Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Weekly Challenge #164: "Amanda (Earth) Day"

I spent Earth day at my allergist's office (seven hours of it, anyway) taking part in RUSH immunotherapy. One shot of my own personal allergen cocktail every 30 minutes, for the purpose of reaching a maintenance level dose faster. Fall is my suckiest time of year, so I've got some time to build up my resistance to ragweed and mountain cedar. I'm also ok with rounding it all up and burning it down to the ground. I'll even bring the marshmallows.

Anyway, my mom kept me company the whole time. I beat her in one round of hand and foot out of nine (almost two), and that's kind of a big deal in sandyland. My mom's a total card fiend... she's not completely unbeatable, but there is some high-level strategy going on upstairs... whereas I'm usually pondering whether she's got all the ingredients in her pantry to make chocolate chip cookies as we play. :o)





mom's:






mine:





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Thanks for stopping by! 
Feel free to join me here
where I frequently share artsy things that inspire me, 
invite tanglers to share art,
crack silly jokes, 
and offer up the 
occasional 
tangle 
prompt. 
:oD




Tuesday, April 15, 2014

LOLA.

Lately my go-to tangle patterns have been curvy and flowy, and I've been playing around with a new rather feminine one that I'm calling Lola. I won't use the D-word, but developing this pattern was kind of an absent-minded process, taking one pattern and morphing it into something else, and then into something else from that, and so on, by changing one small thing with each version of the drawing until I liked the result enough to experiment further.






Here's Lola as a border...








as a flourish...








in skydiving butterfly formation... ;o)








as a border with curlies and auras...








as an 'enthusiastic' hair day...








as a walk in the garden...








...and one more zendala.








one with a watercolor background...








...and last, as a potted plant, 'cause I can. ;o)








Here's the basic how-to:




Drawing tips:

Be mindful of which 'lobe' you want to be the biggest and be consistent when drawing these, since varying that part will produce very different results.


When drawing the three inner teardrop shapes, try to keep the amount of space between the outline and the inner shapes consistent. If you have trouble, try drawing the middle one first and then the ones on either side. And the width of the 'stem' part is about how big the gap between the lines should be.





But wait, there's more!
:oD





I thought the swoopy lines of this pattern suited Helen Williams' style very much, so I gave it to her to play with last week. And she very kindly took time out of her chaotic schedule to knock it right out of the park. :oD I just love these... be sure to click on them to view them full size.






















You can see more of Helen's very memorable art here.
She's got an ebook out, which you can see here.
And a video about said ebook, which you can watch here...try not to be distracted by the unbearably cute pile of snoozing kittens on her desk. 

Seriously... I had to watch it twice. 






•  •  •  •  •  •  •
Thanks for stopping by! 
Feel free to join me here
where I frequently share artsy things that inspire me, 
invite tanglers to share art,
crack silly jokes, 
and offer up the 
occasional 
tangle 
prompt. 
:oD

Friday, April 11, 2014

the last snow of the season.






See that rubber stamp there? Notice it says 'I'm dreaming of a white Christmas'. Not 'I have reason to anticipate a white Christmas'. Not 'we're definitely in for a white Christmas'. Not 'hey, we could still have a snowball's chance, even though we live in Texas!'.

My northern friends have all had so much snow they're still mad about it... but nooo, not us. Now we're out of chances, running full-tilt into warmish weather... and I'm left with that lingering feeling of snowlessness. Fortunately, my tanglin' friends have really come through for me. And it's a win-win: I've got several inches of beautiful snow to admire, piled up in a nice neat column... and everyone else still gets to hold out hope that flip flop season will soon be upon them.

When I first contemplated this post, I had 20 tangleflakes ready to sprinkle in with all the others. But then I made them into a mobile for Brandi's Zentangle art show, and it sold before I could scan them in. I really can't complain about that, so we'll just consider this a multi-guest post! Enjoy... these are SO pretty.






  Janet Tucker





 Lyndel Churchill





 Sadelle Wiltshire





 Sandhya Manne





  Sandhya Manne






 Sue Jacobs





 Tammi Rapp





 Tammi Rapp





 Vanessa Kightlinger





 Vanessa Kightlinger





 Sue Jacobs





 Sue Jacobs





Sue Jacobs





my one remaining tangleflake.




The pics I took of the mobile hanging in Brandi Cooper's art gallery:















Take THAT, perky Texas sunshine!




•  •  •  •  •  •  •
Thanks for stopping by! 
Feel free to join me here
where I frequently share artsy things that inspire me, 
invite tanglers to share art,
crack silly jokes, 
and offer up the 
occasional 
tangle 
prompt. 
:oD