Folded Star

Time to start the ornaments! I can't believe we are into the Holiday season already. It's been rather stressful around my home so I was glad to finally have a chance to sit down to tangle on an ornament. I used the folded star design that fellow CZT Cris Letourneau has on her blog . She provided a star with a grid on it so I could use the reticular concept as I tangled.  I did it on a cream colored sheet of cardstock paper and tangled with a brown Micron pen. I used both a 05 and 01 sized pen. A little colored pencil added some shading.

If you are in the Chicago area, I am teaching a class on Zentangle for the Holidays at the Dupage Art league on Wednesday Dec 7th at 1pm. Call them to sign up. Link here.

As I mentioned, it's been stressful for me lately - both in a good and not so good way. We had the entire family here for Thanksgiving. I LOVE having them all and seeing the beautiful faces of my grandchildren, but it's nice to have the house quiet again now. The not so good parts are - first and foremost, my husband's continuing battle with lung cancer. He is now in the Hospice phase and I am his caregiver. Hospice has been wonderful in helping us out with whatever we need and his pain is under control.

The other stressful parts took place just in the past few days. My oldest son returned home only to discover his home had been robbed while he was with us. the house was trashed and some very sentimental pieces of jewelry were among the things taken. However, that is only STUFF!, because the next day we heard the news of the attack at Ohio State University. My youngest is an engineering student there (An engineering building was the one in the attack). Thankfully he was two blocks away when it all happened. My heart goes out to the families of the students that were hurt.

Tangled rocks

Rhode Island is a beautiful place to be. It has beaches and scenic rocky shores. I'm visiting family and attending a seminar too here. We had a chance to walk on the beach and I had fun looking for just the right rocks for tangling.

These are just a few of the  rocks I've tangled on this trip. They are easy to do and make fun little keepsakes.

I use the Sakura IDentipen. Whether I use the fine tip or broad tip is dependent on the texture of the rock. Add a few highlights with a white chalk pencil and I'm done.

Tangled Owls again

Tangled Owls are such fun to do. If you have been following my blog you will remember the owls I did last year. These are made with recycled materials - as I'm sure you can see, empty toilet paper rolls. All you need to do is push in one of the ends to make the ears. I used a Sakura IDentipen. It has two tips - a fine one and a broad tip. Then I added highlights with a white chalk pen.

The challenge, and fun part, is to create a different character for each owl. I started with the eyes. I did a little research on the internet to find images for cartoon eyes. That gave me a personality for each one. As I added the tangles I tried to pick ones that fit that personality. 

These are the ones that I did last year. I'm posting them again so you don't have to scroll back to find them.

And of course, a class picture.