Outside my comfort zone

When I initially saw Aquafleur, I thought that's really pretty. Then I tried to do the tangle and thought, no. That was several months ago. The other day I decided to practice with the tangles and doing different things with them. I started at the beginning of the tangles on http://tanglepatterns.com/. When I got to Aquafleur I decided to conquer the pattern. This time I was much more pleased with my attempt and felt I understood the pattern.

I decided to play around with Quib and then added Aquafleur to it. After I did that I looked at my picture and it reminded me of a surf board and jellyfish, so I added some other tangles to it and came up with this picture.

Surfing the Wave
Tangles: Quib, Aquafleur, Purk, Sanibelle, Awrop(by Judy Murphy) 

Unfortunately, I did it on the back of some other practice pages I had done, so I don't know that I can frame it at some later date. I may go ahead and trim it and put it on cardstock. I still need to play some more with Aquafleur. I think I'll do that now.

Was checking my e-mail awhile ago and this was on The Sifter. This was the Grand Prize winning photo of the 2014 National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest. It was taken in Julesburg, CO. All I can say is awesome.

Here are more Aquafleur practices. The circle and the triangle have shading added. I left the bottom tangle unshaded to show the difference between shading and not.

Finished

The last day of July; this month is finished. I finished the mother/daughter hand and I did an ATC of Roscoe on scratchboard. Looking back over this month I was amazed to see that I almost blogged everyday (a huge accomplishment for me). I am striving to blog everyday next month. 

Mother and Daughter
Tangles:Knightsbridge, Strircles, Crescent Moon, Logjam, Tipple, Roscoe, Pax, AA's, Arc Flower, Zinger, Tropicana

Tangle: Roscoe

Diva's Challenge
Tangles: Jalousie, Jessicup

I finished a tile for the Diva's Challenge this week. I used Jalousie because we had Jalousie windows in our house when I was a child; and Jessicup because my daughter's name is Jessica.
Please visit  http://iamthedivaczt.blogspot.com/ to see all the wonderful art that others are doing.

Illusion/Elusion

I was contemplating yesterday on the appearance of things we see and feel everyday. Some things are as they seem; sunshine, green grass, blue skies. Others are illusion; a house, a car, two people in love. Still others are elusion;  government, big business, organized religion.

Illusion means a deceptive appearance or impression; a false idea or belief. So how can a house, car or two people in love be an illusion? These are things that are interpreted by the observer. We look at a house and think it is someone's home. The illusion occurs in the fact that it may be an empty building or those living there are just staying there for someplace to stay. A car can be seen as something beautiful, that is a wonderful means of transport; but it could really be rife with mechanical problems that the observer is unaware of. We see a couple holding hands and smiling at each other and think this is a couple in love. In reality, it could be an abusive relationship. The observer is unaware of what actually transpires between these two people.

I had to look up elusion to see if it was really a word. It is, it means deception, evasion. It seems to me that this is more an effect of one entity on another. Government, big business and organized religion are seen as being deceptive and evasive. They are seen as hiding the truth from others and "covering" things up. There are conspiracy theories in abundance for government actions; "whistleblowers" in all areas of government and business. Religion has been riddled with frauds. It appears that one of the common factors with elusion is it is often shown up as having a flaw and these are sometimes revealed. The saying, "what goes on in the dark soon come to the light" comes to mind.

Sometimes illusion is also elusion and elusion is also illusion. They both involve deception and they can both be shown for what they are. The car that appears to be a good form of transportation can be seen broken down by the side of the road. The religion that is doing good for the people is revealed to be an organization that is really taking people's money and making the leaders rich.  

My daughter is a seasonal employee with the IRS and was laid off at the end of June. She applied for unemployment and was denied. After calling the unemployment office she was advised that due to a change in the way the federal government is now reporting wages, she wasn't eligible for unemployment. The person at the unemployment office told her they just started seeing this in the last few months and it appears that the government has found a legal way to not pay unemployment. If this is a continuing situation, the agencies that hire seasonal employees are going to suffer in the long run because people are not going to want to work for them. I don't know how many people this will affect, but it sucks when you work for 6 months and have the idea given to you that if you are unable to find other employment immediately you will have some type of money coming in to help tide you over. This is especially hard for a young person just starting in the work force and trying to be independent. This could be called the elusion of receiving unemployment compensation that was presesnted as an illusion to employees.

I have almost finished the hands picture, just need to add shading. I will post it tomorrow.  

Hmmm...

I don't really have a lot to blog about today.

