Shadow Shot Sunday - February 28th, 2016

A late addition for Shadow Shot Sunday today. Bike shadows I noticed on the way to Writers' Week.

See other people's shadow shots at www.shadowshotsunday2.blogspot.com.

It's time for Writers' Week again!

We are very lucky in Adelaide to have a wonderful Writers' Week around early March every year and it's all free.

Today was the first day and what a great day it was. We were blessed with absolutely beautiful weather too. As always the stages looked fabulous. The backings are made of seedlings grown by Trees for Life.

I was there for almost the whole day. I arrived just after the first sessions began at 9:30am and there were already many people there. I left just before the final session at 5pm. I heard so many great writers and those facilitating the sessions.

I think the crowd for Magda Szubanski's session was the biggest I've ever seen at Writers' Week. Many people were standing at the back. Other writers' I heard today were Etgar Keret, Fiona McFarlane and Jim Shepard, Drusilla Modjeska, Beth Yahp, Jesse Ball, Anna Smaill, Laura Van Den Berg, Lisa Genova, Laura Thompson and Robert Wainwright. High on my list of new books to buy are Fiona McFarlanes book of short stories, The High Places and Lisa Genova's, Inside the O'Briens.

I'm planning to go back tomorrow, at least for the late afternoon sessions. I'm excited that I should be able to make the poetry reading on Monday afternoon. I need to wait and see how my week pans out to see whether I can make it to any more sessions on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

I was enjoying the day so much that I didn't take many photos. I did get one of a new addition this year - a display of author portraits.

My six words for Six Word Saturday -

It's time for Writers' Week again!

The Diva's Weekly Zentangle Challenge #256

This week's challenge is to do a duotangle with the tangles, Boo*Kee and Artoo. You can find the stepouts to these tangles over at http://www.iamthedivaczt.blogspot.com.au/.

I loved my first meeting with these two!

Tangle with F-U-N

It is week 46 of Diane and Carolien's Weekly Challenge. From memory I'm pretty sure I've done all of them except for 1. It has been a great way to get to know different tangles and to practice lots.

It has also been a lot of F-U-N. This week for the letters F, U and N I chose Fish Net by Mariet Lustenhouwer, Undu by Daniel Lamothe and Nine Patch by Suzanne McNeill. Fish Net and Nine Patch were both new to me.

Shadow Shot Sunday - February 21st, 2016

Today's shot is actually from last night. Brianna and I went in to the city to see the buildings on North Terrace lit up. Fringe Illuminations is part of this year's Adelaide Fringe Festival. I didn't get to see a lot as we decided to rush to get the 9pm train home. As we were leaving I stopped and Brianna said, 'You're not going to take a photo of the shadows are you?' It was my plan. Some huge leaves were blowing in front of the projector and the shadows looked great (as did all the colours and pictures!)

The illuminations are on until next Sunday night. I'm hoping to get back next weekend without the 15 year old who really would have preferred to be at home. The story wall at the State Library looked particularly interesting.

The Diva's Weekly Zentangle Challenge #255

This week Laura (aka The Diva) challenged us to reproduce one of our early tiles. She has been tangling for six years and it was great to see her growth over that time. Though both of the tiles she showed us were fabulous!

Generally I get so immersed in the process while I am doing a tile. I will admit though that sometimes I look at other people's tiles and think what a lot of improving I have to do. I know it's not about comparison and we all have our own styles but ... 

This challenge was good for showing me the growth in my own style. Plus, it was fun.

I chose one of my very early tiles on which I used Arukas, Betweed, Cirquital, Chainlette and Tipple. Some of these tangles I haven't used much since I first started. 

10/4/15

17/2/16

Tangle with W-I-R

I really enjoyed this week's challenge from Diane and Carolien. I chose Esther Piszeczek's tangle, Waax for W, Carole Ohl's Inapod for I and Jane Monk's Raindotty for R. For the string I did an oversize Waax. I feel like I've got more experimenting to do with these tangles and string.

The Diva's Weekly Zentangle Challenge #254

This week's challenge from the Diva is to do a Valentangle - a tile with a Valentine's flair. Here's a monotangle of one of my favourite tangles, Printemps. Perhaps I'm cheating a little as I actually did this one for the Square One: Purely Zentangle group on Facebook but it just seems perfect for this challenge too!

Finding treasures while I'm tidying up

I've been doing some de-cluttering this week. It feels good to reduce a little the amount of stuff in the house. As usually happens I have been getting distracted fairly often. Especially when sorting out old paperwork and making decisions about what to keep and what should go there are so many things that trigger old memories. One of the things I've been going through are my daughter's old books. Finding a few books reminded me of how, at one stage, she wanted workbooks so she could do some practice at home. I showed one of them to her and she noticed something that gave us both a giggle. On the front cover were some problems where she had to write the name for the female next to the male animal. For dog she had written 'nate word' Translation - naughty word. For drake we couldn't work out what she had written but just now I've worked out it was 'dot now' for don't know.

Something else I found while sorting things out was a long stitch of Bananas in Pyjamas. I made it 1999 when my eldest daughter was 3 and loved the Bananas in Pyjamas. I had planned to put it in her room but never got that far. I find it every time I tidy up but never have the heart to throw it out. It has such a lot of memories attached to it. Plus it's the only long-stitch project I've ever completed. My children are long past the stage of liking the Bananas in Pyjamas so maybe it's time to pass it on to someone else. Or maybe not just yet ...

This is a Six Word Saturday post. Go to www.showmyface.com to see how other people describe their week or part of in six words.

Tangle with M-B-Z

M is for Molygon. I enjoyed playing with this newly released tangle some more.
B is for Basketweave by Suzanne McNeill. Lots of fun and concentration.
Z is for Zuan Shi by JJ LaBarbera. I find drawing really straight lines a real challenge. I kept it smallish to help myself out a bit.

Here's my tile for this week's challenge from Diane and Carolien.

The Diva's Weekly Zentangle Challenge #253

This week's challenge from the Diva is to use the newly released tangle, Molygon.  It certainly is a tangle with lots of possibilities. I enjoyed my first meeting and kept thinking of those little banana lollies as I was drawing.