"When I was having that alphabet soup, I never thought that it would pay off." Vanna White
I am very excited about spending this coming weekend in Portland. Maine, at a three day retreat for CZTs. More than 100 like-minded people, all as addicted to Zentangle as I am. (In case you missed it, you can read my very first blog post about my Zentangle addiction here.) I expect that when I return home next week I'll have lots to share.
But in the meantime I thought I would show you how my ABC book for my grandson, Hudson, is coming along. I blogged about it back in December, here. I'm making progress, little by little, in between all my other projects. He will have to pass it on to his sister, Brooklyn, once he learns the alphabet, as she was born last night! I'm very excited, as you can imagine.
I'm pretty happy with the way these letters turned out.
I'll eventually make it to the end of the alphabet...someday!
"Let your thoughts meander towards a sea of ideas." Leo D. Minnigh
Another week, another Diva challenge. This time the challenge was to use Rixty, the newest official tangle. When the tangle first came out, I played around with it a bit, but never actually put it into a tile. So this was my opportunity. Rixty is a fun tangle that can meander around in all directions. I love meandering tangles, but my trouble with them is that I don't know when to stop! I just keep going and going. On this tile I did just that, and then couldn't decide what else to put with it. So I started adding auras, and more auras, and more auras. And this is what I ended up with. Just Rixty and auras, and of course some shading.
Then I decided to add some color to it.
I used stardust gelly roll pens, but of course you can't see the shimmer because you never do unless you see the piece in person. And then I added some soft color in the background with Irojiten colored pencils. The verdict is still out on whether or not I really like it with color. One minute I think yes, and the next I think no. Oh well! I'd love to hear which way you like it better, black and white or color?
"Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere." Gilbert K. Chesterton
The Diva's challenge this week is to use your initials as the string for a Zentangle. Well, believe it or not, my initials, CM, are hidden in here. I scanned my tile with the string on it, but I had already tangled half of this before I realized that the scan didn't turn out good enough to show here. So, you will just have to take my word that the initials are in there. At least I remembered to scan it before I starting shading and made sure it looked okay before continuing.
Here it is after I added shading.
I used a couple of tangles from my e-book, Step Out in Style. If you missed the post about my book, you can read it here. The round zendala tiles are fun to use for something a little different, even when I'm not creating a true Zendala.
