Eccentric Circles

The theme for this week's I am the Diva--Zentangle challenge #74 is Eccentric Circles. Since this is the year of Summer Olympics I chose its logo of five interlocked circles as my string. I changed its  perfect symmetry into elliptical shapes so that they look eccentric and connected them to look like a venn diagram.

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Petit Wood CoverJournals

This week's fun project is these little journals made with wood boards. I bought the wood boards from Michaels (they are available in the unfinished wood section and cost 29 cents each). I stained them first and did image transfer using Modge Podge. I got the images from the wonderful The Graphics Fairy .
I used several images from there.

I have described here how I did the Modge-Podge transfer. I have some additional do's and dont's: (1) use a laser print or a photo copy. Inkjet copies will smear, (2) Bold and large images and words (CAFE ) transfer better than images with lot of tiny and delicate details (Poems of Love), (3) Minimize the white halo effect by using a thin layer of glue.  Image transfer using glue is a tricky process, but when it works it is really lovely.

I finished the CAFE journal using coptic binding and the Poems of Love was completed using the accordian format.

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Katrina and beyond

I just returned from a conference in New Orleans. This is my first trip to New Orleans and it is hard to be there without remembering the cataclysmic images of hurricane Katrina. Not that the location of my hotel, the French Quarters, was  much affected being several feet above sea level. In the Big Easy, the divide between the one percent and the 99% is a lot starker and it was this 99% that was most ravaged by Katrina. Little of that is visible in the French Quarters, a tourist hotspot. Except, for the permanent exhibition called Living with Hurricanes: Katrina and beyond at the Louisiana State Museum. From the continuous looping video of 24-hours before Katrina made landfall- the gigantic waves, the blinding rain, the toppling roofs, to the chilling breath stopping digital simulation of the breaching of the levees as neighborhood after neighborhood submerged in flood waters and to the stories of those witnessed it, it is haunting.

So, I decided to dedicate this week's I am the Diva Zentangle Challenge #73 Bridgen to the spirit of New Orleans. In Bridgen, string is the basis of the tangle. I used a grid map of New Orleans as my string and connected the various parts of the map (or string) with WAVES, HURAKAN, River Rocks and FLEURI (fleur de lis) is New Orleans' logo) and Fescu.

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Weekly Challenge #72

This week's challenge at I am the Diva is "Tangelation Nation - Crescent Moon". Crescent Moon is one of the foundational, official tangles. Tangelation is using just one tangle and create variations of it. This is my version of this tangle. The "tile" is actually a 5" by 5" Ampersand aquabord. I created the background colors using Dr. Ph Martin's India inks. Crescent moon reminded me of blue color, so I painted the tile blue first. Then I drew the tangle using white gel pen. I intentionally left a blank space  and filled it with Sanskrit text. In writing the text, I rotated the tile so that a portion of the text can be read from each direction. As I had noted in my previous post, I will be using these as coasters. 

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Weekly Challenge #71

This week's challenge at I am the Diva CZT is to use the latest official tangle called Pea Nuckle. This is my version of this tangle. I used it as a link to other larger tangles. The "tile" is actually a 5" by 5" Ampersand aquabord. I created the background colors using Dr. Ph Martin's India inks. Then, I wrote a few sacred verses in Sanskrit using a gold pen. Then I drew the tangle using white gel pen and black Deco art pen. I will seal it with a clear acrylic sealer since I want to use it as a coaster. These aquabord are four in a packet; so they make a nice set.

On this box (below) I used the aquabord to paint the mandala design.

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21 Day Photo Challenge: Pretty Patterns

Pretty patterns the theme for today at the 21 Day Photo Challenge over at Elle Moss Photography. This terra cotta pot has pretty patters all around.

21 Day Photo Challenge: Travel

Travel is the theme for today at the 21 Day Photo Challenge over at Elle Moss Photography. Photo taken at China Town, Toronto.