a little lime

Slowly, but steadily (okay, not steadily, just slowly......!) I am getting the videos for the patterns done. I recorded 5 of them last week and now it's just the tedious process of editing them. I hate that part. Oh, and the uploading......the horrible, horrible uploading. My well variation video last week ai ai ai....! O.k., so here's the one for drack. I ummmmed and ahhhhed about even doing a video for this pattern as it's pretty straightforward, but I like to be thorough :) Roosters crowing in the background (pretty much a recurring theme in my vids). We have quite a few roosters at the moment (John has a complicated breeding program for his beloved chickies) and they like to make themselves heard. I also really wish I could learn not to natter on about superfluous stuff. lol. I just can't help myself.......talking needlessly.......on and on and on.......and on about......stuff. Haha. See ya! hx

The diva challenge this week - use knightsbridge and tipple - together! Individually - yep, use them both quite a bit and love 'em. Together........meh......not so much. Definitely a contrast. So here's my deconstructed knightsbridge.........with just a little touch of tipple. It was only once I had completed the linework for this one with all the curls and crossovers that I realised it would be impossible for me to use solid black for the alternate blocks - any overlapping elements would lose their definition without any contrast - so I ended up working with black and dark grey tones for the black(ish) blocks. Solid black can be pretty hard to control for shading, but I'm pretty happy with how it worked out. More play definitely on the cards. hx

So, I've been videoing again in an attempt to get all (well, most......or just some) of the pattern step outs I've done into video format. Here's the latest which demos the process I used to turn Well into a freehand pattern a week or so ago...........only watch if you think you can bear listening to me for twelve and a half minutes (not many people can, I assure you!) and can ignore excessive gesturing (just me droning on about rubbish). I've sped up sections to hopefully make it a bit less painful! You can see some finished designs here and you can find the pattern step out here Enjoy! hx

As I use colour fairly frequently, this week's  diva challenge  should have been an easy one for me to approach. The problem was I couldn't think of anything that I really wanted to draw - so, not being one to suffer for my art, I just slipped right into my comfort zone and used both my favourite pattern and colour. Here's my mooka'd up butterfly in shades of purple. hx

School is out! Finally! I have begun my 4 week break then we are into the final term of the year (as well as the final term of my contract!) Over the past 2 years I have enjoyed (sometimes) cooking with the children, I've learnt a lot and no doubt grown personally, but I am really, really happy it will be coming to an end in December. More time to focus on my garden, animals and home next year - I am planning to get bees very, very soon! I can't wait. I really love drawing stacked loopy strings and for whatever reason the idea of a flower centre with a loopy string bunched up underneath it popped into my head the other night when I was reading - like most of my drawing ideas they appear when I'm doing something totally unrelated. Anyway, I quickly sketched out a couple of versions and here's the results: My favourite version in greyscale: Colour version: Very easy, here's how: hx

So, my last 2 days posts...........please note that the new Zentangle pattern is called "WELL" not Wall as I have been naming and labelling it. LOL. Thank you Margaret Bremner for enlightening me. I wish I could blame the fact that I was working late last night on the instructions for randomising the pattern, but then I checked back and I've been using the wrong name since I posted my challenge responses. Oh, the shame. I hang my head! So, please, if you pinned my image with the randomising/dot grid instructions - could you replace it with the new one with the correct name? pretty, pretty please? I know it's like trying to hold water in a hessian bag, but, some are better than none :) You're stars! hx

I like to find different ways to work with patterns, and initially, this weeks challenge pattern "well" was drawing a bit of a creative blank for me when I played around a bit on Tuesday. I gave up pretty quickly, and I don't know, made some yogurt or something. Luckily, Wednesday was a different story, when I sat down to look at it again the ideas started to flow - maybe it was the green juice I had first thing that morning. Whatever, I became convinced that randomising the pattern was the way to go. First step - ditch the line grid and look at the shape of the pattern without it. After that it all fell into place. As promised in my previous post  (where you can see some finished samples), here's my step out, which I hope makes sense. I have shown each of processes side by side so that there is (maybe?!?) some connection, perhaps giving a bit of insight into how the ideas flowed from one to the other. Or maybe I'm just living in ...

This week's diva challenge was, not surprisingly, the newly released zentangle pattern - Well. Every time I approached this pattern using the grid as a base there was some weird gravitational pull going on that kept making me convert it into something very like paradox - I just could not help but put directional lines in it - and voila - paradox. So, I ditched the grid and "randomised" it. First, I approached this by doing random large and small circles on the page and connected them with the directional lines to create the base pattern. I loved it and went on to experiment more with colour and shading, and eventually evolved into a different way of drawing it. Fun, fun. It may no longer look much like the basic pattern, but it was definitely the genesis. Love how these look like butterflies I am about to head off for my last classes for term (woohoo!) but will put up a little tutorial on how I approached this either later tonight or tomorrow. h...

Wow, this journal has taken me far longer to complete than usual - it spans 14 June - 9 Sept. Generally I get about a month out of my journals, just shows that life has been a little more full-on than usual, I suppose. Here's a couple of random pieces before this one is slotted into its spot on the shelf. poppy/tube: the shape of the flower could use some work but, eh. loopy string doodle:  I love starting with these loopy strings and going from there. Yesterday  we brought down the new Jersey (now called Daisy) to share the paddock with our milking cow, we think she'll be having her calf in the next month or so and we want her to get used to the routine, the sound of the milking machine, etc, etc. Anyway, we decided to extricate our neighbours sheep from the paddock at the same time (she's been hanging out with our cows for most of the year) and return her to our neighbours spare paddock along with our new sheep. Thi...

Beamz......lovely, but so, so geometric. I definitely deal better with curves. I couldn't really think of anything particularly clever, or original, so just switched up the line direction/sizes of the boxes and came up with this: Any lines that ran through a box I omitted making it hard to see where the design originated (somewhere up near the top left). I don't love it, but I like it better than I thought I would. My other version barely has any resemblance to the original pattern, and was likely influenced by LeeAnn's wonderful organic design which I saw on facebook before I got around to checking out the challenge this week. Basically, I turned all corners into curves and made daisies from the loops. We had a fabulous week of unseasonably warm weather and have now dropped right back into reality with the usual cold early spring days - the wood heater is in action again. I did get all the seeds started and in their little greenhou...