Wishing on a Star

This kitty is thinking profound thoughts as he looks up at the heavens at twilight. He's thinking about scratching his claws on yonder tree as well. The rolling hills contain some tangles/patterns. The words in the fields say the magical words many of us learned as children: "Star light, Star bright, first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, get the wish I wish tonight."

Watercolor pencil, markers, black pen, silver pen.

Wishing you pleasant dreams,
Tricia

Parlez-vous francais?

Still having fun with my zentangles--this time just a wee bit (oui?) in the letters! ;) I'm coming along with my shading, slowly but surely. Still find it quite challenging, and my blender pen didn't work so great this time around, but it still turned out okay. I created these french vignettes from a stencil.

Hang in there!

I made this for a girlfriend going through a rough time. Haven't sent it to her house yet, but hoping she won't read my blog until she receives it! (She's not a regular reader to my blog that I know of.) Anyway, this is one of my favorite pieces I've created so far. The pink-y red looks really great with the black and white, on all the clothes on the clothesline. After I scanned this image, I went back and delineated the words Hang In There even more dramatically, so the end result was really good. I love the skirt on the right the best. I've been trying to practice doing neat lettering and like the way this turned out too.

TW

This one is just a silly one I did for fun. It's not fancy or anything, but thought I'd post it. I didn't love the way the sidewalk to the door turned out, but I liked everything else. I esp. liked the chimney. It reminded me how much I liked to draw chimneys when I was little. Not sure why. I like the brick pattern I suppose.

Mostly, I'm glad I'm just having fun. As a perfectionist, I can focus too much on the end product and not enough on the process, thereby missing out on all the artistic journey has to offer!

TW

Wheelworks

This is something I drew pretty soon after I learned at Zentangles in early July. I like the way it turned out. I like the pops of red. I think it'll be fun to see how I progress with this artwork. I call this one Wheelworks, although I think it looks like either cogs or also CDs too.

All for now,
Tricia

Quite a Pear--Happy Anniversary

Happy Anniversary to my sweetie! 13 years, woo-hoo! Here's the card I created earlier today for John. This year I was kinda lazy in the card department when it came to John. I got him Father's Day and Birthday gifts, but no cards (sorry, sweetie! blame it on the economy!!??) ha! So I knew I had to do SOMETHING for our wedding anniversary today.

Anyway, I like the subtle baby blue and dark brown colors of this Zentangle. And I think I'm starting to get the hang of shading.

All for now,
Tricia

Sunbeams

Okay, guess I'll do one more tonight. I was encouraged by my auntie's and sister's (in-law) fast responses. ;) I call this one Sunbeams.

Unfurled

Well, here's another zentangle I created. I worked with lots of tangles (patterns) I've never done before and then colored it. I've been studying my Time to Tangle with Color book I recently got and having a blast. I especially like the one big "coil" pattern that goes through the entire middle of it all. My first time to draw it and it turned out pretty neat! Hope you enjoy!
All for now,
Tricia

All Tangled Up!

Okay, so you know me, always watching out for the next craft technique to come down the pike! A friend of mine told me about "Zentangling." What in the world is that? Well, to the founders, "tangles" is just another word for pattern. So they came up with a cool way to showcase lots of patterns together and, while it sometimes looks awfully "busy," can still be a whole lot of fun to create. I think the Zentangle "purists," prefer strictly black and white, but I personally like BnW plus a little color to make them pop!

The above photo is my second or third attempt. I looked up Zentangles online and there are tons of them everywhere! Lots of creative people out there, I tell you! I'm glad to have found it because I'd kind of reached a plateau with my card-making. I still enjoy it to a degree, but I think I was ready for something different.

Anyway, on a more personal note, we are having a nice summer. We found out John will be teaching part-time at Southwestern Adventist University this fall--audio and video production. He'll also be teaching business speech communication at Tarrant County College again too. It's a lot of work, but after last year, we are glad to have "too" much work than not enough. His teaching is in ADDITION to the usual 30+ hours he works for Dogster (now called owned by Say Media). So he will be a very busy man. But as I said, we are grateful!

Hannah's enjoying her summer. She spends the bulk of her time swimming, reading, watching free episodes on hulu.com, swimming, running errands with me and her daddy, playing on the computer, occasionally meeting up with a classmate or two, and oh, did I say swimming? ha! It's nice to see that she still loves to swim and it's such good exercise. She's also, much to her dismay, doing some schoolwork in a workbook we purchased. We wanted to make sure she doesn't forget what she learned in 5th grade, so she works in the book once or twice a week. She has a prettttty good attitude about it! ha!

I can tell she's getting older, as she does not play with her toys as much as she used to. And as she used to absolutely LOVE playing with her neighborhood children, she seems to want a little more alone time, or "me" time. I think some of that is because they are three years younger and she gets tired of playing Barbies all the time! She does still enjoy one little girl who is almost nine, because that girl will sit and just talk and visit and is a little less rowdy than the others. My Hannah girl is such a mixture of John and me. As long as she maintains a good balance of alone time and being sociable, then I'm happy with that!

More tangles to come! (I know you're waiting with bated breath! ha!)

All for now,
Tricia