Challenges

Since I have started drawing tangles/ repeat patterns/ Zentangles I have found some wonderful people that share their time, lives and tangle patterns with anyone interested enough to go find them on the internet. Not only do they take the time to post some amazing pictures they also organize drawing challenges and supply prizes. I was a winner of one of these and very excited when I opened the package containing 7 pens and a copy of Tangle Journal 2012, created by Genevieve Crabe.

I have entered the Diva's challenges, http://iamthedivaczt.blogspot.com/, a couple times and the last one was #52 Give, create a Zentangle and give it away. Well I tangled the snowman at the top of my blog, turned him into my Christmas cards and gave many of them away so I think that should qualify for an entry.

I have also entered the Grand Opening Events at http://lineweaving.com since I found Cindy http://rainbowelephant.com. Go there to see all the wonderful art if you like.

Christmas Eve Message

It's a quiet day. I cleaned up my studio/spare room/ office space yesterday and it looks nice so I'm not in a hurry to mess it up right now. I organized my craft supplies with an assortment of plastic salad containers. You know the ones you buy with "spring mix" or "baby spinach" in. Well they make great places to stash all my stuff. I can see into them and they stack really nice one on top of the other. I should make cute stickers on the front telling what's in each of them, I'm sure Martha Stewart has a template for that. She has one for everything else.

Since getting to Texas I have been keeping busy crafting and drawing. I took a pottery class at the South Padre Island Art Space and made a bird house using a slab roller. I would love to do more pottery but without handy access to a kiln it's something I will have to save for special occasions. I'm heading back to the SPI Art Space on the 6th of Jan to learn how to make a scarf by felting on netting. Sounds interesting and I know nothing about felting so will be a great learning experience for me.

I also lead a fun Arts and Crafts group in the community I live in. We meet every Wednesday morning and I try to come up with something interesting to do with the group. We started by learning some tangle pattern drawing and then got a little Christmas spirit going by making a felt wine bottle cover and then recycled advertising fliers into a little table top tree. I have 12 more Wednesdays to teach so will be busy looking for other interesting arts and crafts to do.

I'm pretty pleased with how my drawing is progressing. My "Zentangle" obsession has continued and expanded. I am trying to incorporate the tangle patterns into actual drawings and so far am really pleased with the results. Palm trees, sea turtles and tropical fish have joined the snowmen, ornaments and pine trees in my portfolio and everyone of them is decorated with swirls, bubbles, dots and crosshatches.

My winter of crafting is going great and I have lots of ideas for future projects. Living here in Brownsville, close to all the hobby shops really helps but I'm also having fun shopping on line for art supplies. I don't have those options back home in Saskatchewan during the summer so I plan to make the most of it. I will try to keep you posted as the winter moves to spring and if you have any ideas for my classes of for something you would like to see drawn up and tangled then leave a comment.

I would like to wish you the very Merriest of Christmas's. I hope that you are surrounded by family and friends, get at least one of the things you asked Santa for, eat lots, drink a little less than you eat and find peace and fulfillment this holiday season.

Lori

Crafting Season is starting!

How many Craftaholics are like me and can hardly wait for winter so we can settle into a cozy corner and try out the new craft ideas we saw during the busy summer?

With company, kids, cabins and cucumbers there just is no time during July, August and September for much crafting, but in October we can start browsing through the internet or craft shops for the newest and most exciting ideas to try when things finally slow down. Slow down...hmmm.

Well it's finally November and it's time to start crafting! And if we need an excuse, we have Christmas to prepare for. That means wreaths to hot glue, mittens to knit, scarves to crochet and cards to make. Have you seen that amazing new yarn called Ruffelina by Bernat? I saw a scarf made with it this summer and it was beautiful. Mary Maxim has it in pink for a Breast Cancer fundraising campaign, item # 1406732 but I have not seen it in any of the big craft supply stores yet. I will keep looking and keep you posted.

Scrap booking started being popular a long time ago and except for a half-hearted attempt at making some memory books for my 3 kids when I wanted to clean out some boxes of photographs I have never really spent much time doing it. Now that I have become obsessed with Zentangle patterns I have started paying more attention to scrapbook paper, pens and stamps. I have to come up with a purpose for all the Tangles I create. Maybe I will sent out some Handmade Christmas Cards this year.

Lurking through the internet looking for zentangle ideas often leads me to discover new artists. The things they do are amazing. This isn't the old "sticker and ribbon" type of scrapbooking either, what they make are called Art Journal pages. The pages are beautiful works of mixed media art. It's not unheard of to find paint, ink, fabric, stencils, stamps and amazing lettering all on one page. Check out Julie Jei-Fan Balzer at http://balzerdesigns.typepad.com/ . Her work is something else and she has lots of You-Tube instructions to view as well. Maybe she will inspire you to try something new, too.

