I am the Diva Zentangle Challenge: Comfort/Danger Zone

The Challenge at I am the Diva this week is to find one's comfort zone and then move to danger zone. My comfort zone is creating ZIA. The danger for me is using an unusual material to create the ZIA with a single pattern used repetitively. At some point though, both zones became one and the same.

I used a maple leaf that had fallen on the ground and turning into this beautiful brown color with a hint of gold here and there. I used a white gel pen to draw the tangle.

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Streets of Chennai: Sunday Morning at Barnaby Road, Kilpauk

Familiar Sight: Intersection of Truck and Motorcycle !

Offering Prayers from Outside: Padala Amman Temple

Vehicles Parked Outside the Temple

These photos were taken on a Sunday morning around 9 0' clock when the traffic was still light. It is still awesome to see how pedestrians, four-legged creatures, two-wheelers, auto rickshaws and trucks navigate their way on this busy intersection. There are really no traffic lights or pedestrian crossings here. Just everything and everyone following their own internal GPS!

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Challenge #140: Monotangle Pointillism

This week's challenge at I am the Diva czt is to create a monotangle with tiny dots. I did not exactly do a tile. But, I love using dots in my art. It is actually very calming to do. The one above is my signature sari art done with Indian silk, watercolor and of course, dots.

The one below is more elaborate  with lots of dots, bindis and swarovski crystals.

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Attracting Backyard Birds

Yellow Finch Munching Coneflower Seedpod

Ever since I found out that coneflower seedpods attract finches I stopped deadheading them. Now every fall yellow finches visit my yard to feast on these pods. The pictures are not sharp because I took these pictures from inside the living room through the glass window. Otherwise, the finches would have flown away at the slightest disturbance.

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London Diary: British Museum

Ten-Armed Ravana (carved ivory image from Tanjore, India)

If one is able to move past the harsh realization that  most of the artifacts in the Asian and African sections of the British Museum are ill-gotten booties of British colonialism, it is easy to appreciate their beauty, artistry and the craftsmanship and see why the English coveted them so much. On a recent visit to the British Museum, I managed to capture some of them on camera. Here is a look.

Srilankan Ivory

Jade Book, China

Bronze Images, Tibet

Engraved Prayer Table, Tibet

Ornate work depicting Buddha's Life Story fron Tibet

Gold and gemstone work. Thailand

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Elementary My Dear Watson (Holmes did not say it)

Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories were the first English language fiction I read that was purely fun. I discovered Sherlock Holmes in my first year of college. The principal of my college was an English professor and she, very wisely, decided that the English language reading for non-native speakers did not have to be confined to the novels of Charles Dickens. She stocked the English fiction shelves with the complete works of Agatha Christie, Georgette Heyer, P.G. Wodehouse, Conan Doyle and many more. It was like dipping into a bottom-less well. No matter how much water was drawn out, more was available to quench the thirst. And I was thirsty. I fell in love with the characters, especially Sherlock Holmes. I wanted to be a sleuth like Sherlock Holmes. It was my dream to go to London and meet him. I knew his address by heart. I wanted to dazzle him with my wit and intelligence exactly like Irene Adler in Scandal in Bohemia. Eventually, I grew out of my infatuation and moved on. (So, I thought.)

Last year I happened to catch an episode of Sherlock played by the dishy Benedict Cumberbatch. This post-modern Sherlock revived the long dormant love for  Doyle's hero and I ended up downloading the Complete Sherlock Holmes on my Kindle for 99 cents. Although many of the mysteries now seem quite far-fetched, they still fascinate.

Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes

So, on a recent visit to London, I made the trip  to 221 B Baker Street, where the fictional Holmes made his home. Baker Street of the old  no longer exists but the residence itself has been memorialized as a museum.As cars and buses whizzed by in the evening rush hour traffic, I bought  ice cream from Baskin Robbins and walked around the neighborhood snapping pictures of various landmarks. As I made my way back to my hotel at Paddington via the Bakerloo line, it felt like a perfect ending.

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Tangling with (Found) Stencil

This week's challenge at I am the Diva is tangling with a stencil. I really don't have any commercial stencil. So I "found" one. What I used as the stencil was the hollowed space left on a paper after a tag has been punched out. Recently, I have been creating tags from old manila folders. Once the tags have been punched out, the hollows resembled like the windows of medieval castles. So, I kept a few of them hoping for a creative use for them. Diva's challenge #126 gave the perfect opportunity!

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