Tackle it Tuesday challenge (E)

And this gets me caught up with these! Whoot!!!
I didn't know many of these so had to look them up. I'm not a huge fan of tangles that start with E apparently.

E Tangles used:
Eke
escalator
Eye-Wa
Emingle
Echoism
Equerre

Stars

I love stars. I use them to center myself and to remember balance and to keep myself sane sometimes.
This is one that I started about 10 days ago (maybe a little longer) and didn't finish until now, it just wasn't right, which is odd because it's actually fairly simple and pretty small.  I think I was just overthinking it and that kept it from working. Once I let that go, it was easy to add the last little bit and finish it up.

It was for one an old challenge, but one that I really wanted to do, so here it is. Challenge 4. Stars

I think this is my new favorite.

This is the first of these I've done and it's from the Ornations Creations fb, with a template by Ben Kwok. I'm in love with how it turned out.

It isn't what I was going to do with it, and it really makes me think of Christmas for some reason, but I love it. Everything about the way this one turned out makes me happy.

Not overthinking this one

Here's one I just kind of tossed down on paper super quick.  It doesn't really have shading, it doesn't have a lot of "focus" I just kind of put pen to paper and let it go where it went.
I kind of want to add to it with my watercolor pencils but I don't know if I will or not.
Part of my deal with myself was that I not stress over perfection and just create, so I'm going to leave it and go on to the next project.

Diva Challenge 157 & 158

Two challenges to share from the Diva's weekly challenge. Sorry the lighting is a little weird in these pics.

157- use Charlie

Other tangles included are:

• Up & Across
• Chemystery
• Wired
• Striping

158-DuoTangle using Diva Dance and Crescent Moon

To be honest I really don't like this one at all. I'm not a fan of Diva Dance, and didn't feel that the two tangles worked together all that well. That's the point of a challenge though right? Step out of my comfort zone? 

I finally used some dots to kind of "unify it" and it's better now, and the shading helped a lot, but it will never be a favorite.

Tackle it Tuesday "C" & Weekly challenge 160-Spiral as my String

Originally this had different orientation. Tilt your head to the left and you can see how I drew it, but once completed, I felt that it really "goes" this way.

Tangles included in this one were:

• Chainlette
• Ciceron
• Chemystery (one of my favorites)
• CO2
• CLE
• Cadent
• Cruze
• Crossroads
• Cockles, Mussels and Clams (I know that Mussels is an M, but it was included with learning the other 2)
• Confettus

And this one I really love. The challenge was fun and I incorporated some of my patchwork into it as well. The challenge was to use a spiral as your string, the only part I found difficult about that was knowing where each section stopped. I almost instantly knew I wanted a button for the center though!

Tackle it Tuesday "A" and "D"

I went back to do this one because I started late, so it's out of order

A:
Annee
Abacus
Antidots
A's
Ahhh

This one is also out of order... but hey, who has the alphabet has to be... well... alphabetical right? 

D:

I only used 3 in this one and then I ran into shading issues.. I think next time I'd make the grid larger to try this.

Dragonair

DL Nebula

D-Vine

Neither of these took very long, when I work small it has a lot of pros and cons... I am willing to take bigger risks because I don't have much time invested and if it doesn't turn out oh well. I get crankier when it's something big I've been working on for a while and I give something new a shot and hate it.

The con to working small is that the intricate patterns that are my favorite are hard to fit or make look clear.

Challenge #159 St Patrick's Day.

This was to create something that felt St. Patrick's day themed.. and what I had in my head didn't QUITE translate onto paper. I don't love it. I also am not really in love with the colored pen for it either... but here it is.

Better late than never, better attempted than ignored right?

Falling behind!

I'm behind on my uploads, not necessarily my creations. So without a lot of chatter... I'm going to post a few at once and then I'll get back to regular posting.

This is one that was originally for Dare #1.
It's called Simplicity and this was what came to mind when I thought of that, for multiple reasons. I really love the way it turned out, the picture doesn't do this one justice. It's also small and in sketchbook size.

The next couple are very freeform from my sketchbook as well and seem really messy to me but I like them anyway. 

This is not a tangle, but when I realized I'd accidentally uploaded a picture of her here I decided to leave the amazing cuteness here for you to enjoy as well. 

My lines aren't straight in my paradoxes here, not even a little, but you know, it's ok. This is one of the Zendala Dare templates that I like to keep handy for practice and to keep me busy. Of course now that I look at it and like it, I'll never be able to replicate the wavy paradoxes again. 

I have more that I haven't posted, I'll get those up later.

Patchwork flowers

I love the look of patched... everything, honestly.

I like stuff stitched up and put back together, probably because I break things... a lot.

I like quirky. I love the way this just kind of appeared for me. 

My Whimsy Garden...

