Challenge #114 Stars

 So much happened this week! Yikes. I had a quick trip to Sanibel, FL over the weekend (3 nights), meeting up with my niece Fiona from Chicago. We walked the beach every day....twice if we could get it in, and found a slew of beautiful shells. It was heaven. My feet were so happy to be without shoes and to walk in the sand. Warm, sunny, beautiful days and wonderful talks with my niece. It was just what we needed.

Cute family on the beach

Shells, shells, shells

Sunset

Ahhhhhhhhh

My calves were beginning to hurt with all of the walking, but now that I'm back to VT I'm back walking in socks and shoes on the roads and they are happy again (but my feet aren't). My back is out, but it will get better (I did get to see a chiropractor yesterday). Phew! All that and the awful events in Boston have kept this a busy, busy week. I'm so glad that things are getting back to "normal" in Boston. My other niece told me that she has been living 1/2 mile away from the suspects! Oh my.

Time to tangle. Get the zen. Relax. Chill. Be creative.

This week's Diva Challenge was to create a tile using stars as the theme. I wasn't sure where to go with this one until I saw Helen Williams' Seeing Stars tangle pattern. Yup, that's where I was going to start. I needed to go organic since my mind wasn't in the mood to be orderly. Sooooo, I got to work creating some stars on a tile that I had done a watercolor wash on a while back. Great. Here's what I came up with:

Seeing Stars....unshaded

It needed something; more than just shading, so I got out my new Tombow Irojiten colored pencils and began to play. Wow! They sure are popping bright! I needed to explore the pencils for an online class I'm taking from Marie Browning, so this was a double hitter.

Needing to tangle some more, I started another Seussical Garden while gallery tending today and I kept on going with it when I got home. Here it is so far.....still needs a lot to complete (and fix), I'm using micron pen, Tombow markers, a glue pen, and a water brush:

Tally ho!

Z Challenge #113 Hip to be Square

I've been fascinated with the frames, or squares that have been popping up all over the Zentangle world lately. It got me looking at old frames even to the point as while on a 4th grade field trip to VT's State House, I was taking pictures of frames while everyone else was taking pictures of exhibits, people, etc. It's all about checking out the patterns!

This week's Diva Challenge is to create a square within a square within a square. Great. The outer square is inspired by one of the frames up in Montpelier at our State House.
Here's mine:

Dragonair, ??

Here's the inspiration:

Enjoy!

Using Tuxedo

This week's Diva Challenge is: Weekly Challenge #112: UMT v. XV "Tuxedo". 
Tuxedo is brought to us by LeeAnn, aka Ledenzer. Thanks so much for this fun tangle pattern!
I've been sick this week and not very motivated but that was then and now is much better. I did create the tile in my head this week, and today I finally put pen to tile and began. I like the versatility of this pattern. I had fun playing around with it a bit. As always, I can't wait until I get to see the ending slide show of everyone's entries. It always amazes me.

Kind of reminds me of a rug. Tuxedo and Enyshou