Weekly Challenge #91: "Beads of Courage"

This week's challenge was in honor of Laura's son Artoo's second birthday.  Artoo suffers from a rare neurological disorder called Moebius Syndrome.  Recently Artoo has begun participating in a wonderful program called Beads of Courage.  Created as a way to help children cope with chronic illnesses, Beads of Courage allows children to tell their story of courage and strength through strands of colorful beads.  Artoo's strand, already over fourteen feet long and not nearly complete, was the inspiration for this week's Zentangle creation.

I, personally, am rather pleased at how my drawing came out this week.  I used real lampwork beads as my inspiration.  It was also a good exercise in shading.  I love the use of shading in Zentangle, I just often get lazy and leave it out.  This is a good inspiration to start using more shading.

-Jennifer Gayle

Weekly Challenge #90- "String Theory XIII"

This week's challenge had us going back to basics.  One of the foundations of a Zentangle is the string. It is a guide line drawn within a tile that helps inspire the placement of the tangles in the design.  This week we were challenged to use this string as the foundation of our Zentangle:

You can find this string and others, as well as an explanation

on the importance of strings as TanglePatterns.com.

I found this week's challenge particularly challenging.  Like many others I have developed a habit of not using strings when I design my Zentangles.  Forcing myself to work within the confines of the string really made me stop and think about the tangles I wanted to use and how they interacted with the surrounding tangles.  I am not particularly thrilled with the outcome, but I believe the challenge has inspired me to start playing with strings and to push myself to go out of my comfort zone.

-Jennifer Gayle