Stripes 2.0

Over at the Diva's blog, the challenge this week is to use stripes as a string.  I have used this several times since the challenge was first posted last year.  Using stripes can be fun and makes for a good visual.  This time, I made my design large, I used an 8" square piece of watercolor paper and added red as a pop of color.

I added the challenge of red just to see what I could do with it, use it more as an accent rather than just drawing my patterns in red.  In all it came out pretty good I think.

Thanks to the Diva for another great challenge.  I'm sticking to a short post this week as we are looking at Hurricane Sandy to start effecting us soon and I wanted to get this out before we lost power.  Luckily, we are inland.  Water and wind will still be of concern, but we won't have to contend with the storm surge.

Stay safe everyone and have a great week!

Halloween Zendala: It's webtastic!

It is fall here in Delaware.  The nights are cold and the days are cooler.  The leaves have started to change.  It's a good time.  This week at the Bright Owl, the zendala challenge is a Halloween/Fall theme.  I was all excited as I eventually want to have a zendala themed for each season.  However, as Zentangle often goes, this zendala didn't turn out the way I thought it would.  Rather than fall, I have Halloween zendala.  I really like it though.

Halloween Zentangle

I started this zendala on an 8X8" piece of watercolor paper.  I then took an AquaStic in orange and colored the background orange.  I kept the color uneven and unplanned.  I thought of the outer ovals as the eyes of a mask.  I even started to blacken them all in but I thought that all of them being black would be too much.  I added Verve and Allium to the center to mimic a spooky eye.  Afterglo and Web came eaily at the larger triangle spots.  After that however, I was stuck.  I had this large shape in the middle and could not think of what to fill the space with.  This morning Auraknot jumped up and said "Use ME!" so I did, bringing Web back to the center to tie it back to the edges.  The shading really added to the dimension in this one.

I hope you all have a wonderful fall and Halloween.  As of today, my sons want to be a Teenage Mutaint Ninja Turtle and a Korean Pop star.  Funny that the turtle costume will be the easiest to do...