Zensdays: Summertime Color

This summer the diva, Laura Harms, is taking a break to spend some quality time with her young family and has turned over the responsibility of challenges to a others. So if you would like to follow her blog this summer click HERE to see what you may have to opportunity to attempt in the way of interesting Zentangle creations. This week, Jen Crutchfield CZT, has challenged us to add color to our work. Her creation was done on white paper in red/white/blue inks but she is open to seeing how we interpret the challenge. Wayne and I are each using a watercolor paper which our daughter rendered hombré-style watercolor washes onto. As you can see I went a little wild and it was a great practice session working with the tangle pattern Mooka. Not every line as I wanted them but it was Zen and that's what this one was all about today.

Wayne's creation this week is also done on one of our daughter's watercolor wash papers, but he used Sakura's Moonlight set of gel pens (38716). The colors he used were hot pink, purple and the color that looks blue (to me anyway) was actually teal...then he used a white gel pen on the Akoya tangle beads for highlights.

We were relaxing for the weekend at my Mum's home and here are a few pix of Wayne icing his knee and tangling on the back of an envelope. I find his creations all over the place done often on envelopes. BTW he said today his knee is feeling better.

Wayne working a grid based pattern.

Mom with pal: Sir Gawain and BTW when you order from Stencilwithstyle.com you are directed to the website she created on her own. Pretty great for someone almost 80. Yay!

Bachelor Buttons and the twenty-four  fruit trees in the background which she nurtures for a bountiful harvest in the late summer.

They have had an extremely hot spell in Eastern Oregon and the peaches will be ripening a lot sooner than usual.

The English Walnut tree has been dropping nuts and foliage into the lawn and Wayne has had the fun (yes he does actually enjoy it...or says so anyway) of helping with mowing the lawn on Mom's riding mower while here. When we aren't here she does it herself.

Zensdays...a bit tardy this week

So this week has been wilder than last week and I am finally getting around to doing my post for the Diva's challenge. 

Our daughter is visiting and she did this gradation or wash with watercolors for me to tangle.

This week the challenge is UMT (which stands for 'use my tangle') and Laura randomly chose Alice Hendon's tangle called, All Boxed Up. And on Alice's site she had done a wash of color with a very simple showing of her tangle. I loved it...well, you know how I am about color....soooo I really wanted to give it a go. But I didn't have time to play as much as I wanted, so Liz (daughter) did this pretty coloration on a watercolor paper that comes in a spiral pad by Strathmore and had just been taking up room in my stash. Then I attempted without much practice this new tangle. Not so bad if you don't look too closely. AND Liz and I had a great time collaborating, so you can't go wrong with that experience.

So now I am off to see what everyone else has been up to...looking forward to seeing some beautiful work.

I may not have time to visit everyone and leave comments this week, because of my company and commitments. But hopefully soon. By the way...my computer has locked me out of commenting on Flickr and Pinterest. It keeps telling me I need to update, so eventually I'll be back on track, but maybe not until later this summer.

Here is my creation....with no shading, but I don't feel that every tangle I do needs that finished shaded look. I have a great idea for making it into a card, so although it's not totally finished yet it will eventually end up in someone's mailbox as a card.

Click HERE to see Wayne's creation for this week's Diva challenge.

Zensdays: Challenges....last week of May!

I'm off to a sluggish start this week on challenges. But I have my diva challenge done and will add more if I get them done. This week Laura had an interesting idea. Only use tangles with straight lines which I thought was a very clever challenge. Because there are oodles of straight lined tangles that if you take notice really have a curvy look to them just depending on how those lines come together. Paradox which I used as a border around Weben is one of those tangles. I have to admit I didn't put my thinking cap on to go down that road even more, but rather I wanted to try a new tangle (hence Weben) and then I vowed that my next opportunity I would utilize a tangle that I love to work with (hence Paradox). Paradox is done with all straight lines and this week I did the "columns" variety rather than the fans application of Paradox. I don't really make a habit of looking at the other challenge postings on the diva's site until after I post my challenge, but I am thinking this time around it will be fascinating to see what others have done. So follow the link above and see what's happening there and do give it a go and join if you get the chance. Everyone seems to be so supportive, so if you don't get the chance to tangle this week at least leave a comment or two for those who like some encouragement. (Which BTW is most of us!)

Also if you want an interesting read this week, stop by the Toula Boula site... Becky Robertson has some very thoughtful insights on her Monday's Muse regarding creating. As a teacher I am always interested in knowing how others approach creating and the perception of perfection and how to deal with our own and our student's creative vicissitudes. This is week four of her Love Notes challenge and an opportunity to make a card for someone you care about. I hope to have the time to do a birthday card for a friend!

If you would like to view Wayne's diva challenge click HERE to view his Flickr site with his latest creation.

I told Sarah at hungrycorgistudio.blogspot.com that each time I see her blog I remember years of pleasure with our corgis.

Our daughter is visiting this weekend and she just turned 31 this month! In honor of her visit I am posting a pix of her with her Corgi (one year old).

