Hello

It has been awhile since I have been on. I am still working on my Tangle Inspired Art projects. I have been doing hands and feet. I am posting them on my hands page. For right now I am just posting the pictures and will go back later and identify the tangles used.
I have been doing some contemplating and reflecting on different things. In August, I was wrapped up in the anniversary of the March on Washington. I wanted to do a post asking what everyone's dream was. So I guess I'll ask now: What is your dream? During September I contemplated the cost of freedom and reflected on the changes in life since 911. Then October rolled around and I spent a lot of time being disgusted with the wheels of government. Today however I am writing this post and revelling in the thought that the Kansas City Chiefs are 7 and 0 and the only undefeated team left in the NFL!!!!

Happy August

It has been some time since I last posted. My computer situation is still up in the air. I have been kind of stuck on doing paradox images lately and other variations. I will try to post some images soon. I have done a few more hands and did both of my daughters feet. I also did a mask but had to use my slick markers because of the surface I was working on. I bought a mask today that is pre-primed and will see how that works. I want to do some quotes with zentangle art encasing them and will see how those come out. I have only been able to get on the computer about once a month lately, I miss having daily access and I miss watching you tube. I think I have watched every video in my house except for about three and I have watched a lot of PBS. That's all or now will try to get some stuff scanned and then posted in the next week.

Out of touch

Hello blogosphere. I do not have internet access at this time and only get to check my most loved sites and email when I go to my daughter's or friend's house. It may be awhile before I am up and running at home again. I haven't been doing much lately as far as zentangling. I am working on a hand and have been creating little journals out of my excess paper and cardboard. It is getting hot here and my working will be slowing down even more. Just wanted to put this up so that you all know I am still around just out of touch.

Images Added

I added some images to the hands, Diva Challenge and Adventures in Monotangle pages. I still have quite a ways to go to get caught up on the challenges and find I am having the most difficulty with the Zendala Dare Challenge. Back to work.

I have been working on several different things the last week or so. I have hands I'm tangleing and I have also been working on some mini journals to keep my work in. I did do some of the Diva challenges and a couple of Zendala dares. I have posted the work on my pages.
I went to some garage sales this weekend and got a few really good bargains. I purchased a sleigh bed for 30.00 and got my daughter 3 pairs of spike heels for 5.00. She squealed when I gave them to her(just like I said she would). I also got some pretty flowers for my planters on my porch :) and got some cleaning done in my basement. I am trying to get all my stuff put in totes rather than boxes. I think I need to get two more large totes and maybe 2 medium size totes. I've put up most of my winter stuff but the weather here has been so weird that I've had to keep some stuff out.
I also finally got a new black ink cartridge for my printer;of course now the other inks need to be replaced.

New Images

I have added two new hand images and a picture of Wirly Bird with tangles in it.

Finished... For Now

I have completed all the Tangles from Tangle Patterns (except for Tink which I may add to one of my excisting pictures). The pictures are posted on my Experimenting page. As new patterns and strings are added I will update the experimenting page. I am starting on the Diva's Challenges, the Zendala Dares and the Monotangles and will be adding those pictures as I finish them ( probably weekly). I Printed out the zendalas through 50 and my printer ran out of ink. As soon as I can get some ink I will be trying to print them out weekly. I have printed out both the Square and round pictures and want to make a journal of them as I complete them. I have also printed out some of the large ones and want to play around with them with other methods. They may or may not include Zentangles.

Side note: I found this quote on a link from get the words out the other day and really liked it: "Everyone you meet is afaid of something, loves something, has lost something". And I won a prize from Emeral City Tangles today, the first time I ever won anything.

New Images

I finished the hands for my friend, but am still in the process of matting and framing them. She did get to see them for Mother's Day. I have also finished my daughters second hand TIA. I have posted the images for those and some experimental images I have done through 051213 on my other pages. I am now up to the T's on my practicing and am putting 6 pictures on each page. I have uploaded two of those pages and will identify the tangles used later(feeling a little lazy right now).

