Give Peace a Chance

I don't normally post two challenge responses in one, however today is different. After the shootings this week both Joey, and The Diva (via Suzanne Flurr) are concerned about all the troubles in the world and have made it a theme for their challenges.

I have to say this is something I am concerned about as well. To slightly alter a well known phrase - 'All lives matter', but that doesn't mean you can hurt others to achieve your own aim. In most religions, and in a lot of communities, love is highly prized, but you would never know it from the wars conducted in the name of religion or the spitefulness amongst congregations so I am done with religion, you can keep it!

I wish all lives could be ruled by Zentangle® . No mistakes, no condemnation for things not done, just praise for what is done. I have never virtually 'met' such a nice kind group of people as my Zentangle virtual friends.

Anyway enough of me, the theme is Peace and Joey has given us the peace sign as a string along with Suzanne who has asked us to make a ZIA representing Peace. I decided to do the two challenges in one as I have a backlog at the moment and thought I would make my own life more peaceful this way:-)

Somehow I have missed out one of the legs in the peace sign (what an idiot) but no mistakes, so here is the result. I have put an Ellish P for Peace in the top left hand section and used Heartswell for love in the top right hand section. Patina is in the bottom section as I love that tangle, and Organic has been used as borders which is part of Joey's challenge.

I hope you all have a very peaceful day.

National Colour

This week's challenge from The Diva is going to be very interesting. I am looking forward to seeing what everyone does for their response. The challenge is to represent the national colours of our country.

Now I bet you are all thinking I am going to do green for Ireland, but you would be wrong :-) A lot of people don't realise that in fact blue is the national colour of Ireland - St Patrick's blue. This is why the printed edition of the Constitution of Ireland has a blue cover, why the President's Chair is blue with a Celtic harp on it and why the carpets in the Dail and Seanad (Irish Parliament) are a deep blue.

No-one really knows why people started to think green was the Irish Colour. Of course the national flag of the Republic does have green on one third of it, that was to represent the older Gaelic tradition while the orange represents the supporters of William of Orange. The white in the centre signifies a lasting truce between the 'orange' and the 'green'.

This is a picture of St. Patrick's Hall where the Irish Presidents are inaugurated, not a hint of green anywhere lol.   :-

For my tile this week I drew a string of the Celtic Harp and used the new tangle pattern Interlude around it. I surrounded the harp with Oh Well in blue. The only pen the right colour was three thicknesses thicker than I usually use and it felt very clumsy when drawing with it.

Here is my St Patrick's Blue tile done today for The Diva:-

A couple of weeks ago I did a travelling tangle with Saffy from Great Britain. As it happens I sent her a tile with the corner done in the colours of the Irish National Flag and Sh'rock tangled on it. Saffy tangled the rest with the British colours of red white and blue. What a coincidence it coming up as a challenge from the Diva now!

Gnarly

Summer has arrived in this neck of the woods, although with all the rain you wouldn't know it. Everything has got busier and somehow I don't seem to be doing the same amount of blogging. Anyway I have had time to tangle and this is the Zendala I did for Joey's challenge. I thought I would make Gnarly splash up out of the string, and surrounded it with Printemps, Pokeleaf and Measles.

Joey's challenge 118 - Maryhill

I loved Joey's blog this week, it made me laugh :-D She is really cranking up the challenge. A circle within a circle string and Maryhill tangle pattern, of course we were all going to put it in the centre weren't we!  Joey however has forbidden it, now that is plain mean lol. Nevertheless I really enjoyed drawing this tile. I have drawn Maryhill and several variations all around a Showgirl centre.

Socc

Gosh, I thought I had posted this, good thing I noticed in time. I loved the circle string this week in Joey's Challenge and Socc was new to me. I liked this Tangle Pattern, although sometimes I struggled to have enough room to fill in all the auras. I really liked the higgledy-piggeldy look of the separating lines.

I outlined the inner circle with Dragonair and in addition to Socc I used a Indy-fella filled Ahh, Tri-Bee, Fescu and good old Mooka.

1st Zeniversary

YT enters the room, dragging a crate behind her, slips *hic* over the corner of the rug, falls on her bottom *hic* and at the same time raising a glass whilst singing:-

"Happy Anniversary to me" *hic*, "Happy Anniversary to me" *hic*

"Oh there you are, have a glass, grab a bottle of fizz from the crate and join in :-) "

Yes, it is one whole year since I first discovered Zentangle® and started this blog! Well technically I discovered the Zentangle® Method a fortnight earlier in May, but for some reason it didn't immediately grab me!!! Can you imagine that!!! It was actually another two weeks before I returned to it and became a Zentangle Zealot. It is easy to remember because I created the blog to post a tile I had drawn for The Divas's Challenge and the challenge one year ago was - guess what - The Beads of Courage :-)

During my working life I was a Peadiatric Nurse, training and working at Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, London, as long ago as the 1980/90's. I wish we had heard or thought of the Beads of Courage then, they sound brilliant, both as a reward and as a story of the children's journey.

My first Beads of Courage Tile.

For The Diva's Challenge this year I thought at first that I must try hard to do something really fantastic to show how much I my tangling had developed since last year. Perhaps those marvellous gems or something, but in fact I ended up doing something much simpler than last year. A Monotangle of Nipa had immediately come to my mind. If I coloured the orbs to turn them into Beads of Courage it should be just right, and also added a couple of square beads. 

After the week's break last week I am looking forward to visiting all your blogs and seeing your beads.

Flux

I have just spent a week away from my pens and paper, which was unfortunate as I missed the last of Joey's Roman Numerals. I will get back to it and add it when I do. So now Joey is challenging us with a new series of circular strings.

Joey stipulated Flux, but there are two styles of Flux and I chose to use Rick's Flux. I added Gourdgeous and ended up with this rather lopsided Zendala. I drew the circle freehand hence the odd shape :-)