31 May 2011

rip... trip... strip... stripe... oh, yes... Stripes!


A tile created for soul sister, Susan and her man, Keith... with love.

This is (for a change) a purely pictoral blog post,
for The Diva's Weekly Challenge, 


Still tangling my way through
my love affair with life!

28 May 2011

What a world, what a life... I’m in love!

Tonight, I’ve been catching up with my friends’ Flickr uploads. I particularly enjoyed reading the narrative a friend wrote for one of her photographs. It goes something almost exactly like this:
She said, “Oh, I fall in love at least twenty-eight times a day!”
He said, “No you don’t.”
She said, “Don’t you ever catch a stranger’s eye and your heart skips a beat, or hear someone laugh and it’s the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard?”
He said, “That’s not love.”
... and then, “I’m making sure I never fall in love again.”
She had a feeling things weren’t going to go the way she’d hoped.
Click here to see the dramatically beautiful image that goes with those words.  Thank you, dear heart, dear friend, Tracie. Your words made me smile today.

♪♫ “I've got the world on a string...” ♪♫
Yes, of course things don’t always go the way we might hope, or imagine... but that doesn’t mean we won’t keep falling in love. I won’t. I’m not sure about “twenty-eight times a day,” but I certainly fall in love on a regular basis.

I fall in love with beauty, animate and inanimate. I fall in love, easily, with a smile. Falling in love with the expression on a stranger’s face, a look that speaks to me of joy. I find myself falling in love, more and more often, with easy, unthinking laughter.


I’m in love, always, with those moments when the comfort of friends wraps me in its effortless solace. And I fall in love, over and over again with the silent beauty, the solitude, the gentle stepping tranquility of meditative drawing.

These are the things that make my heart skip a beat. This is what makes living in this absurd, fabulous, nonsensical, achingly wonderful life so extraordinary.  

This love is what makes me want to sing about my love affair with life...


Without the voice of the divine Lena Horne, I express my love affair with life in the written word, but – best of all – by drawing out what’s captured the attention of my heart. Playing with pen and paper, watching the lines as they appear. Curious to see what form they may take each time.

This week, my pens played to the tune of the weekly Zentangle challenge game (#23) of another Diva, the unutterably sexy Laura Harms. [G’day, girlfriend!] She gave me a string for my pen-song (which I copied by hand, from the screen of my laptop).


And I give her this playful tile in exchange.
A pen-song, this time, that sang of my love affair with the whimsical.

“The Yellow Brick Road”
(Click image to embiggen)
Embrace the uncertain, welcome the unexpected...
but most of all,


Never stop falling in love... with LIFE!


21 May 2011

Cooperative drawing and collective nouns

Wow... it's been a while since I dropped by and wrote a line or two.
How's everyone been?

Good?
Oh... well, that's a relief.

This may seem a non-sequitor, but I have decided that Zentangles need a collective noun. You know... like a swarm of bees? There is a lovely list of them on Wiki (isn't there always?). And some simply won't do. A 'labour' of moles? Labour?! The antithesis of Zentangles! I did enjoy discovering a 'neverthriving' of jugglers. That's a groovy one... but it doesn't work for Zentangles either. However... along those lines, I think I've come up with the answer:

A Luxury of Zentangles!

Now you'll see the reason for that tangential narrative... I had a week of no computer over Easter. (I killed it. Accidentally.) It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. Been done before? Oh... okay... in my own words then...

Following the surgical extraction of my laptop from my side table, I discovered I had a luxury of drawing time! And I drew a Luxury of Zentangles. (Yep... I like that.)

I have since decided to regulate my computer time, limiting it to a couple of hours a day... no matter how much I 'need' to catch up on. And, if I feel like I 'should' spend more time 'working' on the computer... I make myself a cuppa, stop to appreciate my world (outside the screen), think about what's Really Important, shut the lid on the electronic world... and pick up my pens!

Getting by with a little help from my friends – end result
(Click on any images to embiggen)

I drew Zentangles and ZIA for many of The Diva's Challenges, perhaps I'll post them at some stage.  But I particularly enjoyed this week's challenge: 'A little help from my friends' — where Laura directed us to "enlist the help of someone other than yourself who will draw the string on your tile or Zentangle Inspired piece."

But, before I share, obviously I should give you some music to listen to (it's kind of a Dreamscribe tradition now). So, appropriately enough... here's Carole King with Where You Lead I Will Follow:


I drew two tiles for this challenge. I only like one of them (but I won't tell you which). And, going with the flow (all Zen-like) I'll post both of them.

My first string was drawn by Alison, at Tuesday Tanglers.
Alison at Tuesday Tanglers
Alison's string for me...

Et voila! Here's the finished tile.
It reminded me at one point of The Lost Thing
and I'm not certain which way up is up?
(Click to embiggen)

My second string was drawn by Christine.
We get together weekly, for tangles and wine.
(That sounds incredibly civilised doesn't it?
It's actually riotous fun! [grin]).
Christine
Christine's string for me...
...and what I did with it. I'm not absolutely certain why, but I call this one
Celebrate! (Click to embiggen)
I have a couple of 'philosophical musings' posts in the pipeline... but I also have a cold (one of my bestest friends called me "Snot Monster" today!!), so for now... just a Luxury of Zentangles! And then I'll crawl back under my blanket!

First snow of the season last week...