zinger

Here is another tangle that I added to an ongoing larger piece. 

 This is zinger(the tangle for the challenge over at iamthediva)

 

i decided to add this to the weekly challenge links - might as well since I am actually doing the challenges! duh!

FINISHED!

So excited! At long last I have finally finished my zentangled ABC chart that I began back in Hawaii. This photo is from my phone so isn't the best quality but I really wanted to share it right away! I love getting one more thing checked off of my PhD (Projects Half Done)!!

Done on 14 x 11 inch paper

So let me know which letter you like the best! Or do you prefer a background pattern the most?

No Zending in Sight

No Zending in Sight, originally uploaded by Trish Nonaka.

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Its that time of year again when my family's minds and hearts turn to the work being done on breast cancer research and a cure. You may remember I did an entire album a few years ago and continue to create pieces   about this topic every year in honor of my mom who died from breast cancer in 1987. It is hard to swallow that all these later we still do not have a cure. I cannot wait for a time when I no longer need to create art to bring awareness to this cause. Here is this year's piece.

                                 
Let me know what you think and if you have done any work on this cause be sure to post a link so we can see it! Be sure to leave a comment and let me know you stopped by!

Curved Z String

I was antsy last night so did a tangle while Randy watched TV. I like the Torchon Lace addition in particular. Which do you like best?

Empty Nest

The prompt from A Year in the Life of an Art Journal this month is BIRD. Here's the details!
This is my take on it....



I had pre-painted this spread but didn't like the colors so painted it over with white acrylic. That didn't suit my mood so I plastered it with blue acrylic paint. Perfect! I intended to use white acrylic ink to add the details but when I cleaned my dip pen I splotched the paint with windex. I loved the result so created the three egg shapes in the lower right corner using more windex. Then I rubbed a bit more away until I got this nice speckled effect. I used a white Sharpie Poster Paint pen to add the details of two bird shapes and some lines. From there I just filled in areas with designs and patterns as I felt lead. I wanted a full, unexpected,  busy look to it since that is how I am feeling about having adult children right now. Its sort of crazy and chaotic but lovely none the less! I also wanted the parent bird shapes to sort of fade away and blend in to the page to show we are not as prominent in the lives of our fledglings! A happy celebration of a new life stage!

Imagine

I am not loving this very much but am posting it anyway. The background is a copy of an original painting I did last year and the small zentangle was inspired by one of Shelley B's. The entire time I was working on it I kept thinking that my life is MORE than I could ever have imagined and that I am living it exactly the way I want to be. Married to my best friend, parents to wonderful young adults, blessed beyond measure, creating art, all in the middle of the sea. IMAGINE. 
Comments welcomed!


Here is the original painting with much clearer and vivid colors.

Creativity Journey

I am taking a class online called "Twelve" and for me it is a journey into creativity. Originally intended to be a scrapbooking class I already see it becoming so much more. We are curating ideas, triggers, photos, memorabilia, information, resources and working them in to a system whereby you can easily find them again when you need them.

I only wish I had this years ago when my brain was really clicking and ideas flowed rapidly. At this season of my life I have the TIME to create but perhaps some of my best ideas are lost to bits and scraps of paper I never knew how to corral until time would allow for deeper exploration. But that doesn't matter much to me really.

I am crossing into all areas that I am currently interested in and working on. I am gathering ideas for scrapbook layouts, stories I want to tell, future pieces of art, new leads to check for our genealogies. Its really amazing AND I will be able to tap into them when I am ready to work on each one.

Occasionally as I am sitting and pondering things I find myself doodling (nothing new there). Thought I would share something new that is happening on my art table though. I normally keep it covered with brown paper to help absorb the mess of paint, ink, water, gels, etc that I manage to slop everywhere. I laid out a nice new clean piece before we went to Big Island for New Years. After a couple projects it now has some lovely green splotches, white streaks, etc dabbled about. I decided to grab my sharpies from their carousel and began to doodle like I usually do in my journals. Yesterday the girls sat at the table to chat and I tossed them some markers as well. Hand tracings appeared. Katakana images. A paw print. Scripture. Numbers. Words. I think it will be a cooperative work in progress for a few weeks. Here is peek...Enjoy!

