Challenge #32 Zentangle is for Everyone

Yes, indeed. Zentangle is for everyone. The artistic meditation that keeps you in the present. Every stroke is deliberate. It's a feel-good art. It's quick and you can create it just about anywhere.

Carole Ohl was the guest challenger this week on Laura Harms' blog. She asked us to come up with a Zentangle using four specific tangle patterns (Paisley, Zedbra, Baton, and Keenees). If you send her your completed zentangles, she will put them in an art show she is showcased in, in a restaurant in Ohio. So here are my submissions:

This one was created while floating on Lowell Lake in my kayak.



This was created at home after the delightful paddle.



I hope that you enjoy them as well as those dining at Amicis.



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Challenge #31 Fairyland

At first I thinking that Carol Bailey Floyd's, this week's guest challenger on Diva's site, challenge just wasn't me. I took out a black ATC tile and began to work and found that little girl in me coming out to play. I raised two boys so fairies were not around in our household, but I'm pleased with my tile. If I have time I'll try to get another one done soon. To be honest, this heat gets to me.





I like the white on black, and I thought that the ATC would be a good size to try this out on.

Hope you like it.


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Weekly Challenge #30: "String Theory v.V :Initialize"

While our favorite Diva, Laura, is taking some much needed family time away from her blog, Christina, from stART has stepped up to give her tangle buddies a challenge. Thank you, thank you. I took last week off from the challenge to get myself back into the swing of things after a nice, tangling & paddling, relaxing week at the lake. Now I'm ready. It's funny how I think about the challenge...in my head at first then after some procrastination, finally sitting down and tangling my initials. Block letters as well as script. I'm so glad that I did. I feel so much better now. I tell ya, that zentangle really works! Ahhhhhhhh.

Challenge #28 tripoli

Ahhhh, vacation. In between my paddling I have taken pen to tile and have produced two "tripoli" zentangles for Laura Harms' challenge. To be honest, I've been having some problems with this pattern. I really have to be paying attention to each stroke (I know, I know, I should always be doing that. I hear Maria in my ear....your strokes should be deliberate. She's right, you know). Anyway, I turned on my music and was more deliberate with each stroke and it worked oh, so much better.



This first one I used a string our school nurse drew for me for a past challenge but couldn't find until this week. The second one I was starting to get the hang of the pattern a little bit more. I started with a blind string.



Enjoy! Smile! Breathe!

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ZIA fun

Last night my son and I went to Stratton Mtn to go see Deepak Chopra speak. Wonderful! We then listened to Andrew Bird, Chicago-based multi-instrumentalist, lyricist and whistler. Very talented guy! Wow,it was a great evening.

Today I took a class at Fletcher Farm School of painting silk scarves with Nancy Dorian. More fun! Of course I decided to make a zentangle scarf, which took me all day. Here's what it looked like once I got the resist on:






And here are some close-ups:


















Now I needed to figure out what to do next. Should I put a black wash over it (the resist washes out and will leave white lines in it's place)? Or should I put some color into it; if that, then what colors? Note: by this time everyone else in the class was on to their second or third scarf.

So here's what I came up with:






The black would've been really tricky so color it was.






























What do you think? I'm pretty happy with it, although I am quite tired.

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Challenge #27 "Duo-Tangle"

Wow, another crazy week, but school is out now and I have a vacation coming real soon. In the mean time I've been trying to post this for the past couple of days from my iPad but once I pressed the "Post" button it all disappeared. Bummer. So here I go again.

I enjoyed doing this week challenge that Laura Harms created for us. I've been practicing Verdigogh since the May CZT training and I'm actually feeling okay with it now. It wasn't always so. Dex I haven't had much experience with, but have done some. So, here it is: Click images to enlarge.

Our school has become zentangle central during the last week of school. I introduced zentangle to our art teacher as well as a few others during the school year and the art teacher, Casey Bailey, was smart to save teaching it to the kids until the end of the year. She was so happy she did because it ended up being the PERFECT project to do with the whole school (K-8) since it calmed everyone down. Blissful. Casey kept thanking me for teaching her about zentangle. She used paper puzzle pieces that were used by the Vermont Arts Council a couple of years ago to piece all different kind of artists artwork together. It was a great program and it seemed to work for the kids as well. The bigger size was okay for the kids since they used bigger art pens than what we use for our smaller tiles. Casey had 3 different size pens for the kids to try out.
Here's the 6th graders beginning of their pieces (they finished later):

Here's the kindergarten version:

And, of course I had to play too; luckily I HAVE to go to art class with one of my students :) . Here is what I came up with:

Best of all, is that once I told Sandy Bartholomew what our school was up to, she drove 1 3/4 hours over hill and dale to visit our school. How lucky are we? Check out Sandy's blog to see what she said about her visit.

She was a big hit with students and teachers alike.

Spirals. Challenge #26

'Round and 'round we go. Laura Harms returned and had us tangling in circles! My first tile I started in Whitinsville, Ma at the CZT workshop and finished on Monday.





This second one I created this week. It's not the nice, light and airy pieces I've been seeing, but I like where it took me. It started with a string of black beads.




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