributed two technique articles. There are some really wonderful things in this magazine and I had a great time paging through it for the first time.

http://www.interweavestore.com/zen-doodle-workshop-summer-2015

I also heard from the publisher of the book I was in last year that they have taken some of that artwork and put together an adult 'coloring book' that will come out in June. That should be interesting, not exactly how I intended that art to be used, but if it gives someone some pleasant, creative time then I am happy with it. I haven't seen it anywhere but on-line yet and it will be a few days before it is available I think.

http://www.northlightshop.com/zen-doodle-coloring-book?utm_source=email&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=cmm-kjc-bl-150521

I'm just glad I'm still standing...

Nothing really inspiring this week. I actually did my first trial of this week's Duo-Tangle challenge much earlier in the week before the tidal wave of papers and projects snuck up behind me and broke over my head. I haven't come up for air since then, even to post, much less to draw anything else. So here it is... my Dex/Bunzo duoTangle - and a VERY happy birthday to Laura!

My six year old daughter watched me drawing this one and asked me to show her how to draw Dex. So we did a little lesson and I helped her with the skeleton grid and she did pretty well...                 Then she wanted to do a few more so we started a piece together. Sadly she got a little frustrated and didn't finish because hers "doesn't look like yours!" - of course I keep telling her that is OK! Maybe she will try again soon and I will help her get things set up a little better next time so she feels more successful.                                       So, if I survive the last week of school I may see you again next week. First I need to make it through 28 Literature Review papers written by sophomores who were mentally 'done' with school a few days before they wrote these papers. **sigh**

My version of our learning project

I see Jellyfish!! And the instructions for a new pattern!

Good to be back after a few weeks hiatus! It is getting crazy here at the end of the school year. I usually ended up running pretty ragged before I was working just keeping up with the schedules of the three kids and all that happens at the end of the year. With a job that is also on the same schedule it is even nuttier!

However, I have a step-out to share and i just had to share my interpretation of the UMT "Brella" challenge from Laura Harms this week. Sadly, I had no Star Wars inspiration (since it was presented on May the 4th (be with you) day), unless "starfish" is close enough. I immediately saw the 'jellyfish' possibilities in Brella...

I also see an old quilting pattern called "Hidden Wells" in its overlapping lines if the "tops" are not all pointed in the same direction. This is the second piece with Brella done the 'standard way'.

Now if you turn all those tops so that groups of four are all pointing at the same corner you would get a pattern like this...

Do you see the resemblance? It is a really fun pattern made out of sets of strips and if you can avoid the bias stretch on the diagonal cuts you are golden.

A few weeks ago I posted a few examples of a pattern I called 'Cobbles'. I finally got around to drawing out the steps and here they are.

Let me know what you think of the new pattern... is it a 'tangle' or just a pattern? 

Have a great week!

Strange Shapes...

This week's challenge to use odd traced shapes as a string was, well, challenging!  I had a few trials and it turned out that I liked the first and last ones the best. I did have a tough time finding things that were more interesting than circles to trace, but then circles can be pretty nice too!

This string was two tracings of a star shaped pin/button and one of a lip balm tin. The tangles are Phicops and Pepper with a pattern I am calling "Cobbles" in the background. For more on that check out the post from last week where I also used it.

The last one was tacings of a few leftover and recently empty Easter eggs. This one was fun! The piece ended up being rotated upside down, but I like the fact that the original string is both visible in some spots and not really evident in others. I also like the negative space in this one.

Must run, have a great weekend!

A late Fanz entry

Well, I was on vacation all week with the family so I had sporadic hotel wifi access and managed to peek at the Diva UMT Challenge . After walking ALL day and seeing every possible sight about the only thing you can do in the evening is sit with your feet up and draw! So here are my poor attempts to use Fanz. I like some of the other versions I have seen perusing the entries better - but, these are what got put down on the paper...

I like the pattern in the upper half of this tile - it is a vacation inspired one done in a little different way. The last time we were in DC I saw the cobble stone streets and walkways, especially near the art museum and came up with a pattern inspired by that. This trip it came back to mind and I tried it out again. I like it, I think it should be called Cobbles if there isn't already one like it. I have done it up in its original conformation in the dark tile below and this is a link to the first time I posted it. 

This is the second tile with Fanz. It has been forever since I used Gloven and the river pattern was brought to mind by looking at old maps from colonial times where the rivers are surrounded by contours like the graduated auras. I also used a blending stump for this shading because it was pretty rough since I was doing it in the car... blend it a little and you can't tell!

 This one was done at the end of last week when I still had Flux on my mind.

Finally, this one came about from seeing all the spring blooming flowers in DC (yes the Cherry Blossoms as well as others) and seeing those cobble stones again. I really like this darker paper and the look of the white highlights it allows. So what do you think, is that Cobbles pattern like anything you have seen before? Should I step-it-out? 

Till next week, have a great one!

An unheard of mid-week post...

Whoa!! Wait, what? Its Wednesday and I am already posting a challenge?? Crazy!

Really I just love Flux and have used it in many forms over the years. I have a little extra step that I do when I do it Maria-style that helps me to keep it evenly spaced, but otherwise its pretty much the same. I tried thickening the lines in places in the first piece to see what that was like and ended up not really liking the effect. I haven't given up on it yet, but  this certainly isn't the answer. Anyway, here they are.