Thinking

It's raining here right now. That slow, drizzly kind of rain. Rainy days and Mondays always ... make me think. I have been thinking and reflecting on what I am going to do. I thought about closing my Etsy shop but don't know if that is what I really want to do. I am a little frustrated right now with my state of being. I feel like my life has been a series of wrong moves, but then again maybe not. I have a vision that I sometimes feel is hidden from myself. I want to create, to enrich others lives, to continue to learn and expand. However, in so doing I end up with tons of stuff that doesn't do anything but sit in a box or on a shelf. I am not good at self promotion being a somewhat modest person and I think this hinders me getting my stuff out there. I could blame lack of money, lack of equipment, but I think it is more fear of success or rejection ( two sides of the same coin). I feel like the time of me reflecting and thinking should now be a time of action. Maybe, I will learn to fly and soar up to meet my dreams and visions.Maybe I will create some art to reflect these thoughts and help to release my visionary block. Have a blessed and fruitful day.

New experimental images

I have uploaded the Zentangles(R) I have done for the remainder of April on my experimenting page. I am now up to the P's and am working on three hand images as well as using the strings through 50. Two of the hands images are of my friend's daughter and grandson and I am going to try and have those done for Mother's Day. The other hand is of my daughter's left hand. I am hoping to start on the zendala dares and diva challenges in June. I feel I need to become a little more familiar with the tangles that are out there first. I have also been trying some of the tangles that Sandra Strait has(soooooooo many) and some of the other people that have tangles that are not on the Tangle Patterns site.

The weather here has taken a turn back to "wintry", which is okay with me as I'm not ready for it to be "summery" yet. Yesterday there were wasps flying around my porch and today they are talking snow.

Birthday

My sister's birthday is this week coming up and I decided to do a Zendoodle inspired birthday card for her. I used Marasu on the card and a simplified version of eyehook for the envelope.

Happy birthday to my sister.

Thriftstore Delight

I posted my Zendoodle(R) practice photos for 04/01 - 04/20 to my experimenting page today. Check them out and let me know what you think.
I was at the DAV thrift store the other day looking for things to use in my art. As I was browsing I meandered into the childrens room and found some of those chunky cardboard books. I thought these would be neat to do something with. I checked to see how much they were and to my surprise and delight the childrens books were 15 for $1.00. I quickly picked out 15 books I wanted to use. I also found a book of sheet music for those learning to play an instrument for .25 and got that also. While I was in the Goodwill store I found a book called Designer Doodles for $2.00. It has "fashion" blanks that you can doodle/decorate. As I was looking through it today I had all kinds of ideas for using it in my art journal/altered book projects(wish I had two but will possibly use photocopies).  I also found a chucky cheese mini lunchbox. I am experimenting with how to alter it and deciding what I want to do with it.

I have been gessoing my little books and dreaming of what I am going to do. Depending on how they turn out, I may put some of them in my etsy store as journals for others to continue the creative process with, hmmm.

Still Learning

I am still working on attempting to draw all the tangles available on Tangle Patterns. Last night I finished the F's and am now on the G's. I am also using the String patterns over there to see how different things work. I purhased some Strathmore Sketch books (3.5 x 5 inches or 8.9 x 12.7 cm). Each book has 100 pages and so for I have completed 2 books.I am beginning to recognize some of the "designers" styles and have developed an affinity for certain tangles.
I have also been looking through Blogger and finding blogs for others who use Zentangle. While doing this I have found some other patterns that I want to try. There are so many talented artists out there and I am constantly finding myself saying WOW!
I also have an interest in art journaling and have gotten some good ideas for that as well.
I will be uploading some pictures this weekend, so check back later and take a peek.

