Inspiration Avenue - Dragonfly challenge

This weeks challenge over at Inspiration Avenue is to post our favorite dragonfly image.  Dragonflies have been magical to me for a very long time.  Their gossamer wings and long bodies intrigue me and I marvel at their movement and grace.  They remind me of faeries, and indeed are associated with faeries in some European fables.

Here is my favorite dragonfly image - a tattoo that I would like to have someday.

Inspiration Avenue Challenge - If you could go anywhere

When things seem a bit hum-drum

or the cares of the day are pressing in,

then it's time to do a little 

wishful wandering!

If you could go anywhere, do anything,

where would you go?

what would you do??

what would you see? 

This week's challenge over at Inspiration Avenue  is to describe where you'd go and what you'd do if you could go anywhere.  I would go back to my hometown in Greece where I could watch the boats on the marina and take in the beautiful sea.  I would sit out on the balcony with a cup of tea and watch the peacefulness of the village lifestyle go by.  I would slow down my life and take time to enjoy my surroundings.

This creation started with a black and white photograph of the marina in my hometown.  I changed it to a sketch in Photoshop, and colored the background.  Then I used brushes in Photoshop to add the sun and other embellishments. 

By the Sea

You're invited to a party!

Here's you very own, personal invitation to a Fairy Tea Party! Everyone's invited to this special blog party!  Head on over to Inspiration Avenue and let them know you'll be attending on September 23, 2012!  There will be lots of fun, freebies and giveaways for you.  Join in the festivities today!

 

Very-very close to us in their fascinating parallel world live fairies. You can find them in the silken silence of beautiful flowers, near the forest silver lake late at night, or see their sparkling wings in the gray of the dawn. Fairies look like illusive tender creatures with enormous fiery eyes and ethereal pearl wings. They live near mountain lakes, sleep on beds of green flag leaves, eat pollen and drink morning dew from the blossoms. Early in the morning they are floating in the sky and play hide and seek beneath the whirlpool. This supernatural world is close and at the same time it is inaccessible for us. As usual, fairies hide from hostile human beings, but sometimes it is possible to see them. 

Whether they're in the garden

 In the night,

 In the sun

Or in the sky, fairies will gather together on September 23 to drink tea, eat fanciful desserts and have fun together. See you there!

Diva Challenge #83- Assunta and Mooka

Hmmm this week's challenge really was a challenge. I love Mooka and I use it regularly-but Assunta I just didn't get. Finally I started to get a little bit of a rhythm with it, but I can't say I'd use it again!  I like that I had to do something I wouldn't normally do.

Zendala Dare #18

Here is this week's Zendala Dare. I used crescent moon throughout plus a little ribbon flower I created. I thought the crescent moon looked like bugles-remember that snack?

Fairy Kitty

This week's Inspiration Avenue Challenge was FAIRIES, all types, all genres.  So, I decided my kitty, Carly, was worthy of fairyness.  I used Photoshop and fairy wings brushes by Obsidian Dawn.  This was fun to do, although I had to do it without the benefit of my waacom tablet, so it wasn't as fully finessed as I would have liked.  I just moved and my tablet is still packed.  This challenge reminded me how much I love playing with Photoshop and creating digitally manipulated illustrations.

Zendala Dare #17 - In honor of my grandfather

This week's Zendala Dare was to be in honor of someone special and for me that is my grandfather.  He was the sweetest, most patient, kind and loving man I have ever met, with a kind quiet voice and a passion for his church.  I want most to be like him in every way.  This Zendala is for you papou - grandfather.  This is a page from my sketchbook for the Sketchbook Project - I used pigment ink pads to color the background.

Weekly Diva Challenge #82: UMT v. VII "Brayd"

This week's Diva Challenge invites you to use the tangle Brayd by Shelly Beauch.  I really like this tangle because it looks so cool, and you can embellish it too.  I had partially completed this ZIA with Mi2 from a previous challenge and found that Brayd was perfect to finish it off with.

Inspiration Avenue

I just discovered this site, Inspiration Avenue with weekly art creativity challenges.  I'm very excited to see what the challenges will be and how it will stretch my creative mind.  I've been doing Zentangle for about 3 years, maybe longer, and I am a CZT - a certified zentangle teacher - so I was excited to see that this week's challenge was Zentangles.  Here is a Zendala that I created using a template from Erin Olson over at the Bright Owl.

Weekly Challenge #81: "Guest Post - Relay for Life"

I was surprised to see that Erin from The Bright Owl was hosting this week's Diva Challenge-and excited too since I love the Zendala Templates she creates.  This was a lot of fun to create, and donations can be made too for Erin for The Relay for Life.  Good luck Erin on your walk, and thank you for taking on this worthy event.

