Weekly Challenge #4 (this is a long post, hang in there baby!)

Welcome back my pretties!! I trust everyone had a great week a tanglin' and checkin out each others blogs!  I have received some really wonderful comments and emails from you all telling me how much you enjoy the challenges.  I'm so glad, i'm going to say again (and will probably continue to say this) how thrilled i am at the success of this project that i kind of half-assed said one day: "Hey, maybe people would be into something like this".  In all honestly, i thought that 5, maybe 8 people TOPS would join the challenge.  The heart swells, y'know?

Riding on the coattails of that last paragraph, i'm going to coyly bat my longish eyelashes at you all and gently direct your attention to the 'donate' button on the right there.  Let me be perfectly clear that you DO NOT have to donate in order to participate.  Not at all.  This is gonna keep on truckin' no matter what.  But, if you DO feel that you'd like to support my little endeavour in a small way, i'd really appreciate it.  With the amazing turn out of participants, i am rapidly using up my free image hosting space and putting more time into it than i anticipated. 

okay, moving on:
i have now upgraded my Linkey Membership (thanks to those of you who have already donated!!) - and what does that mean?  Well, essentially it means that the linkey machines stay active now, even after the challenge is over and the slideshow is posted!  So, you can go back and add your blog to the list if you're late to the game.  cool, no?  I'm also working on a 'button' for you to display on your blogs!  woo hoo!!


and now the challenge:
Starry Eyed Surprise!  

play this video for a wicked song: "Starry Eyed Surprise" By Paul Oakenfold



First of all, i love this song.  It always me think of summer time, and we just got, like 4" of snow yesterday.  Second of all, i love stars.  I like astrology.  I have a tattoo on the inside of my right wrist of the sign for Taurus (which i am)... and Third, i found the title of that song to be really fitting to Zentangle, because its always a surprise, what your tile will end up looking like.

So.

Stars.  What does that mean?  A string?  a feeling? A tangle/pattern? Some other thing i haven't even thought of?

When my husband and i celebrated our 5 year anniversary in 2009, we designed 'matching' tattoos.

click to enlarge

When asked to explain our tattoos, why we designed them etc, i answer:

well, for starter's - the five pointed star = five years of wedded bliss. The spiral = it goes on forever, it's also based on the PHI ratio 1:1.6180339 etc, which occurs EVERYWHERE in nature; in flowers, in trees, in human body - the Phi ratio can also be found in the pentagram (strictly meaning the five sided star - not anything spooky), if you look at b-rad's tattoo, you can see the triangles decrease in size in a spiral, theoretically going on forever, always 1:1.6180339 smaller than the next.

That being said;
B-rad chose to have his star depicting all the intersecting lines and triangles to be more black and white, cut and dry, mathmatical, no frills.  Just like him.

I chose to have my star be open and used blue shading to highlight the negative space of the star, making it pop! - also to make it more ethereal; highlighting my love of astrology. Also, a little more feminine and pretty.  Just like me.

okay, all of that being said, i created a Zentangle® based on our tattoo design, and i loved it so much that i did two! 

click to enlarge

i kind of like how one is so light and the other is so dark.

I also kind of like how my oldest son wanted to hold my "zentango" so i could take a picture.  he's such a good helper...  :|

And another 'also', the secret to my first star is the star shaped cookie cutter that i got for Christmas from my Sister in Law. ;)

sooooo........what will you create this week?

If you have a blog, add the site-specific URL where your tile is posted to the linkey machine below! Don't forget to link back here so that others can join in the fun! (if you don't know how do find this, you can see my half assed tutorial here)

If you don't have a blog but still want to participate, you can email your tile to me and i will post it here. (See the contact tab above for my email address)

The deadline for each weekly challenge Saturday night so that i can round everyone up by Sunday. What this means is that i will stop adding tiles to the slideshow on Sunday. You're still more than welcome to do the challenges and add your name to the linkey machine.

I'm also going to try to be more diligent with the linkey machine - by editing out the ones that don't work, the doubles, the links that lead to nowhere, the links that go just to blog home pages (this is why we need those site specific urls), and the spam. And there is some spam. :(

Have a great week everyone!