Improviment

As I do more and more tangles, I think my work is improving. I was able to get some Micron pens the other day in different sizes and find this makes it a little easier to work. I have added some hand TIA to my blog and explain what I am doing with them. I am also working on some ATCs. As I meander through other peoples blogs and look at their work I am both amazed and humbled. I realize how far I have yet to go. The adventure of learning is fun and occupies my time and mind. I am also finding that my other art work is improving. I have a mixed media art journal that I work on, though not as much as I should right now. My biggest thing I want to learn is how to draw faces. I seem to have a fascination with them and love to collect masks. Hopefully in the months to come, I will be able to progress in that task as well as completing a scrapbook that I have been working on for years and get back to creating some new jewelry pieces. I have been neglecting my etsy shop for a while because I need to do some new photos and post them over there.

I also want to start working on some of the Diva's challenges, the Zendala Dares and the Monotangles. Keep looking and see what's new on my blog.

Saturday Blues

I have had several people ask me am I enjoying my retirement. Most days it is okay; others it sucks. I have had a lot of time to reflect over my life. I once wanted to write a book entitled, "A Grasshopper In An Ant World". That would sum up my life in a nutshell. I don't have a lot and don't want a lot, just to be able to do some of the things I wanted to do. Unfortunately, in this society that takes money. I wasn't one that prepared well for retirement and it is painfully being shown to me daily. I don't have a car and that also makes it difficult to do things as I live in a city that does not have the best mass transit. Even though this is a major metropolitan are, due to the different cities and counties that cross each other it is hard to get around. In  KCMO the buses run on a pretty regular basis and if you can get over there you can get around better than you can if you live in KCK or Johnson County. In KCK you have two buses that run and the one I need to use only runs every hour on Saturdays and not at all on Sundays. All the major shopping is in KCMO, on the western edge of KCK and in Johnson County (JOCO). There are no buses in JOCO on the weekends and the last bus I use runs about 6 PM on Saturdays. Due to the limited number of buses running, you need to get up at the crack of dawn and if you miss a bus you'll be waiting for an hour. When you are going to pick up only one or two things and you spend 4 hours doing it, that's frustrating.

Depending on friends and family all the time gets old as well. You begin to feel like you are a burden on them and you still have to wait. Wait until they get there, wait until they are going, wait for them to do their shopping. Then there is the thought of constantly asking them to take you somewhere and feeling like sometimes you shouldn't have to ask. They know your situation, why don't they ever ask, "Do you need to go somewhere?". They do ask if you need something, which is nice, but only if they are going to a specific place. Well enough of that. I did get a chance to get out and pick up a few things I needed and feel a little better now.

Easter greetings

Happy Easter to all who recognize and celebrate this day. I scanned some of my work yesterday and will attempt to upload it today. With the exception of UP,UP and Away these are practice pieces of the tangles on TanglePatterns.com. I am basically going alphabetically and am learning a whole lot of things. I also have found other tangles that people have done and I have worked on them. I may do practice works with those also. I am working on a handprint right now that incoporates the last of the B's and the first of the C's. I had a great deal of difficulty with Bucky but finally figured it out. In the handprint my first attempt was done on the pinky finger and is all messed up. This is kind of ironic in that my pinky is bent and can't straighten out so I am going to leave it that way.My ring finger on that hand is also a little bit bit and I used Bwiya on that one. This is also a tangle I have difficulty with. I will post the handprint when it is completed.

This is all new to me. I never was much good at keeping a diary so I don't knoe how this is going to work. I want to have a place to post some of my thoughts and art. I will try to use this more than once a week, but for now will aim for weekly. This reminds me of opening that journal for the first time, seeing the blank page and wondering what do I do now. Retirement was like that also. You have all these ideas and plans, but executing them is a whole different matter. Then there's the issue with equipment and operator malfunction. I don't have a fancy camera or even a cheap camera so I will proably be scanning some stuff. I'm always having some kind of computer issue(i.e. overheating, internet connection problems, wireless connection with printer not working), so even though I am part of the modern world I still sometimes feel like a dinosaur. The one thing I do have that is old fashioned though is perseverance and the attitude that these things will not rule me. I'll figure it out or contact someone who can figure it out for me (my son-in-law or my IT friend). 

Sooooooo, hopefully, I will be posting some things of interest in the near future.