Sunday 30 June 2013

Weekly Creative Round-up

After yet another crazy-busy week, I'm back again with my weekly update...
We'll kick off with The Diva's weekly Zentangle challenge. This week Laura asked us to keep the people of flood-hit Calgary in mind when creating a Zentangle or ZIA. Not just Calgary has been hit, but as K.N. Malathi and Dilip Patel have already shared, the region of Uttarakhand in India has been devastated by the 'Himalayan Tsunami' that hit on 17th June.

Today's newspaper shared the following figures:
822 people confirmed dead
4649 people missing
3978 villages affected by flash floods
600 villages still completely cut-off
1636 roads damaged
More than 500 roads totally washed away
Power and water supplies hit - many still not back to normal

On top of all this, more heavy rain during the last few days has further hampered the ongoing rescue attempt.

My thoughts and prayers are with all the people affected across the world. So keeping all those in mind, I created this ZIA.


Over on Chantelle's blog, Fat Mum Slim, the photo-a-day challenge continued with these prompts:
24. Negative space
25. Sharp
26. Empty {the biscuit tub}
27. Into the sun


28. Red {yummy plums}
29. In my bag {a pink, flowery umbrella to keep me dry during the monsoon}
30. Handwriting {a joint entry for ICAD and FMS}

As tomorrow brings a new month, here are the new FMS Photo-a-day prompts:
{cute}

In Tammy's Index Card a Day (IACD) challenge, I had great fun creating these entries:



This week I was also lucky to be able to attend a 2 day workshop on stress-free living. Sunil Pareikh of Rise 
Development Academy was a fantastic speaker and facilitator.

He took us through a series of sessions which helped us to pinpoint stressors in our work and personal lives, then demonstrated a set of tools and techniques to help us deal with stress - Tapping {also know as Emotional Freedom Technique}, Meditation, Visualisation, Power of the Mind, Positivity, The Law of Attraction, and Mirror Work. Along with other mindful activities such as Yoga and of course, Zentangle, I was aware of many of these techniques and concepts.

Several years ago I'd taken the first steps on my journey to a positive life when I bought The Success Principles by Jack Canfield with Janet Switzer. Since then I've read several books on the topic, including 'You Were Born Rich' by Bob Proctor, and 'Goals!' by Brian Tracy.

What was fantastic about the workshop was it brought many of these techniques to life for me, in a way that just reading about them was unable to do. I was especially surprised by the deep effect that the guided meditation sessions had on me, and intend to make meditation a daily habit now!

An app/website that will help me turn it into a daily habit - Lift - also wormed it's way into my consciousness this week. Pick the things you want to turn into habits and check-in every time you do them. Lift sends emails to reward and motivate you and keep you going.

Happy creating and positive thoughts!
Claire

Sunday 23 June 2013

Creative Splurge


I've been extremely creative recently, but in all the creating I've had less time to blog about it, so this post will be a catch-up for my creative splurge.

I'm taking an online art course on Coursera. So far we've studied various art techniques, Fantastic Art, Mail Art and Portrait Photography. Each week we read about the history of the style of art we're studying and watch a few videos on some of the contempory artists in the field.

I've been opened up to the art of many wonderful artists who I was previously unaware of or haven't thought of since my high school art classes, which were a long time ago! I've been inspired by the Fantastic Art of Henri Rousseau, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Joan Miro, Max Ernst; Mulready envelopes and the Mail Art of of Ray Johnson, Eleanor Antin and Ryosuke Cohen; and the Portrait Photography of Alfred Stieglitz, Dorothea Lange, Sebastiao Salgado and Cindy Sherman.

I've created a few pieces of art following the themes through the course, but am struggling to meet the deadlines for submission of the pieces as I'm so busy with work. I hope to be able to submit at least two pieces for peer review and come out of the other side with a distinction {I'm such a nerd!}.

Here's my Fantastic Art piece - Falling. It represents a dream I commonly have and uses colours that I strongly connect with.


Then there's my Mail Art piece - Memory. Rather than base the piece on an old memory I have, I chose to focus on the neuro-biological aspects of memory which I've learnt about in the Psychology as a Science course I've also been studying recently. Art and Science are both incredibly important to me, so this seemed like an ideal representation of me!

The envelope I made from scratch is decorated with neurons which feature throughout our nervous system and carry signals between the body and the brain. You can also see the neurotransmitters (chemicals) travelling across the synapses (gap), from one neuron to the next.



The insert is shaped like the cross-section of a brain. The front is coloured to show the main regions of the brain. Our memory resides in the Hippocampus and it's location is represented by the white region in the light green section, deep in the centre of the brain.

The back of the insert is covered in a Zentangle pattern which is reminiscent of the network of neurons that reside in the brain.

I'm still working on my Portrait artwork, but hope to share it soon.

Fat Mum Slim's Photo-A-Day challenge continues, and last week the prompts were:
17. Centred
18. Street
19. Currently reading - for my art course!
20. Cute - little lizard in my kitchen



21. Lunchtime - Dal fry and roti
22. Enjoying life - Joanna Rohrback of prancercise.com - sooooo funny!
23. Last - need to buy some new coffee...

I had got a little behind on the Diva's Zentangle challenges. First Laura had challenged us to use Rick and Maria's grid seeds, which I had already fallen in love with and used in four or five Zentangles. I could have just posted links to these pieces, but I really wanted to complete a new piece for this challenge. I ended up choosing two of the grid seeds {at random}, D2 and F2, for my Zentangle.


