a little lime

So, no Monday Moleskine this week - it was my mum's birthday - we drove up to see her.....and, I kinda forgot.....oops. As we're all full of Christmas love and cheer and frantic preparation around here (I have 24 coming to lunch Christmas Day), I don't see any MM's happening until after New Years. Onto this weeks Diva Challenge  - what a fabulous milestone for Laura to reach 100 challenges, and how cool to have the introduction of the tangle pattern, Diva Dance to celebrate it. Fantastic. I started in on the challenges about half way through this year, and they have been such a wonderful way for me to stretch myself creatively as well as discovering so many talented tanglers. Love it. Diva Dance. Love, love, love. Can you tell - I loved  playing with this pattern. "Anything goes/rock n'roll" is definitely the version I lean towards. Here's what I came up with: Wreath: this was the first thing that came to mind as soon as I saw the potential to...

I've got lots to share today, so in order to avoid this post dragging on and on........and on and on.............I'm going to split it into 2 posts one for the challenge and another about my love of curly brackets. I'm pretty sure the email feed only sends one post over 24 hour period, so if you're interested, here's the link to the other : Curly Bracket Love and Brax Pattern So, this weeks Diva Challenge - Looped Border String   was a guest post by Margaret Bremner . If you've seen any of my string challenge posts, you'll probably realise they terrify me - I don't really deal all that well within the constraints of a border. So, first I took the avoidance route and became fascinated by the shape possibilities of the string itself - this led me into a whole heap of experimentation with brackets and diverted me for hours before I finally settled down to tackling the challenge. I decided to draw a string pretty much like the exa...

Now, I love curly brackets. Flowing lines, curves, the possibility of long scrolly bits........ hold on a minute.............squeeeeeeee........ o.k., deep breath, I'm calm, I'm calm. So, how did I go from this weeks diva challenge string to a full-on curly bracket love-fest? Well, basically it comes right down to avoidance. I headed upstairs to my art room yesterday fully planning to tackle the challenge. Unfortunately, I find string based challenges a little......well.......challenging, so when I drew out the example I was easily distracted by possibilities offered by string shape..........my first thought was that it would work as flower/s: Which then prompted this. Which led to pages and pages (well, about 5) of curly bracket play before I got it out of my system and was ready to tackle the challenge (you can see the results in my challenge #99 post ). Brax pattern: I played with a few different types of grids to try and find the best way of wo...

It is cherry season here in the Yarra Valley - that lovely, shiny 8 or so weeks that we can get fresh cherries from the farm gate. I start to get excited in October. The signs go up around late November and we usually buy 1-2kgs at a time and just gorge on them. So, so good. John bought home a 5kg box tonight, so I spent a couple of hours this evening pitting most of them to freeze. I love to make cherry apple pies when the apples are in season - lucky we live next door to an orchard! This weeks Monday Moleskine - started off with a line across the page again then just went from there. Looking forward to tomorrow's challenge! hx

What a week! Whatever made me think that making gingerbread structures (houses & star trees) with 4 grades between the ages of 8-12 would be a good idea? I still have 3 class sessions to go until the end of term (putting together/decorating the gingerbread). Then, I am done for the year! Ohh, yeah! More Keenees for the challenge . Really loved these, because you can just pop them in anywhere you would use a circle. So easy. Keenee Daisies: you have probably realised by now that I love threads, and curls and just.....you know........ looping them around things. This is my favourite one for this challenge. Bit more intense keenee usage on the tassle beads. Keenee Tassel: I did this one before the daisies above, the whole tassel thing took hold and it is my current "thing" (well, for today, anyway!) I'm loving them. Not my normal colour range, here - I have all these gorgeous coloured markers and decided I really needed to break out and use some ...

The Diva Challenge this week - keenees - love them, and let's face it - what's not to love? they're cute, they're cuddly, they're CIRCLES! I have well documented the fact that I LOVE CIRCLES - so fun and easy to work with! In fact, I think I'm going to add a circle label for my posts - I will  have to go back through my other 71 (can you believe it?) posts and adjust, but, so what.....it's not like I have anything else to do with my time in the lead up to Christmas. lol. o.k., maybe the post adjustment will have to wait, but still..........circles......................squeeeeeeeeee! I had lots of ideas for this one and I'm still going, but wanted to get my first ones posted: Keenee Tree: Like everyone I have Christmas on my mind...........almost constantly right now - our guest list for Christmas day keeps growing......and growing! More work, but I'm sure, more fun, too :) Experimentation: I wanted to play with using the basic keenee shap...

Our Christmas trees are up. I've added hot pink to my usual blue/silver theme to the main tree/room decorations this year. I also have a small tree in the hallway which is all about lime green. So beautiful, love this time of year!! I haven't had a lot of time to draw over the past week, so have just done a little here and there on this one and managed to finish the shading on it today. Still playing with this style, though I am just about over it! lol! There are things I like, some I don't, but I always learn something :) I also got diverted part way through when drawing the shattuck pattern - the outline & pattern fill reminded me of an artichoke, so I found myself compelled to sketch out a few artichokes to play with later. Monday Moleskine 6  - not sure where I was going with this one - though, I guess, that's kind of the point - I find the design having two strong diagonals throws the balance off a bit, but, still I had fu...

So busy this week - I've had very little time for drawing. We cut, baled and carted our hay this week. We've had very up and down weather, so we had to get the hay in quickly before the forecasted thunderstorms hit - that meant we picked up the hay in 38degC/100F heat - this was at the end of a day when I had worked in a hot kitchen with 10-12 year olds. I also managed to throw myself head first off the hay trailer down into the hay stack - I lost balance and went down with the bale I was throwing - all was ok, and we got a laugh out of it, though it's not something I'd like to do again! I've also been busy getting ready for Christmas and counting down to the last few sessions of school term. A week or so ago I was playing with my new grey markers and drew out the shading transition on some circles. Here it is with a few tips on how to get a round shape. Due to the wide skinny shape of this image, the writing may be hard to read - here ...