Diva Challenge # 323: "Home"

This week's Diva Challenge is to create a tile that reflects your home. The Diva talked about her Canadian heritage and the fact that they are celebrating their 150th birthday.  I have had a few homes in my life. They all have their unique characteristics and traits as well as memories. Was not sure what I was going to do for this challenge, or if I was going to do anything at all.  As I was thinking about it, when I think of home it usually involves the place that I grew up. I have not lived there for over 40 years but that is where a lot of my relatives live and if someone asks me, "Where's home?", that is the place that I will mention. Won't go into to details, but there are probably some recent and ongoing life events that also makes me think of that as home. Even after I decided on the place, was still not sure what I was going to do.

I grew up in a small town in Northwest Ohio. In the early years we lived on a street that only had one other house. Across the street was a farmer's field which usually rotated between corn and soybeans. There were two sections of town. The old section that mostly bordered the state road that went through town, and the newer section, where there were mostly ranch style homes. Were only a couple hundred people in the town. One of the things I remember about our house was the large maple tree that was/is in the front yard. I always wanted to climb it, but someone trimmed the lower limbs so the lowest branch was about 8' off the ground. By the time I was tall enough to jump up and grab it I was past the tree climbing stage. While I did not climb it I spend many hours underneath it playing with my cars and trucks. The roots made for some interesting "roads" around it's base. It also served as base for some of our hide & seek games. For some reason the grass under the tree was the best in the yard. Sometimes I would just lay in it "contemplating what ever seemed important at the time".

Hopefully, if you managed to read this, I have not totally bored you. I wanted to somehow depict all that in the tile that I did. Here is what I came up with. I hope you enjoy it.

Tangles used:

 For the tree it is Sea Wave and Antidot, The ground is Diva Dance and the road behind it is Nipa, I used various tangles on the houses. Cadent, Florz and on the roof, I used Flukes, Shing, Tagh, and Cubine.  The funny looking things behind the tree are my best attempt at trying to put in corn. 

One of the extras of this challenge is that it gave me an opportunity to play with Margaret Bremner's tangled houses. It was a learning experience. I am going to experiment more and will try some color. I also am going to try a little less structured houses.  I was pleased with the result for a first try. Trying to do the shading on this was a real challenge. I kept it to a minimum.

I have not had a chance to look at things that have been posted on I am the Diva. Based on the prompt for this challenge I am looking forward to seeing a lot of unique and creative pieces. If you have not done so would strongly recommend that you click on the link above and enjoy all the great art.

Thanks for visiting. As always comments are welcomed, encouraged, and appreciated.

Go Tangle !!