Love and Simplicity

The Diva, Laura, is not hosting a weekly challenge because her grandmother just passed away.  I'm very sorry for the family's loss and hope that everyone will enjoy their fond memories of special times together.

In memory of Laura's grandmother, I'm posting my very first Diva challenge tile here for challenge #1: simplicity.

It's Not Easy Being Green

Oops!  I picked up a green Micron instead of a black one for this week's Bright Owl Zendala Dare (#46).  Well, when life hands you lemons... make a green Zendala!

I started with the Striping and Crescent Moon in the outer bulbs.  I liked the inner bulbs but thought I wanted to do a single pattern in the center.  Phicops to the rescue!  I love how they come out.  Some Fescu filled in the inner and outer areas.

I needed some shading, but I've learned that I don't really like regular pencil shading with colored pens. I used my Prismacolor colored pencils to add some color and shading.  I'm not sure I'm using these correctly, but it was fun to do.  That's all that matters, right?

Here is this week's Zendala Dare:

Sharing Zentangle

I've had the most wonderful weekend filled with tangling!  

Yesterday I gave a private lesson to a dear friend who has had a stressful year.  It was lovely to sit and tangle with her.  Here are the tiles we created:

I also taught a Zendala class in North Chelmsford.  It was awesome to see how people used the tangle patterns in different shapes.  I hope everyone will share their finished Zendalas with me when they're done!

Zentangle Isn't a Quandary

Life poses a lot of quandaries.  How do we act?  What do we say?  Which choice should we make?

Fortunately, with the Zentangle® method, there are very few quandaries.  Just pick up a pen and tile and start tangling!  No fear, no worries, no expectations.

This week's Diva challenge was to use the new official pattern Quandary.  I've been having mixed feelings about this pattern.  I find that any pattern that looks better with evenly spaced items is a bit tricky for me to do.  Of course that means I'll keep playing with it until I feel more comfortable with the pattern.

I love Carol Ohl's tangled love pattern/string and decided to create a Valentine with variations of Quandary and similar looking patterns.  It's isn't a quandary who I choose as my Valentine each and every year--my wonderful, darling husband.  We haven't been able to celebrate Valentine's Day with our daughter recovering from surgery, so I don't think he'll mind this Valentine being late.

I think my closest Quandary is in the bottom half of the two hearts toward the top.  Maybe it worked for me because it was a smaller space.  :-)

Daring Zendalas

This week's Bright Owl Zendala Dare #45 reminded me of a wreath at first, so I think I intentionally picked tangles that weren't leafy to start.  I ended up with some flowers on the outer edge though.

I was flipping through the Joy of Zentangle book and decided to try a few patterns that were new to me.  I ended up filling the entire tile with patterns from this fun book.  I used Soup Bowls, Floating Discs, Twilight Zone, Flora, and variations of King's Crown and Bubbles.

 

Do I Have To?

I spent a lovely gray day doing something I love.... tangling and sharing the Zentangle® method with others.  I had a wonderful time teaching at the Stevens Memorial Library in North Andover to an eager group of new and returning tanglers.  I made sure to mix up the tangles so everyone would learn patterns that were new to them.

This class had such a wonderful energy with thoughtful questions and focused tangling.

One of the great questions was, "Do I have to divide up my tile?"  There are few "have tos" with the Zentangle method.  I love how freeing this art form is.  The border and string can help take some of the fear out of starting--if a blank canvas is intimidating, break it up into smaller pieces.  If the border and string feel confining, just start tangling anywhere on the tile.  It's up to you how you want to proceed each time you pick up your pen.

I often tangle without the border and string, but sometimes I feel less creative, or my mind is full of thoughts.  During those times, I find the string and border freeing because they help me to get started.  These are tools to help with our tangling, but tools should not become barriers to creating.

The 20+ attendees explored a variety of fun patterns including some of my favorites like Bunzo and Indyrella.  Someone said that a pattern looked like a fingerprint, so I threw in some Seaswirl to add another fingerprint feel.  I love how my lesson plan evolves along with the class and the comments and questions I hear.

I had a fantastic time teaching this class.  Several participants had the best smiles throughout the entire time.  I felt those smiles and swear they popped into my Bunzo and other smiley-looking patterns.  :-)

Thank you to the Stevens Memorial Library and my fellow tanglers for a lovely afternoon.  Here is a sample of the tiles they created.  Some people had to leave early, so we weren't able to capture their beautiful artwork, unfortunately.  Didn't everyone do a great job?

This mosaic includes the finished tile as well as a partial second tile with some more patterns and the option of working with a border and string or tangling freeform.

Valentangling with Teens!

I had fun showing a bit about the Zentangle® method to the teens at Memorial Hall Library during their Valentine's Day party.  We used white MDF words from the craft store and tangled with different colored Sharpies.  We had a lot of fun, and the teens came up with lots of unique patterns.

Didn't they do a great job?