I find it interesting that Dollar Tree is buying Family Dollar. In my neck of the woods there are 2 Dollar Tree's within 10 miles of my home and about a gajillion Family Dollar's. As far as a preference of shopping at sub discount stores I choose Family Dollar. Dollar Tree is one of the shabbiest establishments I have been to and I don't really find a whole lot there when I go, which is about once a year. Sooo, they are buying Family Dollar for 8+ billion dollars, Hmmm.... Maybe I need to stop shopping at both places. That would be difficult to do, however, as I don't have a grocery store close by. Hmmm... .

I finished the two individual hands and started on the picture with both hands on it. I have scanned pre and post tangle images. I also did an ATC of Maryhill on a scratchboard with multicolor ink on it.

Mother and Daughter pre-tanngle scan

Mother pre - tangle scan

Evelyn
Tangles:Eez, Versa, Lacey, Yew-Dee, Nipa, Tearce, Linked, Purk, Anel Fish, Kirl-Q, Meer

Daughter Pre - tangle scan

Heaven
Tangles:Hi-C's, Eyehook, Arckles, Verve, Eyelet and Ribbon, 'Nzeppel, Boo-Kee, Onomaton, Barberpole, Henna Drum

Tangle:Maryhill

I used tangles that spelled out their names on the fingers. On the mother's hand I used Eez for both e's in her name and ran it across all the fingers. I decided to try this because people always ask what does it mean, so I figured using tangles for their names would make it more personal. I am hoping to have the two hand image tangled by Wednesday if not tomorrow. We'll see. Hmmm...

Focused

I spent a large part of yesterday working on my "office". I decided to focus all my time and energy on getting some reorganization and cleaning done. I still have a ways to go on the organization but the cleaning is done for now. I finished the project I started the other day, and got some hands ready to do.

Circles
Tangles: Seed Grid I-1 , Brayd, Roscoe, Zinger,  Pokeleaf, Crescent Moon/Rixty
Done on 9X12 Mixed Media Paper with Pigma Micron 01,05 and colored pencils.

I spent most of today working on the hands. They are a mother and daughter. This time I am trying to use tangles that spell out their names, that way it makes them a little more significance to the recipient. I am hoping to finish them tomorrow. I am also doing one with both their hands together.

What to do next?

I got up this morning (thank you Jesus), did my usual morning routine, fixed my coffee and headed to the computer in my "office". I read my e-mails, looked at some of the blogs that showed up with new postings, and admired the artwork and gift of gab of others. Then I set about doing some scanning.

First I scanned my completed piece from yesterday.

Optical 1
Tangles: Maryhill and tangellations, Paradox, Rosewood(variation)

 Then I scanned the pages in my sketchbook that I skip past because I'm going to do something else. I do look at them in contemplation of doing something, but if the inspiration does not hit me I keep going. I call these WIP, work in progress (can you tell I was a civil servant bombarded with acronyms?).

Large Abstract

Large Abstract Face

Large Abstract

Wip or practice?

I haven't decided yet if this is just a practice page or if it will eventually become an actual finished project.

In the process of scanning one of them showed up as just a blank page with very faint lines of the image. I think this happened because the image is currently in pencil. I started to go over the lines in pen; however, being a WIP I don't know that I want to do outlines as of yet. I attempted to upload the image anyway and it didn't show up because it scanned as just a white page. If it had scanned correctly it would have shown up here. Since this happened, I have decided to make this my next project.

Large ZIA

ZIA or Abstract?
I have not yet decided what direction I will go with this.

ZIA or Abstract?
Another one I haven't made a decision on.

In the process of scanning one of them showed up as just a blank page with very faint lines of the image. I think this happened because the image is currently in pencil. I started to go over the lines in pen; however, being a WIP i don't know that I want to do outlines as of yet.

Finished?
I am still trying to decide if this is finished or not. I feel that if that question exists, it probably isn't finished.
Tangles:Squid, Tipple, Pokeleaf, Rixty, Seed Grid J-1, Line fill

The last pages I scanned are pages where I have been practicing on different tangle patterns and how they look with the variations or with other tangles.

Tangles: Maryhill(variations and tangellations), Parados, Knot Ricks

Tangles: Maryhill and tangellations, Paradox

These are all images from a 9X12 mix media sketch book, thus the reason I label them large. I very rarely do the traditional 3.5x3.5 square tile. I do, however, sometimes do ATC's. 

