a little lime

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...

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...

This weeks challenge was to create a zentangle/zia without using a string. Love it! Although I very rarely use strings as such, I often draw a couple of directional lines on my blank page to get me going. So, for this challenge, I put the pencil and eraser in a safe and threw away the key so they couldn't weave their wicked wiles and tempt me to use them. Oh, and, when I say safe.........I really mean the box on my desk. lol. My drawing will not surprise you.... I went naturalistic.........there's leaves, feather, mooka :) I started with the front leaf and layered back from there, throwing in a mooka scroll at different intervals to give it a more woven effect. It was fun working without my safety net of a few pencilled lines, and though the balance feels a little out to me, I still like it. I also got to use a couple new colours from my latest tria marker delivery :) The top scroll is not shaded - though I love a bound journal, I have to remember n...

Okay, well, I did get my delivery of grey markers last week, but hadn't used them until today. So good to have light grey markers again! I actually bought a 12 box set, so now I have 3 sets of graduating greys in warm, neutral and cool. Sooooo soooo happy. I had a great afternoon drawing........I managed to catch up on patterns, as well as get through some pattern tiles for my organisation system - I am almost done with "B". It's a slow process, especially as I stop drawing once I get to one I just don't feel like doing - usually the patterns requiring lots of blocking/colouring in. I also broke out a new journal and so far I am loving it - it ticks all the boxes for me - 125gsm, smooth paper, bound, hard cover, able to blend markers and erase without it disintegrating and it was under $10.00. Win! I came across a page with some filagree and scroll sketches in one of my old journals, the scrolls remind me of the type of freeform designs that quilters do so t...

A few days ago I was playing with Knyt and once I started drawing the pattern as I posted in my  knyt post  I became really fascinated by the linking centre, and couldn't resist making a feather out of it Here's what I came up with: Greyscale link feather - probably my favourite - you can see I didn't continue the centre line through the entire feather - just to the base of the links. Basic link feather - continued the "link" a little way along each scroll. Centre line goes to tip. Double strand link feather: on this one instead of joining the 2 lines from the link I have continued each out into scroll to create a fuller feather. The step out - shows how to do the basic feather, the variations are pretty straightforward from here. hx

Video for scrolled feather - the sound quality is not good (I do not lisp, and I'm sure my voice does not sound like that!) Hopefully you can understand me and my very Aussie accent. I also had a bit of a play with the pattern and came up with a few variations of the theme. Also, along the way, created a new pattern from the basic structure.

Feather instructions: Note: direction of the curly brackets and scrolls, as well as giving the feather centre a good curve are important for this one to look right, so it is a little fiddly. I prefer it in greyscale rather than colour.

hx