If I didn't kill plants (seriously, I have an indoor palm tree right now as my only living plant, the first I've had in years.. and the kids named it Hope *eyeroll*) I would love to have gorgeous gardens...
Except... I want one like this, I don't want real flowers, I want polka dot ones and ones with ribbons and peppermint stripes and, ok, let's be honest I want to live somewhere between a Dr. Seuss book and a Tim Burton movie. I create elaborate fanciful stories about the creatures that might live there and it just makes me smile while I draw and for me, that's what it's about right now.

So, anyway I think it's finally done. I kept adding to it, and other than a small spiderweb that begs to be in here, and possibly a ladybug, it seems to be finished.

Several people asked when I posted it as a WIP (here) to post the final when it's done.
TADA! (I always say tada when I'm done creating something!  I learned this in kindergarten I think!)

I'd love to hear what you think.

Bent not broken?

Sometimes I just go with what flows from the pen when I sit down.

New challenges to add to my list!

Cheryl over at Artful Creations  has given me more to do! Well, not me specifically, her blog doesn't say, HEY KELLY... JOIN US...  but yes, me. She has created a challenge she calls Tackle it Tuesday and I figure the more of these I do the more likely I am to reach my goal of creating almost every day. I know it's not Tuesday, but hey, I have things to do besides play with paper from time to time.
I missed the first one, which was to use only Tangles that started with A (I will go back and do that asap), but I jumped in with the second one, which is to use only B tangles. This was fun, there are a lot of B tangles, I used some favs and some I'd never touched before.
I used:
Birds on a Wire (new to me)
Betweed (one of my favorites actually, although I used to find it hard to fit places!)
Bales (another fav)
Bask It (this one is showing up in my stuff more and more)
Beadlines (new to me)
Boo-Kee (also new to me, and which I did wrong, but I liked how it turned out so I kept it)
Bronx Cheer
Bulb Lantern (again, new.. this one just makes me think of the movie Tangled! How fitting!)
Bunzo (new)
Bwiya (not quite new but I've only used it once before)

I was writing the list and thinking.. it's not that big, I couldn't have used that many tangles, but I did!
Here's how it turned out.

I've also joined the Ornation Creations facebook group with the amazing templates of Ben Kwok and I am really excited to start on some of those this weekend. He has a giraffe! *le sigh* Happiness!
So I have my new pens, a new sketchbook, wood for my fireplace, lots of tea and some really good food to make and my kids are pretty well occupied. I know what I'm doing this weekend!!!!

(Can we say Pajama weekend??Hibernation! It's what people who hate the cold do right???)
So I hope to have something to share from that by the end of the weekend and of course I have my garden to work on.
I guess that's all for today!

Zendala Dare #93 - Snowflake Surprise

Snow.

How fitting... since we have, well.. more snow, again. Still. Always. LOL Well not quite always but it certainly feels that way this year!

I actually love snowflakes, not real ones...but the delicate composition, the symmetry.. blues and silvers.

When Erin over at The Bright Owl (see the link on the side) posted the snowflake surprise dare I was thrilled, especially because I had JUST received my mutlticolored pens (with blue!) in my earth tone set and was dying to try them out. I used the darker blue and it's subtle.. I like it. If I try another I'm going to try with the lighter and see what I get!

Now, the pens are also thicker than my preferred pen size at 05,so it's not as delicate as it might have been otherwise, but I really like the subtlety of the blue and after I accented it with my blue watercolor pens here's what I ended up with!

I'm in the need for a little spring... WIP

I've been playing with some new techniques and trying some different styles, and just generally PLAYING with my pen and paper.

I'm working on something that I have fallen in love with and I thought I'd share it with you as I go.

Here are the first 3 pics... and today I'm setting it aside to work on a challenge and let myself decide where I want to go with it from here.

My initial sketch and outline. I did do this differently than I have been lately. I did it all in pencil and I have been avoiding pencil while I worked on zentangles except for shading. I forgot how much I love pencil. I took this right after I put ink to paper.

The largest flower is inspired by Helen Williams over at A Little Lime. I actually kind of fangirl over her work and just recently downloaded her ebook, I used her techniques on that.

This next one shows a little bit of progress as my ideas took shape.I've always drawn whimsical flowers and stuff.. usually filling them with patterns and polka dots. The Dr Seuss/Tim Burtonesque striping is a huge favorite of mine to do on things and this just screamed for it to me.

And where I left it when I had to put it aside to get some sleep last night. I'm not sure where I'm going from here. I think.. maybe it's about half done? But I could look at it tomorrow and decide it needs 3 more things and that's it.
My husband asked me yesterday "How do you know when art is done?" and I said, "well... I don't think there's a set end, you just KNOW"
So, I may not know what it needs yet, but I do know that this one isn't done.