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.