I am in the process of reorganizing, or renesting as I like to call it. That will probably be a 2 or three week project, as I don't relish the thought of going through all my "stuff". I do however need to work on getting things better organized. This week I will have the weekend to do some stuff, if I don't get sidetracked by going out and about.

I'm off to ponder my next project and start putting pen, or pencil, to paper.

I almost forgot, I have reached the 500 mark in pageviews. Thank you all for looking at my work and ponderings. Please continue to take a peek and leave a comment or two.

Mish-Mash

Just some random things for today;hence...mish-mash.

I finished reading "Sycamore Row" yesterday. I enjoyed the book a lot. I have started reading "The Lincoln Myth" by Steve Berry. I like his novels because they always send me on an internet search for the factual information he uses in his books. 

I finished watching Copper on Netflix and had to do some research on the history of Five Points in New York. I didn't realize this was part of the basis for the movie "Gangs of New York." I'll have to watch the movie and see what I think.

I found this very interesting link on Life Imitates Doodles  earlier today and decided to post it here. They are 15 prompts to help you journal. Most of my responses would be one line or one word. I wrote them down to add to my lettering journal as prompts to letter with. I have included links to the websites below. 

1) I’m currently reading…

2) Something I wish I was better at is…

3) If money wasn’t an issue, I would…

4) I’m currently waiting for…

5) Five years from now I will…

6) Something that makes me really angry is…

7) One thing the world really needs right now is…

8) My perfect day would be…

9) The qualities that make me a good friend are…

10) If I could be anywhere right now, it would be…

11) I’m thankful for…

12) My biggest mistake was…

13) The most thoughtful gift I’ve ever received was…

14) I woke up today and felt…

15) One thing I’ve never told anybody is…

I managed to finish a ZIA today, but I haven't scanned it yet. Scanning for me involves a little work. I have to clear my scanner off and plug it in. It kind of acts as a second desk for me right now and sometimes I just don't feel like rearranging everything to scan one item. I will post my ZIA tomorrow. 

Links:

http://lifeimitatesdoodles.blogspot.com/

http://blog.paperblanks.com/2014/07/writing-wednesday-15-thought-provoking-prompts-for-a-new-journal/

New ZIA

I was experimenting with a new Zentangle(R) pattern called Maryhill and decided to create a ZIA for my daughter. I basically stayed with a black, purple and blue color scheme. I used circles for the layout and did different tangles in the circles. The top left circle have tangles that spell out her name and I put her initials in the top right circle. I also included a pink orb at the bottom. I use this as my signature in tribute to being a breast cancer survivor. I really enjoyed doing this ZIA and was very pleased with the results. I did the shading with colored and regular pencil and used Pigma Microns for the inkwork.

Tangles:Jilli, Eez, Shattuck, Spiro(my daughter likes to play Spyro on her Playstation),Ionic, C-Scape, Aa's,Crescent Moon, Hi-C combined with Daggerly, Echoism(variation), HurryJessicup, Maryville and a variation I like to call Marryville Flower, Paradox, Ixorus

 I have quite a bit to do the next few days as I am going to have to create two new resumes. I realized when I tried to upload one for my friend that they are on my old laptop and I didn't put them on my external hard drive (duh). I also have to go work at his Mom's tomorrow afternoon. I don't know if I will have time to do anything creative, but will try. I always have ideas buzzing around and may just post some practice work the next few days.

I gave up on the J. K. Rowling book and have been reading "Sycamore Row" by John Grisham. It's based in the same place, and has some of the same characters, as "A Time to Kill". I watched the movie and I keep hearing the actors voices as I read the book. This is the main reason I often don't want to watch movies based on books I have read. It took me a long time to watch "The Lord of the Rings" movies because I already had a mental image of what the characters looked like. I used to read that trilogy every spring and would develop a wanderlust and want to go to Middle-Earth. I did not, however, have the same reluctance to watch the Harry Potter movies. I did find it amusing that my daughter did not want to read the books (she thought Harry Potter was "lame") since she was in the age group that J. K. Rowling was writing for at the time. She quickly changed her mind when Dumbledore changed the decorations in one of the dinner scenes; and has since become a huge Harry Potter fan.

Happiness

Happiness is a warm puppy, a nice soft blankie, your loved one returning home from a trip. My friend made it back from his trip yesterday(without incident). I spent the day working on a ZIA for my daughter and haven't finished it yet. Hopefully, I will finish it tomorrow and be able to post it.

Submission

I submitted a pattern to Tanglepatterns,, http://tanglepatterns.com/, today. It is for a tangle that I call Asgard.