The second of Laura's challenges was to create a Zentangle without using any patterns that you already know of. The little fishes don't really follow the Zentangle idea of non-representational patterns, but they are cute! I enjoyed this immensely.


Index Card a Day (ICAD) continues.
What I love about this challenge is that I get to try out a whole bunch of techniques and media that are new to me. Also Tammy has given us a bunch of optional prompts in case we get artist's block.



Moleskine restored my faith in them by sending me this package all the way from Milano to Mumbai :D


A few months back I bought my first ever Moleskine and the inside cover was glued in upside down. No biggie - it was still totally useable, and the quirkiness of it added to the appeal for me.

However, Moleskine are big on Quality Control, and in the little booklet that comes along with it were directions to the quality section of their website. There it said they'd send me a replacement product in one month, as mine was defective, so I entered all the details and uploaded the pic and waited. And waited. And waited...

Then nearly two months later this package took me by surprise. I had actually given up all hope of a replacement. What I love about this little book is it's the perfect size for my Zentangles, and my Sakura Microns work so much better on this paper that the handmade paper that made up my previous Zentangle journal.

Finally, I've found a wonderful new Android app {it's new to me} called Shape'd. It's easiest to show you what it can do rather than try to explain...



So cute! I love it :D

Happy creating...

Claire

Sunday 16 June 2013

FMS Photo-A-Day Challenge - June Week 2

This week's prompts from Fat Mum Slim were:
10. You!
11. Something funny
12. 11 o'clock
13. Kitchen



14. Texture
15. From above
16. Family

Happy snapping...
Claire

Wednesday 12 June 2013

New Tangle - Koda

So here's the last of my tangles for now. It's called Koda.

Not sure what my inspiration was for this tangle, but I like this one. It makes a good background pattern.

The first in the series is Dilmore, and the second is Dumbelles.

And here's a Zentangle I drew using all three of my new tangles:
Dilmore, Dumbelles and Koda


Happy tangling...
Claire
P.S. If you've seen this tangle anywhere before then please let me know - I don't want to claim credit for anyone else's patterns!

Tuesday 11 June 2013

Birds on a Wire

This week Laura challenged us to use Mary Kissel's tangle, Birds on a Wire.



For all of you interested in other forms of art, have a look at what I've been up to in my blog post "Daisy Yellow's Index Card a Day Challenge".

Also check out my new tangle pattern, Dilmore, and what I've been up to with Rick and Maria's Zentangle Grid Ideas

Back next week with another installment of the Diva's Weekly Challenge.

Happy tangling...
Claire 

Monday 10 June 2013

New Tangle - Dumbelles

Here's the second in my series of new tangles, Dumbelles. This one was inspired by the pattern on some paving slabs in the housing compound where I live.


The first in the series is Dilmore.

Happy tangling...
Claire

P.S. If you've seen this tangle anywhere before then please let me know - I don't want to claim credit for anyone else's patterns!

Sunday 9 June 2013

FMS Photo-A-Day Challenge - June Week 1


This week's prompts from Fat Mum Slim were:

3. On my table
4. After dark
5. Environment
6. Transport


7. Bright
8. An animal
9. From low down

Happy snapping...
Claire

Saturday 8 June 2013

Zentangle Grids

In their last newsletter, Rick and Maria gave us some wonderful inspiration in the form of repetitive "grid seed ideas".

I got my random number generator working and picked D4 and then A2 to work with (see the newsletter for their table of grids). And here are the outcomes:


I look forward to doing more of these!

Happy tangling...
Claire

New Tangle - Dilmore

I've been busy recently coming up with some new tangles! So here's the first in my series... Dilmore

This is probably the most organic tangle I'll ever come up with, as I'm usually more at home with geometric patterns. It's based on patterned fabric in the rickshaw I was taking to work one morning, and I couldn't help myself!

So here it is:




Hope you like it.

Happy tangling...
Claire

P.S. If you've seen this tangle anywhere before then please let me know - I don't want to claim credit for anyone else's patterns!

Daisy Yellow's Index Card a Day Challenge

This year, through some of my Instagram buddies, I came to know about ICAD 2013. This is a challenge run by Tammy Garcia on her blog 'Daisy Yellow' to produce an Index Card full of art for 61 days... Just one little 3 by 5 index card a day, throughout June and July.

So why an index card? I totally agree with Tammy's reasoning... I have a fear of ruining good paper, so I'll not try new media or techniques in case I go wrong. Index cards are cheap - and small - and you can't be scared of ruining something that's so cheap. In my case I went one step further. I have an old diary from 2011 that I was given about a month ago. I've made my own 'index cards' from the pages of this diary!

Tammy gives theme ideas for the week and 8 prompts a week to choose from - but these are all optional. You can do whatever you like, or you can pick or choose from the prompts and themes if you choose - it's totally up to you! Also there's no pressure to go back and catch up... If you want in on the game, then just start! From any day!

I had great fun with this first week. I did 7 cards, and made a front and back covers from an old tissue box...

Outside Front Cover

Inside Front Cover

Inside Back Cover

Outside Back Cover









Week 1 Prompts

Week 1 to 3 Themes


Now onto week 2!

Happy arting...
Claire


Tuesday 4 June 2013

FMS Photo-A-Day Challenge - May Week 4

This week's prompts from Fat Mum Slim were:
27. Can't live without
28. What you're doing now
29. Kiss
30. Tool


31. Four things
1. B is for...
2. A moment
And a new month began... Can't believe it is June already!


Happy snapping...
Claire