Another Peek

abcs1, originally uploaded by Trish Nonaka.
Progressing. Its the perfect day to be inside creating. Outside we are experiencing Hawaiian snow (aka: rain) but this also means the waves are good. 

Zen for the day

bw zens 10, originally uploaded by Trish Nonaka.
This one is fairly small and simple but I really like it. For those of you seeing this on fb...why not give it a try and share your work? I'd love to see them!

Another Zen Diddy

bw zens 2, originally uploaded by Trish Nonaka.
Another recently scanned piece. I have a series of these tiny works compiled and bound in a mini book. Any ideas what else to do with them?

A Little Zen Goodness

bw zens 11, originally uploaded by Trish Nonaka.
I have been wanting to do some scanning of work I have piled up and finally got my scanner to cooperate so here is a tiny piece to enjoy. Do you like the pink addition to it or prefer all black and white? 

Tangled Alphabet video

This darling alphabet was created by a fellow tangler and her daughter created the video. The artwork is beautiful and the video is just charming! Enjoy!

Weekly Zentangle Challenges (Catching up)

Though I have fallen behind in blogging and posting I have tried to keep up with my art journaling and zentangles these past few weeks. Today I made time to scan in a number of images and truly realized how far behind I got. Personally and privately its been a tough few weeks but no need to cover it all here. I am planning to post as regularly as I possibly can in the next few days. I will be traveling soon for an unknown period of time but hopefully will be able to post none the less.

So without further ado here are my recent zentangles prepared (but not posted) for iamthediva's weekly challenge. 

Weekly Challenge 9 "Artoo"

Weekly Challenge 10 - The Space Between


I did not work on Challenge 11 but may end up doing one to post here.
Challenge 12 - Something Blue (aka Blue Tsunami)
The weekly challenge is to do something blue and with the horrible earthquake/tsunami that hit Japan recently, we have been inundated with images of  wave maps, wave intervals, etc. This simple zen is in response to this disaster. 

A Heart (for Artoo)

Weekly Challenge 8 - a heart, originally uploaded by Trish Nonaka.


Its taken me a few days to get to this but I wanted to spend time thinking about little "Artoo" while I was working on it so didn't want to be interrupted. I found some quality time today to do it. They challenge was to create a heart and to incorporate two previous challenges within the design. I added Week 6 (Ixorus) and Week 4 (Starry Eyed) which can be found deep within the "Tink" patterned area. 
I hope the little guy is feeling much better now and is fully recuperated soon!

Breathe

Zen Weekly Challenge #7, originally uploaded by Trish Nonaka.

I thought "Opus" fit this theme very nicely especially when combined with "Ahhhhh"

IXORUS

IXORUS, originally uploaded by Trish Nonaka.

Weekly Challenge 6

Did this one on an ATC card using a Sharpie fine point pen and blue watercolor shadowing. (Which appears much brighter here than in real life).

I decided to just do the pattern itself as I've not played with it before today. Once I posted it I remembered I have a page for weekly challenges hanging on my bulletin board! Oops!

Multi-tasking

Multi-tasking, originally uploaded by Trish Nonaka.

This is the current journal I am using for AJED and it has a few black vinyl divider pages through out that bore me. I bought a couple fountain pens and some FW Pearlescent White Ink (didn't have any plain white which is what I wanted but when you live on an island you take what you can get). I had not had a chance to play with these yet so thought the white would be good on the journal covers. Being as I am a bit behind in some zen challenges I decided to put them all on the cover and keep going til its done.
For those of you in iamthediva's weekly challenge group, can you spot the individual challenges?

Orbs

Weekly Challenge 5 - Orbs, originally uploaded by Trish Nonaka.

This is my piece for "I am the Diva"'s weekly challenge #5. I did it late last night after spending the day doing digi scrapbooking . I needed a little ART time - you know pen on paper, direct contact, watching ink flow. Sigh. Good for the soul.

Zentangle patterns

2010-11-05-1435-31, originally uploaded by Trish Nonaka.

Sorry for the poor scan but the pencil I used was too soft to show up better. I was in the mood to do zens with pencil versus pen. I'm posting it just so you can see what an every day exercise looks like in my journal.