Asgard
Tangles:Asgard, Rixty

 I also have another pattern that I am currently calling Planturn that I want to submit at a later date. This is the pattern that in several of my ZIA's is unamed. It is kind of a cross between Cadent and Huggins. The step outs are shown here with a tile done with Cadent, Huggins and Henna Drum.

Planturn
Tangles:Planturn, Cadent, Huggins, Henna Drum

I finally got my last quilling projest done. As I said before these were things I had quilled years ago and actually had in a large envelope. I found them while cleaning out some of my paper stuff, and decided to attach them onto cardstock for a little image to be hung on the wall or displayed on a desk or table. I just used a familiar expression on this one instead of a quote. As with the swan, I am debating on whether or not to add more to it.

The Cat's Meow

I forgot to post this yesterday.

I am posting my efforts of the last few days.

Dragonfly

Happy Birthday

"I got my own back"
Maya Angelou

Swan

The dragonfly and the swan were some quilled pieces I had done years ago and decided to mount on cardstock and add a quote. It was a challenge to find quotes for either of these images. I made the happy birthday from some left over stickers and cardstock embellishments I had. The Maya Angelou quote is an ATC that I handlettered. I am still thinking on whether I want to add anything else to it.

Hurray!

JD has arrived at his destination a full 24 hours after he was due to be there. Amtrak did put them up in a motel last night and provided transportation to and from the station. He said the train ride from Chicago was still messed up and that he was not going to ride the train again. I was just really glad to hear his voice and know he was safe. 

I spent the afternoon with my daughter and her husband. We went to Utrecht(also known as Blick Art Supply) where I got 2 new Derwent Inktence pencils. I thought I was getting the coloursoft ones and didn't realize I had the wrong ones until I got home. I picked up some fixative spray and a pencil sharpener with a hole large enough for me to sharpen my Derwent pencils. We had lunch at Jimmy John's and then it was off to Hobby Lobby where we picked up clay and I got some molds to experiment with. Our last stop was at Lowe's. Ronnie had a bard cut down so he can build a molding frame. They are working on a project for dog treats. I told them by the time they are done they will be crafters, artists, carpenters and chefs. Their idea sounds really good and I wish them great success. 

I tried to scan my pictures earlier, but after looking at the scans I realized I am going to have to go over them in pen because the pencil lines don't show up real well. I also worked on an ATC with a quote that I really like. I ran across some quilling I had done a few years ago and am in the process of mounting them on cardstock. Hopefully I will have something to scan in tomorrow. 

Quote: "I got my own back."  Maya Angelou

Delays

As I was dozing off last night I realized I didn't do my blog for yesterday. Since I needed to get up early I decided to include it in the one for today.

I went to the library yesterday and checked out some novels from some of my favorite authors. Jeffrey Deaver, John Grisham, Terry Brooks and Steve Berry. My daughter and I also roamed around and looked at other titles. We then had lunch and I came on home to get JD ready for his trip. I spent the remainder of my afternoon ironing and watching the X-Files on Netflix. I have a book of letter stencil punches in different fonts. I punched out the different letters to include in my lettering journal. I have been tracing the letters today and am leaving space to practice free-hand lettering. I also plan to possibly glue some of the letters in my journal. I copied some alphabets from the book "Celebration Calligraphy" by Ruth Booth.

The weather has cooled off here and it feels really great.

I received a call from Amtrak last night advising of a delay for the train today. At that time they were saying the departure from here would be delayed about 3 hors. When I got up this morning I checked the website for updates and now the delay is at about 6.5 hours. This is not a major problem right now as it will cut down the Chicago layover to about 45 minutes. It is now 9 AM local time and the most recent check on the train indicates JD will miss his connecting train in Chicago. I called Amtrak to see what will happen. The said to go to the ticket window and they will make some kind of accommodations on that end. The train is running 7 hrs and 33 minutes late as of 12:15 PM. Well the train finally departed for Chicago at almost 4 PM, 8 hours late. It should arrive in Chicago around midnight. Unsure what will happen at that point. JD is traveling with no cell phone, phone numbers or addresses. He is very resourceful and I am sure he will arrive at his destination, a full 23 hours after he was supposed to. :(

I had to work today and got home after 7. With everything that went on I didn't get anything scanned. I will scan and post pictures tomorrow.

