My local artist’s group made calendars last year. Here is the page that I made for November, 2008. I used Calendar Creator Plus 10 for the grid, and Photoshop Elements 2 for the final page.
Calendar Creator Plus, Photoshop Elements & a lot of patience!
Last spring I came across an interesting style of art. It’s called Zentangles and produces complex-looking art, yet it is simple to do. Here’s their website:
http://zentangle.com/index.php
Their tag line is “Anything is possible…one stroke at a time.”
I’ve done a few Zentangles, mostly by starting with their “tangles” then making variations of it.
Now, I’ve joined with a couple of friends and we are doing Zentangle challenges, where we start with a basic design, then do our own take on it. The design on the left is our original work and the one on the right is our enhanced piece. Here are some examples:
Color is important to me.
I added new tangles to this one.
This is the front page of my Zentangle Challenge book.
The artwork starts off small as they use 3 1/2 inch squares of heavy paper. Some of the designs on their website become quite large and complex. For the challenges, we are going a little smaller so they will fit in the notebooks we have.
For my own tangle variations and practice, I’m using the larger size and have started a notebook of them, using old floppy discs as the covers. I’ll post more on those later.
My in-box is huge, with over 100 messages coming in each day, many of them digests. To handle it all, I do a quick scan, deleting the spam, bacon, and junk. Then I read the personal messages, scan headlines and call it good.
I like the new Internet word “bacon.” It means email that you ordered but don’t read today. This time of year most of the school-related ones are bacon to me.
Two of the daily messages are from lists that I joined over 10 years ago. One is a daily positive-thinking quote. I like this list because the messages are not too sweet. It’s at http://www.cybernation.com
Here’s today’s:
Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.
John Wooden
(1910-, American Basketball Coach)
I also get a similar one in a weekly message. This one calls for more work. You read the quote and answer a couple of questions. This one is http://powerquotes.net
I’ve only been getting this one for a few years.
“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving
– William Arthur Ward, author and editor
What gratitude do I feel today?
How will I share it?
Action Steps
Take your gratitude and share it with others today.
Tell people.
Thank people.
And your gratitude will grow.
Finally, the other message that I get each day is from http://www.jigzone.com I’ve been using this with students since at least 1999, when I first started teaching at St Paul’s. It is great for the primary students, especially those just starting to use a computer mouse. Unfortunately, sometimes months go by when the puzzle is bacon to me.
I already have two other blogs but neither of them are “mine.” This blog is “all about me.” Actually it is about the things that interest me. Mostly, it will be about the things that I make.
Enough! Time to get started. Check out the next post, about a 4th of July banner.