So between my painting, tangling, knitting, embroidery and hopefully trying my hand at some quilting and art journal pages I think winter will be great fun and maybe even over before I know it.

Scratched one more off my Bucket List

I have always admired Georgia O'Keeffe's big paintings of flowers and hoped to see one in person some day. Well I did yesterday.

Santa Fe, New Mexico, her home from the 1940's until she died in 1986 is not too far off the route to our home in Texas so on our way south for the winter we zipped over to New Mexico and went straight to the Georgia O"Keeffe Museum.

Seeing her painting Jimson Weed up close takes your breath away but I was also impressed with her paintings of the landscape around her homes in New Mexico.

Instead of painting the view in front of her she painted the spirit and essence of the scene. She used her modernist vision to produce paintings in her own style. By doing so and being so successful as a female artist in a male dominated realm she opened the doors for more women artists to follow.

Healing Patterns

When creating I strive to go into a meditative like state, where nothing can disturb me and the work just flows from my brush. When that happens I can finish 3 or 4 paintings a day but it doesn't happen very often. What is more likely to happen is the exact opposite and I struggle with every brush stroke, over thinking and over stressing about my art work, taking days or weeks to get close to finishing a painting and then leaving it unsigned in the corner of my studio somewhere until I finally decide if it is actually done.

That didn't happen when I was learning Zentangle this summer. It was so easy to do the 2 or 3 stroke patterns. If I didn't do it exactly like the instructions all I had to do was cover the mistake over with a thicker line or a different pattern. It was repeated often by some of the CZT (Certified Zentangle Teachers) that there are no mistakes only happy accidents. I found that doing this type of drawing not only relaxed me but energized me as well. I felt motivated to try more things that I didn't think I would be very good at. I learned to clear my mind of everything that was bothering me while I focused on the drawing.

Maria Thomas and Rick Roberts are the founders of Zentangle and have a web site www.zentangle.com where they show their latest zentangle patterns, sell their Zentangle learning kits as well as advertise their up coming seminars. They mentioned in the last newsletter that a local college had sent a PhD to learn Zentangle and become a CZT. This college is setting up a clinical trial that will be focusing on the health benefits of the Zentangle drawing method. I have also read that it has been used by some doctors as a therapy for Autism patients.

Interesting!

There is a weekly Zentangle challenge posted by "I am the Diva - CZT" on her blog and this week she wanted us to do a tangle with the pattern called punzel. I attempted it in the long braid down the left of my drawing. I also added fifolia, the flowers, floating away. I will think of the fifolia's as all my stresses and worries.

Challenges

Life is full of challenges but the ones that " I am the Diva CZT " puts on her blog every monday are great fun. I have secretly been doing them for a few weeks now but never posted them. Today I think I will attempt to add the Sunflower Challenge to her list of entries.

Zentangles in the woods

Since the middle of August when I first heard of the word Zen Tangle I think there have been only one or two days when I have not taken pen to paper and let the world melt away while I doodled, drew and even painted my way through learning as many new patterns as I could.

This week I will be doing my drawing at a picnic table in the yard beside our cabin in the woods.  One ear will be listening for the bear that has been sniffing around camp and the other ear will be enjoying the chickadees, poplar leaves and motor boats that I can hear down the hill on the Saskatchewan River.  The rest of me will be lost on the page.

A couple weekends ago I was able to talk my friend Karen into showing me how she makes her Garden Spirit sculptures.  I have been intrigued by her sculptures since she posted her first pictures on Facebook and talked about the class she took at Red Roof Studio in Alberta.  I had heard that she was going back for another class and had brought back enough supplies to show a few people how to make them.   We enjoyed another beautiful fall day in the gazebo in her back yard while I learned how to build a sculpture out of wire, tinfoil and masking tape.  Then we cut up some old white t-shirts into strips and soaked them in the special GSM, looks like white glue that we added color to.  We wrapped the soaked material around the tinfoil form.  It looked like a mummy when we were done.  If you don't mind messes and having glue stuck all the way up to your elbows then you may enjoy this!  Once the mummy was wrapped we got to dress it.  Again material cut and dipped in the GSM and draped over the form.  Everything had to dry for a couple days and then it was painted to look like aged bronze and sealed so it can live out in the garden with out being bothered by the rain or snow.  I think my sculpture looks pretty good, for the first attempt.  Maybe I will make her a friend to share her rock with, wouldn't want her to be lonely in my garden.