Favorite Things

I did a little straightening up on my work table today and also cleaned it. The table is glass and was starting to look dusty and smudgy. I put up some beading stuff that was just floating around and getting in my way.
I also had an epiphany for posting stuff where I have a quick visual reminder. Since I am now going back to the library and have several items checked out with different return dates, I taped the printout that shows what I checked out(highlighted in pink) and the due date(highlighted in blue) to the underside of my glass table. I love it when I have epiphanies.

For some reason today the song "Favorite Things" keeps playing through my head. My solution was to make a little card to that effect.

Favorite Things

The list includes, books, dogs, cats, chocolate,movies, any flavor of vanilla ice cream other than vanilla, pens, pencils, blank paper, Fall,egg foo young, sunflowers, irises... As the song says these are a few of my favorite things.

I also scanned some of my practice pages from my lettering journal. One of the prompts was to use paint and a paint brush to do the lettering. This is something I will try more of as it seems to be a nice effect.

The first three scans are of practice with different pens. The next shows a test to see if the pens are waterproof(most of the pens were but the paper bled). The next was a using the technique of drawing on the letters. I also did an experiment with my Derwent watercolor pencils. I then used markers in differnet colors and wrote words on them. You use one color and write some workd then you apply another color and write over the previous words. I'm not sure I did this right and may try that again. I used metallic paint and a paintbrush to make my alphabet. I will try this again with different size and types of brushes. I wrote a really big word and wrote in the word with a fine point pen. This one is still a work in progress. The last four pictures are samples of practice handwriting I had done several weeks ago and pasted in my journal. At some point I want to get some different markers to try and maybe some other types of pens.

Random thoughts

My friend is going to see his family next week and one of his granddaughters is having a birthday. I made a card for her and am posting it here because I liked the way it turned out. Nothing fancy, just her name and happy birthday. She can use it as a name tag maybe.

Tangle:Betweed

I spent some time with my friend and her grandson this afternoon. Stopped by family dollar and picked up a few necessities and a Composition notebook to use for my lettering practices. We went by MD's for some burgers and a cone. When she was dropping me off at home her grandson decided he wanted to go to the water park. I really didn't want to go, but decided what the heck. We were there about an hour and I really enjoyed myself. Even though it was hot today there weren't really a lot of people there. I enjoyed watching the kids engaging in good old fashioned fun and even took off my shoes and waded through the water. We had a nice shady spot to sit in and there was a little breeze. My daughter called while we were there and when she found out where I was she said she was jealous :). After I got back home I fried some chicken and fixed some fries. Pretty good little meal. I then watched a documentary on Netflix called forgotten planet and it was very interesting. They covered pairings of towns/cities that have become abandoned for different reasons. I had had a discussion with my daughter about how our city isn't too far off the demise of Detroit and Gary several weeks ago and they were both discussed in the documentary. I was also keeping an eye on the score for the Detroit/Kansas City baseball game. We lost to them for the third night in a row. I am watching a documentary now on the plight of the "Sugar Hill Gang". Very informative and interesting. Don't have any other pictures to post today. Will post some of my lettering "play" tomorrow.

Quote:"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow." Unknown

Patterns

As promised I have scanned my latest Blackout poetry ZIA. It is titled "Prize".

Prize
He raised his eyes, the woman stirred.
A tantalizing prize.
His alone
Tangles:Yang, Yincut,Chard,Intersection,Bubbles/Tipple,Nine-patch/Knightsbridge(not what I envisioned)

I included some shading on this image. I am thinking about using either my white gelly roll pen or my gold paint pen to draw separating lines on the Nine-patch/Knightsbridge section.

 I am also scanning some of the pictures from the book "Pattern Motifs:A Sourcebook" by Graham Leslie McCallum. I have included what they remind me of from Zentangle patterns.

Stone Age Europe
Square grid, Dot grid

Neolithic Europe
Dot grid

Mesopotamia
Diamond Shape; Nine-patch

Mesopotamia
Grid,Hurray

Mesopotamia
Riverstone

Mesopotamia
Snugz,Tipz

Mesopotamia
Spiral

Egyptian
Bales

Egyptian

Minoan
Cadent

Minoan
Knightsbridge

Mycenaean
Spiral/Coil,Shattuck and Arc Flower,Feathers

Do we build on the past and recycle, are we channeling a genetic memory or is it a little bit of both? This is a true representation of everything old is new again.

My last book I had on hold at the library was returned and I picked it up today. "The Art of Whimsical Lettering" by Joanne Sharpe. I am sooooooo excited!!!! I have already leafed through and pretty much read the whole book. Can't wait to start playing.

Quote: Yesterday is another country, the borders are now closed." Unknown