The azaleas in Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Square are blooming and the trees are sporting lovely light green new leaves.
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OK, Mother Nature, cover your ears. Here in Philadelphia, it seems that spring might actually finally really have arrived.
We’ve been on a weather roller coaster here in the northeastern United States. We had temperatures over 80 degrees in early March, before the official first day of spring, followed by having to dig out winter coats, scarves and gloves after the temperature dipped below freezing again.
The Zentangle Diva, even way up in Saskatoon, Canada, has been bitten by the spring fever bug and her challenge this week was to come up with a “spring string” for a tile. (I hope our southern hemisphere Zentangle friends aren’t feeling left out. Yours can maybe be a “fall into fall” string.)
I tried to make my tile a little colorful for spring by preparing it with watercolor pencils, but after I tangled it, the color is pretty much invisible. I added a little orange pencil to the Arukas “sun”. Here’s my spring string:
And, here it is after tangling. I tried to use at least vaguely botanical tangles. In addition to the sunny Arukas in the upper right corner, I used Pokeberry, N’Zeppel and a stylized floral design someone shared somewhere from some African cloth although I don’t know that it was ever officially deconstructed. If it was, please let me know in a comment. (It’s not African Artist).
I’m not sure when or if I’ll get to next Monday’s challenge. That’s the day we arrive in Scotland after flying from Philadelphia via Dublin. It comes to about 12 hours of travel time because of a 4+ hour layover in Dublin. And, speaking of spring, the weather forecast for our time in Scotland looks rainy and chilly—every day. Is Scotland one of those places where they say, “If spring happens on a Saturday this year, we’ll go on a picnic.”? We’re taking our winter coats and umbrellas. When we travel, our mantra is, “Embrace the weather”. We achieve this with varying degrees of whining success.
After Scotland, we’ll be flying to Birmingham, England where Mr. Excitement is attending a medical research conference of the International Mesothelioma Interest Group. While he’s conferring with his science peeps, I have plans to meet up with Margaret Blank who I met on line thanks to the Zentangle Diva challenges. I love how international, generous and supportive the Zentangle community is.
{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
Love your tile…and that arukas sun!!
Joyce
Like orbs of light and life, this tile is fantastic!
Sarah
I hope you enjoy your trip to Scotland. The highlands are just amazing and you often get four seasons in a day. It certainly isn’t warm in April ( from experience). It isn’t exactly warm here in Dorset on the south coast either. My jewellery tutor’s father is very sick from mesothelioma and she has been unable to come the last few weeks.
Love your tile so please bring spring with you. Val
Thanks, Val. Mesothelioma is a vicious, ultimately relentless cancer, but research is producing some treatments—however, many are still experimental. It’s worth putting up with some coldish, wettish weather so the international scientists working on it can get together—and I’m a UK-a-phile, so I’ll show up with my stiff weather upper lip—and all that. š
Beautiful, sunny, flowery tile. Nice!
I love your tile and enjoy reading about your travels. Hopefully you’ll get at least one sunny Saturday.
Tile is lovely, as always! And Spring has been slow o Charleston too! Safe travels!
Ah yes, Spring. I was in Philadelphia for my only visit ever a few years ago when it was supposed to be Spring. Walked from downtown all the way to the Japanese House for a photography session only to find it wasn’t open yet and if it hadn’t been for a couple cherry (?) trees blooming I wouldn’t have wasted the pixels.
I so agree with you about the international community of Zentanglers. I have chatted with you, Helen Williams, Beate Winkler and others about our shared interest to much delight and friendship.
I love how your Arukas seems to be shining a spotlight on the rest of your Poketangle.
Enjoy your trip.
Wow. That was a really long walk. I hope you’ll come back and give Philly another chance. As you can see, there’s plenty of flora around without having to walk all the way to the Japanese Teahouse—which I don’t think I’ve visited since 4th grade.
Wonderful details, the tangles well chosen!
Great tile! I love the patterns;-)
I agree with the others: a really sunny spring-tile with tangles that belong to this time of the year.
I wish you a pleasant trip to Scotland. I was there one year ago and it was raining almost every day, but the colours in the sky were beautiful, the food is very good (really Granny’s kichen), the scenery is amazing, the villages are so nice and the people are very kind. I’m sure you will enjoy it.
I like how your sun is pouring down on the lovely garden. Yes, we’ve had quite variable weather here too. No snow of course, but it was 90-deg yesterday and is supposed to be rainy and cold by Friday.
Oh, I do love your tile and especially that lovely floral pattern…someone must get around to deconstructing it soon(wink wink nudge nudge ^_^)!
Great tile! Lucky you to be able to meet tanglers all over the world with your travels. Be sure to say Hi from me LOL!
Your tile is very pretty with well chosen tangles. I hope you have a fantastic time in UK!
Your tile is so beautiful and I love your Arukas-sun! Good combination of the patterns and a nice spring string š
Enjoy your trip to Scotland! I have relatives there and have been several times – the weather forecast is not always what happensā¦ I’m sure you’ll enjoy whatever the weather brings! Lovely tile! I love the arukus as a sun beaming down on the plants!
You’ll love Scotland, no matter the weather š
I love your tile, with the sun in it as well!
Lovely tile and floral and spring like. I hope you have a super time in Scotland, it’s my birthplace although we live in the south of the UK near to Bournemouth. The weather even in the south is very cold and has been wet as well.
What a beautiful tile! It remind me of a sunny day in a spring garden! Great choice of tangles!
Well, Suzanne, I’ll admit I’m getting pretty excited about seeing you at the very beginning of May. The third? (I’ve booked my train ticket so I’d better check that out.) Anyway, to Zentangle. Your range of patterns is impressive, with a couple I don’t know and will therefore have to study. I’ll let you know what progress I make…