She is now pregnant and we are looking forward to years of fun with grandchildren and maybe even more Corgis in our lives.

One Step Cloisonné

This technique is called one step cloisonné and is really quite simple to do. The feather stencil  (LG760) is paste-embossed the regular embossing paste (DEP) onto a decorative paper. Then when it is dry the clean stencil was repostioned onto the feather and it was stenciled with aqua pigment ink. Leaving the feather stencil in position the spiral dots stencil (LX 7029) was positioned on top of the aqua feather and stenciled with varying colors of purple pigment inks. (Remove the stencil at this time.) The advantage of the pigment ink is that is stays wet for awhile so now the Deep Impressions embossing powder was sprinkled on top and heated with a heat gun. Be sure to leave the paper flat and not hold it at an angle because thicker powders like this can slide while you are heating them and slip onto the paper. Repeat the process with the Hello stencil (LS96). The feather and the hello are nice and shiny and thick on this beautiful background paper...you can see the shininess, especially on the shaft of the feather and the hello. Fun to do and lots of kudos from friends who receive this beauty in the mail.

All of the linked items are from the www.stencilwithstyle.com site.

Winners for the Showers of Showers: April Challenge

OK...so it looks as if we missed posting the random winner for Showers of Showers/April Challenge. 

Sorry!!! 

Our winner for April is Leanne S. #3 

and this month we are also choosing a commenter: 

that winner is Burning Rubber

Please choose a Dreamweaver stencil and email me your snail mail address at lynell@dreamweaverstencils.com and we will get those off to you poste-haste!

Zensday's New Challenges

I'm posting this for two different challenges. The Diane Clancy challenge for S-T-U of the ABCs challenge. 

I used Starmap, Ticking and Undling...the three together make a window on the universe with the Undling as flowing curtains and the Ticking as an unraveling valance over the Starmap.

I also made this do double duty for the diva's #218 challenge of "White on Black". I used a Sakura white gel pen...it helps if you use a lighter pressure and keep moving, or the ink tends to puddle or blur. I used 80# card stock which is a black linen that I happened to have on hand. The diva, Laura Harms, is giving us the choice of doing the white on black or the opportunity to do a ZIA with a found object. Would love to do something with that, but not sure when I'll have time...it might not happen until next week. The tangles used were: Starmap, Ticking and Undling. Go to tanglepatterns.com to find the step-by-step instructions from the creators of these patterns.

Also Becky Robertson at Toula Boula is giving a challenge to make a card for someone you love and post it on her Monday's Muse. This month her Monday's Muse is called "Love Notes". Click HERE if you are interested in knowing more, she has a beautiful website and blogs regularly, she often posts to the diva's challenges and has some interesting information on this that and the other, an enjoyable read because she really writes well. The card can be made with altered art, fine art, stencils, rubber stamps or pretty much any medium you want to use as long as it's a card for someone you care about. Mine is for a friend who's been going through a difficult time. The "friend" tag was done with shrink plastic. The daisy stencil (LL548) was done with the double glitter technique and the raindrops stencil (LJ905) was paste-embossed with pearlescent embossing paste (DPP) on top of acetate then adhered over the top of the glittered card. If you are interested in the Double Glitter technique email me at lynell@dreamweaverstencils.com and I will send you the instructions in a pdf format. The links for where to find the stencils in this paragraph go to my Mom's website stencilwithstyle.com

Hoping you have a wonderful time tangling and stamping and stenciling this week! Would love to hear your comments. Wayne just finished his post for the diva's challenge #218, so here is his Flikr link.

P-Q-R Challenge for DC

Finally getting around to doing my alphabet challenge this week for Diane Clancy and Zandypant's weekly challenge. This week was PQR and I used Popsicles (the poppies), Quib (the greenery) and Riverstones.

I used a combination of coloring materials and when I do that it's always a learning experience. "Always be willing to try something new" is my motto and of course when you do that there are bound to be a few glitches. I think the part that is the hardest when applying color on top of the black ink is that it can make your ink a bit muddy, so I had to go over some areas a second time. I was using bristol board and it does pretty well with the watercolor pencils and accepting moisture, but if you get too rambunctious there can be issues....mine were a couple of overworked areas, but lessons learned and hopefully more patience will be in my future attempts. If I did the Riverstone tangle again I would make the stones more oval so they don't look quite so much like the tangle called Tipple. So that is what I learned. But one of the reasons I have been enjoying this particular challenge is that I can control what I do for tangles and I wanted to be pushed to try some different ones. So there you have it. 

If you want to see Wayne's P-Q-R alphabet click HERE. Just took a peek at it myself and am amazed. I am also planning on doing Toula Boula's card challenge for a loved one, so stop back later if you get the chance, and take time to see her blog and join the fun if you get the chance. Still haven't had the chance to try the tangles Static for Daniel's challenge, but I am still hoping to have time to try it. Thanks much for your encouraging comments.

A question for you that love color. Which watercolor pencils do you have and which do you like the best. I'd love to get some more of the Ink-tense, but they are pretty saturated pigment-wise. Love to have your feedback.