Happy New Year

My best wishes for all of you to have the best, happy, healthy, safe New Year!

Zentangle® Swap

I joined my first Zentangle® trade on my Yahoo group. It is to be a sunrise. What do you think?

Another Class

Today, I took my second Zentangle class, at The Occasional Artist in Glendale, AZ, taught by Jane Eileen, CZT. We made Zentangles to put on cards. It was an unusual day in AZ with cold and rain. How much fun it was to meet new people and play for a few hours:

CZT Class and Artist Trading Cards, ATC

I signed up for the Certified Zentangle Teacher, CZT, class in June. I will retire at the end of May and then go to the training the following month. Could anything work out more perfectly? I read, on my Yahoo group, that people trade ATC's there. So, now I need to do some of those to take. Here are my first two:

Gift Cards

Holidays are on the way and gifts for the boss are a necessity. This year, I am making him note cards with envelopes so he can do his thank you notes in style. I hunted down wooden letters at Michael's and these are what I came up with.

The first is in the round:

This one has some spray paint, stamps and embossing around the letters:

This one is spray paint with baby wipe blending and the tangles with colored pen:

On its side:

Water color wash and colored pens:

And my favorite, a stacker. Stackers are a design plan from Cindy of the RainbowElephant.com

Hope he likes them. If not, his wife has the same initials LOL!!

Chinese Dragon

Sometimes you just have to follow your instincts:

This one uses the Inktense colored pencils along with colored pens, regular colored pencils and plain ol' pencil for shading.

Zentangle Class

I took a class yesterday at The Occasional Artist in Glendale, AZ, with Jane Eileen. It was a lot of fun. Had to go through the mandatory stuff about Zentangles® and the info on Maria and Rick, but then we got to play. It was different than doing them at home. I actually slowed down and paid attention to what I was doing. Here are a few of the things I did in the class:

 Was actually given two "real" tiles but chose not to use them. I don't know why I just haven't even tried them even though I have purchased some of the white and black ones from Zentangle.com I guess I think I have to be doing a lot better with these before I use my precious tiles :)

Scrap Art

Sometimes you just have to do with what's on hand. Driving to work, I saw a cloud formation that reminded me of the windmills in California. A piece of memo paper, ball point pen, pencil, and a couple of highlighters was all I needed to do this little gem:

The Beginning

We all have to start somewhere. Please join me on my trip down Tangle Street. Let's hope we all have a nice journey and learn some things along the way.

I am working myself down that road to retirement. It's been a long and winding road but the end is in sight. Now is the time for me to pull out my paper, pens, colors and such and go back to the joy of creating. I won't be posting much now, but by this time next year I should be able to begin playing full time. Join me if you'd like.

Teaching

Working in a school gives me an opportunity to share some of my passions with little people. One of my favorite little people stopped by this afternoon. I asked her if she wanted to see what I was drawing (on the back of my emptied scratch pad.... never waste a piece of paper) and she nodded yes. The disbelief  and awe was amazing to see. Next thing you know, I was teaching her how to to a "Zentangle" and how to make up her own special signature.

It was a good day :)

Why is it that weekends go by so quickly? There just never seems to be enough time to get any "fun" into two days of cleaning, shopping, paying bills and such. Thank goodness for a simple tangle to calm things down.

Am reading the book by Maria Thomas and Rick Roberts. They suggest using a unique to you kind of initials for your work. Like my new one?