St. Patty's Challenge & CHAMPIONS

It's an exciting week! Cami performs at the USA Dance Nationals. The competition began on Friday. It is so wonderful to watch her dance... the proud mama always gets a tear in her eye. Friday night was the award show for the afternoon performances. Cami had tears of joy as their team won Champions (1st place) in the Small Dance category. This is such a great accomplishment for the team. Cami was excited as she is a senior and it's her last competition, she got a backpack that says "USA Dance Nationals CHAMPION" on it, she got a nice heavy medallion... and she accomplished this with her friends. It.was.an.amazing.night. Cami's comment a little later was, "I LOVE to win!" I agree, Cami... I. agree. 

Champions Trophy for Small Dance

The entire dance team...

Four of the nine who competed in the winning dance. 

A wonderful side benefit of attending these competitions is that there is a LOT of waiting time in between performances. Luckily our hotel is just across the street from the convention center. So... in between performances Leila and I would head back to the hotel (did I mention how AWESOME it is that Leila joined me for this?! Double. fun. weekend!) so that she could work, and I could draw. This means I had time to do the diva challenge! YAY! This week's challenge is #209 "St. Patty's." You were to use green somehow in your piece. That could mean colored paper, pen, paint... I decided to use some "green" that I had in my wallet. 

Weekly Challenge #209 : St. Patty's

Wish Cami good luck on the rest of this weekend's competition! I'm so happy that I have this opportunity to watch her dance AND spend time with both of my daughters (also time to draw!). Thank you to all who stop by for a visit (leave me a comment if you have a chance, please)! 

P.S. Have you tried out the Audio Zentangle® Meditations yet?! The first one is here.  Here is the second one.    I'll be creating the third one soon. 

Zentangle Audio Meditation #2 and a little Jonqal

It has been a beautiful weekend. Temperatures in the 80's... We've spent the afternoon floating in the pool and relaxing. A wonderful little preview of summer. I feel spoiled!

I spent part of the afternoon (not while floating in the pool) finishing up this tile from the "Shades of Gray" Zentangle® class I taught late last month. It was such a wonderful class. I wish I had remembered to take photos of the tiles. Everyone created such beautiful art! (Hopefully at the next Beyond the Basics class I can photograph the tiles from this class, if everyone remembers to bring their tiles back!) We spent a portion of the class working on a variety of shading techniques. So.much.fun! I wanted to demonstrate what a HUGE difference shading can make to a tangle. You can make one pattern look like something completely different all with where you lay down your graphite or add a sparkle (highlight). This tile is an example of one of the tangles (Jonqal) we worked on in this class. It shows the tangle unshaded, and shaded two different ways. Isn’t it amazing to see the difference?!  There are sooo many ways to shade this! Jonqal was a tangle that gave me that AH...HA... moment in shading when I first started tangling. I held back my tile at arm's length after adding shading, and realized that the combination of sparkles and shading had created an illusion of a coil on a striped background... it BLEW MY MIND!! I was hooked on experimenting with shading from that moment! 

Jonqual : 3 ways

It has been way too long since I've had a chance to participate in the Diva Challenge...  This week's challenge #208 is to use the tangles Cubine and Poke Root. You can see all the details of the challenge here. I am so happy to have a piece to submit. Thanks, Laura, for another fabulous challenge! I had so.much.fun!

Diva Challenge #208 : Cubine & Poke Root : "Reflections"

I have had such a lovely, kind response to my first Zentangle Audio Meditation Challenge. I appreciate all those kind Zentangle enthusiasts who have left me comments here, on Facebook, or emailed me. Each message was treasured. Thank you! 

So... let's try it again! Here is the SECOND Zentangle Audio Meditation Challenge. (Didn't have a chance to try the FIRST one? It's here!) You will need the following:

Bijou Tile (2 inch by 2 inch paper tile) 

or original Zentangle (3 1/2 inch by 3 1/2 inch) tile, if you prefer

Micron 01 pen

Pencil (HB or softer)

Tortillion or Stump for blending

....and a nice quiet place :)

This challenge will take approximately 25 minutes. Please remember that you can pause the audio at any time if you need a little longer to complete the instructions.  Listen... and draw... there are no mistakes. 

I would love to read comments from all those who participate. If you would like, please post a photo of your tile on your blog/instagram/flickr, etc. and post the link in your comment. This will allow others to view your version of the challenge. It's so much fun to see everyone's artistic interpretation! DON'T PEEK UNTIL YOU COMPLETE THE CHALLENGE! NO CHEATING!    {Finished? You can see mine here.}

 

Thank you again for stopping by for a little relaxed focus... Enjoy!