Penguins make me happy

For one of my best friends I made a card this weekend. Sandy Bartholomew's book "Yoga for the Brain" is one I turn to many times when I am into something fun and beautiful. This time was no exception. She gives the tangle 'Pinline' as an example, telling "I can't help adding something silly!" to her Zentangles.... That's something I love to do, add that to my love of penguins and there you have it:  ZIA with penguins.

I drew it on yellow paper, then pasted that on the striped paper you see in the background. My friend should have this in her mailbox by today, I so hope she goes "Yeay!" when she opens the envelope....

Love, Maureen

The Sea Star Called Fengle

This weekend I tried my hand at a new tangle, "Fengle". It is gorgeous, and I loved drawing it. When I looked at the new challenge I saw that The Diva made it into the challenge this week, yeay! So, here is mine.

I named it "The Sea Star Called Fengle".... The other tangles are Plaited, Allium and Printemps. At first I wasn't sure if I should 'finish' the tangles all around Fengle, but then I decided it's 'done'.
Anyway, I really enjoyed doing this one. It was a bright, sunny day yesterday, like today, hmmmmm, spring is in the air :-)

Beside this one I tried my hand at a colored one as well, although I am pleased with the result, it doesn't feel 'real', yet. Deciding what colors to use keeps me from getting in that wonderful 'mindless' flow when doing a black and white piece. Still, a good experiment. Because I am curious about your experiences (if any) with color, I thought I would add it to this post.

Wishing you all a wonderful, sun-filled week!
Maureen

Weekly Challenge #59: Mardi Gras

The moment I saw this weeks challenge I saw BTL Joos mixed with beeeedz, so.... no time wasted, got my pens and paper. Had so much fun.
In Holland the 'festival' because of Ash Wednesday is called Carnaval and lot's of people are going out, dressed up. Not as fancy as Mardi Gras if you ask me, but then again I'm no 'Carnaval'-fan... Forgive me fellow Dutchies if you are.

Anyway, here is my ZIA. You see BTL Joos, Beeds, Beadls, Boing, Feather and some other things. Most of them are by Sandy Bartholomew.

Hope you've had just as much fun with the challenge as I did.

PS: the scan is a bit blurred on the left, I will rescan it later, couldn't get it right now, sorry!

What would my teachers have thought of this?!

Last week I was working on my latest ZIA (Zentangle Inspired Art). I had my gorgeous brown paper, all my favorite black pens. My table was filled with inspiration - pictures of tangle-patterns, and of art by other zentangle-enthousiastics.
My piece was coming along, one stroke at a time, until my paper was full. And I mean full... ;-) No stroke to fit in there anymore, no more room.

The paper went to my scanner to save it on my laptop. To be able to share it with the people on Flickr, on this blog.
Then it slowely dawned on me that there was something special going on here. I love my art, I share it with people, the compliments they give my are heartfelt, they move me, inspire me, and maybe most importantly: I don't play them down anymore.....

For a moment I stopped what I was doing. Letting this feeling sink in. There is a strong connection with the past, with school and other places where 'teachers', people with 'authority', tell you what is creative, what is Art. They neglect to say that it is just their opinion, they mostly state it like it's some kind of universal truth. Anyway, you may have guessed it, those voices from my past were all telling me that I am not creative, that I can't draw, that what I make is surely not Art.

This time I felt that I really didn't believe them anymore, and does that feel good!
It was my choice to go and believe my own inner voice, strengthening it by listening to other wonderful people doing the same. That was some time early last year. I'm so glad I did, so glad I met so many new people, saw so many new ways of creating, Art in so many forms.

For those of you who read this, I'm sure so many of you sadly have similar experiences.
I hope that we will all keep on sharing our Art, zentangle or other, to keep us strong and happy. And maybe even inspire someone else to go and find their creative inner voice.

Wishing you a wonderful, creative weekend!

XOX Maureen

Look what I've whipped up....

This experiment.... this experience... wow. Prompted by the challenge I am the Diva posted this week (look here) I did a ZIA with my left hand. Pffff. Talking about Non Dominatrix.... I had to crack my whip to finish ;-)
It was really really weird to have a pencil and a fineliner in my left hand and actually go and put lines on the paper. As if my brain didn't understand what was happening. I was sending it messages like "make a swirl" but somehow it didn't really get through. Or with a lot of stutters.

Anyway, I did like it, and it was good to notice:
- I am really bad at drawing with my left hand
- shading I will never take for granted again
- yes, my perfectionism kicked in even more (my lines are wobbly.... arghh)
- yes, I managed not to let it interfere with finishing the piece
- giving my tile a name was fun - the Non Dominatrix immediately had me thinking of a whip and so: 'look what I've whipped up'..... that is the same you say when you make a dish or something, right? (English is not my native language you know)
- the relaxing experience of doing a Zentangle was different, too much thinking going on for that
- BUT it is a good thing to do, shake things up a bit
- makes me appreciate it even more to do the beautiful patterns and lines and little shades 'just like that' with my dominant hand.

So, all in all, a great experience, great experiment.
Oh, and Laura, I am not offended by the title, thought it is fun to do something like this. Thank you for doing this, again. It wasn't there for the first round, wouldn't have missed it for the world.
I might even try my hand at a second one....

In honor of Artoo - Moebius

This little tangle-creation is in honor of Artoo. Made for the Diva's weekly challenge #55 (here it is).
From making a booklet of my Zentangles I had some scraps of paper lying. The tv was on, there was a show about DNA. I loved the string and they had these lines in it too, between the spirals. Anyway, I sort of wanted to capture the DNA spiral in a tangle, then I made the sunrays in the middle and the rest went with the flow (you know the feeling, don't you?).
When I finished I remembered the challenge and paused to see if this one would fit it. I'm still not sure, but the DNA string is sort of just as on-and-on-going as the Moebius string, so I thought, why not...
Looking at it a little longer I thought: the hearts and all the sunshine are so approprioate. They representst the love and light of your life that he is. He get's so much love from you, and you get so much love and light from him.
The purple line I added last, in honor of Artoo.

Zentangle Thank You

I've recently discovered the world of Zentangle©. And where I never in a million years thought I would be able to make art by drawing... I now do. There is a beautiful site (tanglepatterns.com) where hundreds of tangles (patterns) are presented. Last week Linda Farmer, who maintains it, sent out a thank you gift to the contributors of the site: a pdf containing all the patterns on the site. Wow! What a way to start the new year.
Needless to say, it's beautiful and will be a further inspiration for my Zentangles.
As a way of saying thanks I created this piece:

This is inspired by the 'Tangle your Name' challenge on the site. If you can get real close you can see that I wrote the names of the Tangles I used: Tortuca - Hibred - Archer - Nipa - Kofeforn - Yincut - Onomato. You figured it out, right? Hope you enjoy it, keep up the good work Linda!