Zendala Dare #16

This weeks Zendala Dare was really challenging for me because of the large spaces.  I felt like I wanted to divide the spaces in to smaller compartments.  I think this became an issue also because I made the Zenadala a 7x7 size and the sections were even bigger!

I am the Diva Challenge #80 - Mi2

This week's challenge is to use the tangle Mi2 (me too) created by CZT Mimi Lempart.  This is a beautiful and elegant tangle with endless possibilities, but it was a little challenging to get the rhythm of the pattern.  However, I think the results are a little exotic and certainly takes me into a new realm of tangling.  I used Mi2 twice in this ZIA and made a mistake both times in the direction of the curved lines, but I think I still made it work.

Zendala Dare #15

This week's Zendala Dare was really a challenge for me.  I struggled with the template because I don't generally work with geometric patterns or strings.  This is actually my second attempt, and I'm not sure I really care for it.  It has some potential-maybe I'll work on a third one too and see what I can come up with.

New Tangle-Shingle-by Maria Copetas

I was playing around with some grid patterns and came across a pattern in some wallpaper that seemed perfect for a grid. It is very similar to the official Zentangle pattern called Flukes, but I think this is sufficiently different in construction and outcome to qualify as a different tangle.  I draw the grid in pencil, although you could just as easily draw it in pen for a different look.

I am the diva Challenge #79: Citius, Altius, Fortius

This week's challenge is hosted by Rho Densmore and focuses on the meaning of the Olympics and the five colored Olympic rings. The message that Rho is trying to convey in this weeks challenge is that  the outcome is not as important as participating in the process.  Like the art of Zentangle where, one stroke at a time, we take a journey to the final outcome, whatever that outcome might be.  It is the process itself which is meditative and creative, the outcome may or may not be what we had envisioned.


I wasn't sure where this particular Zentangle was going to lead me, but it flowed onto the paper and this was the result.  

Just a little fun

I love the new tangle Aura Knot so I thought I'd combine it with my beloved Zendala and my other favorite tangle, Angelfish.

Alien Cat

This is my cat Carly-or is it quite possibly an alien?! I took this picture the other night and ended up with laser eye kitty. Then my daughter took the second picture of our other cat Rainbow. Eerie.

Zendala Dare #14

In keeping with a theme, my submission for this weeks Zendala Dare at Thebrightowl.blogspot.com also uses my new favorite tangle, Angelfish.  I finished this today, the day the Dare was posted-nothing like keeping on top of things.  I really liked this week's template and I think I'll have to do a couple more using it.

Angelfish

I found this fabulous tangle on Tanglepatterns.com and just had to try it.  I love the result I got.  I'm thinking that the flowers in the piece would look cool colored in, so I'm going to copy it onto card stock and then see what happens when I color them.

Here is the colorized version.  Although I like how it turned out, I think I prefer the plain one better.

Mamma Mia

I'm very excited about taking my daughter, Sophia, to see Mamma Mia this weekend.  She loves ABBA and sings along with their music all the time, so she should definitely enjoy this fun treat.  It's at Playhouse Square in Cleveland, OH, so she really thinks its a special night out.  The only thing is that she wanted to bring along a friend, and I asked two of her friends who couldn't make it....then she started coming up with random people to ask to go with us.  I said, isn't it enough that you're going? You're really excited about going even if one of your friends can't go with us, right? And then she says, Well....I guess so.  I suppose just going with Mom isn't as fun as going with friends.  I know it's the age (she's 14) but even so, it makes me a little sad....

Yeah I'm mobile blogging!!

I just figured out how to post to my blog from my iPhone! Of course I can't be as wordy because it's harder to type on my phone, but I can  create a post on the go.  Yea me!

I am the diva Challenge #78 Auraknot

Last week Rick and Maria introduced a new tangle in their newsletter with an added challenge to break down the steps and to name the tangle.  This week they unveiled the steps to doing this magnificent and fun tangle.  I had to practice a couple of times before I really got the hang of it, but now that I get it, I can't stop doing it!  This week's Diva Challenge is to use auraknot in a Zentangled piece of art.  Here is my submission.  I'm having trouble scanning my images lately, I have a new scanner, and I have to say that I like my old one better.  So much for new technology!

Zendala Dare #13

Here is my submission for the Bright Owl's Zendala Dare this week.  It's a lot simpler than the ones I usually do but it was fun and so relaxing to create this.