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.