Happy Easter

Easter Sunday has turned out warm and beautiful here in Minnesota after a week of  rainy, damp and chilly weather. Perhaps it is nature's way of illustrating to us just what Passion week is all about. A Saviour dies and the world weeps. Three days later He rises in triumph, overcoming death and sin in the process and paving the way for us to be reconciled to God Almighty. Thank you, Jesus!
Spring... the eternal reminder of rebirth and ressurection. O happy day, when Jesus washed all our sins away, O happy day!

15 Minutes

Fifteen minutes. Not a lot of time. What can you get done in 15 minutes. Surprisingly, a lot!
This week's Diva challenge was to do a tangle in 15 minutes. On the official website, zentangle.com,  Rick and Maria are always talking about how a tangle may be done in no more than 15 minutes. I have always found that it takes me oh so much longer than that! So I wasn't sure how this week was going to go for me.
Years ago a friend of mine subscribed to a website which helped organize your life and helped you tackle the big problems of cleaning your house. The jist of the philosophy was that you spend just 15 minutes a day on a project. That's all and soon your house and your life would be clean and organized. She swore it worked! My problem was that when I started something I always got caught up in the minutia, and a small project stretched into hours. Spend 15 minutes cleaning a closet or cabinet out - impossible!
Zentangles are like that for me. I spend time thinking about patterns, turning the tile round and round until it "speaks" to me. Relaxing - yes! Enjoyable - yes! Quick? No way.
But a  challenge is a challenge and 15 minutes it is! So I worked quickly and stopped when time was up. Period.
And really,  it is amazing what you can accomplish in a short amount of time. Now if I can only apply this philosophy to the rest of my life. Hmmm ... clean house, 15 minutes - check. Exercise,  15 minutes - check, check. Ahh, life is good!

Color My World

I am the recent recipient of a fantastic set of 132 Prismacolor pencils. Count  them - 132. Wow! More color than anyone person could possibly need. (Can that be?) Prismacolors are my favorite colored pencils. They are so soft and blendable, and they layer exceptionally well into complex color variations. Yummy is the best word to describe them. I have had a set of 72 since my college days and needless to say (without reavealing too much) they are considerably shorter now and many of the colors are gone. I was so inspired just by opening this marvelous box of inspiration that I decided to colorize my  Mooka tangles from last week. Enjoy!

Zentangle Challenge - Mooka

Our challenge from the Diva this week was to use the new tangle from Rick and Maria of Zentangle fame. They have posted a video of the new tangle as well as written instructions on their blog and you can visit it here at this link http://zentangle.blogspot.com/2011/04/mooka.html  The tangle was inspired by the art nouveau style of artist Alphonse Mucha and it is absolutely wonderful. It's easy and very fluid, open to a lot of variation and it has been exciting to see the different ways it has been used in this challenge. I played around with it for quite a while last night and have posted my two favorite tiles of the evening. I am sure this tangle will be showing up in many future tangles. It is quite a lot of fun.

Zentangle Challenge - Love Your Curves

Ahh, curves! A challenge I can live with...