Teatime.

A very small and very nervous white cat was being terrorised by the local farmer's pack of terriers.
Our crew don't let them onto our property so, although we're not really cat people, she lives in a ruined stable and we feed her, much to the disgust of the dogs!
Then on Wednesday she showed us a very precious little visitor, her baby.

Due to being a big fan of a certain writer and the time of day he arrived we've named him Mr. Teatime.
I'm currently doing an online course and our project is to take something that inspires us, to capture it and then do other versions of the same subject.
So here is my project page..subject, Mr Teatime!

Diva Challenge #282..Spill! IAST #160

I'm not someone who normally has any problem whatsoever in making a mess..so when The Diva announced her challenge, no problem! Spill anything you like on a tile and tangle, Adele's IAST challenge was a large number 6 string plus Shattuck and Fengle designs. Just put them all together I thought...so armed with a handful of tiles I go to the kitchen to spill...
Red wine and real strong coffee, nice colours, I thought. Plenty of mess but...no colours! The tiles must contain a lot of bleaching agent because the spill was barely visible.
Take two..
I have found some watercolour paper recently that my mother bought 28 years ago for a pastels class that she did not enjoy. The paper is not quite white anymore but hey :) Red wine, Adele's string, Shattuck, Fengle and a few recalcitrant Zingers and I'm done. I've had some great advice from Eni Oken lately and feel it's helping my shading a lot.

Let's give these gems a go!

So everywhere I look I see fab gems drawn to look breathtaking..I downloaded a great book and these are my very first attempt.
This is in a small 4x6" journal as it is the only smooth paper I have. The settings are very quickly sketched as I did not expect to like the gems enough to make the effort at all but actually am quite pleased :)
This is something that will be fun to experiment with I think.

Diva Challenge # 281 *ING!

Here is my Diva Challenge tile for challenge # 281 and there she is below, naked!

The Diva's choice was simply ING from Zentangle. When I say simply I'd like to say her choice was simple..one design, do your own thing however....having spent the first evening drawing it in lots of forms, willy nilly, no problem, I then lost the plot completely! My very long suffering partner, when he stopped laughing at my frustration, helped me. I talked him through the step outs and that in it's turn reinstated it back into my thick head :) I wrote out a 4 step recipe that works every time!
The reason for the naked before shot is that I have been accepted into a miraculous shading group. If I share my efforts with them they have lots of very kind people who will critique the piece. Everyone is constructive and encouraging, this is priceless to an absolute beginner like me.
So! The tile started to break down badly with colour and shading but I really enjoyed this challenge.
The ING at the top, done with curved lines, looked quite organic to me like something I might dig up in the veggie patch! The bottom one sharper and harder so I wanted the middle one to be a fusion of the two. The web and curve meet the hard angles, a louvre type pattern and then blossoming into a soft floral design (Sanibelle from Tricia Faraone). To the best of my knowledge nothing else needs to be referenced but please do tell me if I've missed something?

It's so true :)

Diva Challenge #280 Olympics Rio 2016

The Diva and Adele Bruno both chose an Olympic theme so I'm cheating somewhat and using one tile for both challenges.
Phew! The IAST string was '16'  A challenge it certainly was, my 'taste' alarm was ringing at the number of colours in the rings but five colours it is!
The pattern Drogon from Lily Moon was part of  the IAST #158 challenge so, as that made think of the feather fans and headdresses from Brazilian carnivals, I decided to use Vicki Bassett's Showgirl as one of my 'go to' patterns. As it was already a bit of an extravaganza of colour I thought the colours of Brazil's flag may as well join the party :)
Just lately I've been reading of people passing along tiles for friends to add to then pass along again..a relay :) So Carole Ohl's Baton is the final addition that needs to be referenced I think..relays..batons..? The Baton design also reminded me of the ribbons for the medals.

Joey's Challenge #126 finish my tile..

Yet another first for me..this time an entry for Joey's Challenge. I was not aware of this one until this weekend so thought I would have a go.
The idea is that Joey starts a tile, this one with a Paradox triangle, then we finish off the tile.
What a fun idea, I've really enjoyed the concept and the process.
So..to Joey's Paradox I abutted some of Kate Ahren's Tropicana and surrounded the whole lot with Tricia Faraone's Sanibelle. I struggled a little with the Paradox shading (as ever) but decided to leave the little highlight in the very centre, Tropicana and Sanibelle were both totally new to me but an utter joy to draw..thanks to those ladies :)