Sunday, May 13, 2012

Feelin' Groovy- Challenge #69

This week's challenge is what our diva, Laura, dubs a "use my tangle" challenge.  Anyone is welcome to submit a tangle pattern they have created and at the beginning of the month Laura chooses one, with the help of her trusty random number generator, to be our inspiration for the week's challenge. This week we were challenged by Eden's 'Groovy'.

Like many others this was a pattern that I had tried in the past, but was frustrated with it so I put it away for another day.  When it was assigned as our challenge pattern I spent the first two days filling up pages in my sketch book trying to get my foundation lines to match up.  I looked at the first few posts and saw the mention of Simon and Garfunkel's song, 'Fellin'Groovy', I decided to pull it up on the iPod and give it a listen.  After relaxing a bit I realized I was trying too hard.  Once I relaxed the foundation curves fell into place and the rest just fell into groove, so to speak.

This first piece is really more of a ZIA homage to "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)", by Simon and Garfunkel.  The cobblestones are a more rustic form of Brix by Carol Ottaway and the 'dropping petals' are Frairum by Molossus.  The overlap shading doesn't show up quite as nicely as I would have liked, but the most important part it that I was enjoying myself and feelin' groovy.



This is actually the first piece that I did.  I wanted to play with the shading of the Groovy so I picked a background that seemed to appropriate- Hopscotch.  I think the shading came out quite nicely.


I'm really glad that we had this pattern as our weekly challenge.  No longer will it sit, forgotten and alone in a corner of my sketch book.  Now that I more comfortable I definitely plan to use it more often. 

-Jennifer Gayle

Saturday, May 5, 2012

The Diva's Challenge for the Week: Duo Challenge v.IV Strircles and Hibred

I was very excited on Monday when I saw what this week's challenge was.  I love working with Strircles.  It's one of the big, bold patterns that can so easily be manipulated into an optical illusion.  I did have to look up Hibred since I had never used it before, but it was a simple pattern and I felt I would have no problem coming up with a design that would beautifully showcase the two patterns.

So far you may think the challenge sounds simple- all you have to do is use two patterns.  But that is the challenge- you can only use two patterns.  I spent the better part of the week creating a great Hibred tangle that wouldn't work with Strircles, creating a great Strircles tangle that wouldn't work with Hibred, or coming up with a master idea only to realize that it had an extra pattern or two.

In the end I sort of cheated.  The main tangle evolved from a sketch pad doodle.  This morning it suddenly developed some holes which revealed a patch of Hibred underneath.  Fascinating really.  :-)

-Jennifer Gayle