GHIRARDELLI Chocolate

Today’s zendala is inspired by chocolate. With Valentines Day approaching, I’m seeing the ads for chocolate in the pretty heart shaped boxes. I found this zendala template through Erin at the Bright Owl – it’s an older one - #28. I used watercolor paints to shade each section and to do the background. The tangles were done with a brown Pigma Micron pen and a little extra shading with a brown colored pencil.

Occasionally I happen upon perks to blogging. This blog entry is a result of one of them. I received a free box of GHIRARDELLI Chocolate so long as I would write in my blog what I thought of it.

I LOVE chocolate. Especially the dark chocolate. So when this package arrived I went straight for the dark stuff. I found squares of Dark Chocolate with a Strawberry filling. MMMMM. I thoroughly enjoyed them! I also found white chocolate – called Sublime White, Vanilla Dream (with vanilla beans). They are also really good. The big bar in the box was Milk Chocolate with Strawberry. Now, although I love chocolate, I also am fighting the battle of the bulge. So if the chocolate isn't dark, I’m not gonna use up calories on it. This bar is going to be a gift for my daughter, who does prefer the milk chocolate! Thank you, thank you GHIRARDELLI.

Use Tangle Patterns string #3

It's fun to use strings and just go with it. It's even more fun to me to use mono tangles where I only use one tangle pattern for the whole piece. I find it so relaxing to just keep going.

The first tile uses 'Striping'. As you can see, this is a great tangle to add shading to. 'Paradox' is the tangle in the lower tile and I just changed the colored Micron pen I was working with in each section of the string. I did my shading with colored pencils. I thought it was too heavy though so I (GASP) used an eraser and was left with a very light shading that I was very happy with.

Organic tangles class pics

We had a new class at Banbury yesterday. In this class we focused on organic tangles. By that I mean, tangles that are inspired by nature. I taught quite a few new tangles to the group. I hope they weren't on information overload!

There was so much creativity flowing! You can see by the variety in the pictures that they all went their own way with the card project. 

This is the picture of mine that inspired the class subject.

Zendala Dare 40

Today's post shows my interpretation of last week's zendala challenge from Erin at the Bright Owl http://thebrightowl.blogspot.com/2013/01/zendala-dare-40.html . I enjoyed getting out my watercolor paints again to color the background. The ink is a colored Pgma Micron pen and shading is a red colored pencil.

Moebius Syndrome Awareness

The Diva has brought so many fun challenges into my life. I am thankful for what she has done. She faces a challenge of her own though. Her son has Moebius Syndrome. So this week we are using the symbol for the Moebius Syndrome Foundation and seeing it in our own ways.You can find out more information about Moebius syndrome by following this link  Moebius Syndrome .

I used a purple pen and contrasted the roundness of Tipple with the straight lines of Paradox. A purple colored pencil did the shading and color on the edge.

Valentines and class projects

It's not too early to start thinking about Valentine's Day! My card has a red tile cut from card stock tangled with white ink and shaded with red pencil. In my Beyond the Basics class I usually introduce the white gelly roll pen on the black tiles. In this class I changed it to red or pink tiles so we could use them on cards. I taught some of the more complicated patterns this week and though challenging, it was fun. Remember, THERE ARE NO MISTAKES! The students tiles are pictured below.

auraknot/bunzo magic

The Diva challenge this week is to combine two tangles, auraknot and bunzo, in a tile. I had trouble getting my auraknot done, but since there are no mistakes in zentangle, I went with it and let it be. 

I started to look at the slideshow of tiles already submitted on the Diva's site. Usually I try to avoid do this before I do my tile, but since I did, I felt I needed to try a different approach.

Late one night, as I was thinking about this challenge I decided to let the magic of zentangle do its thing. So on a black tile with a Sakura Gelly Roll white pen, here is what I came up with.

Quilting with green

Playing with one of my quilting stencils I came up with this zendala. I knew I wanted to try using Margaret Bremner's Tangleation on Shattuck again. See this post for instructions -http://enthusiasticartist.blogspot.com/2012/12/shattuck-variation-with-fan-fill.html

I also wanted to try out some other methods of coloring my zendalas. This time I  pulled out a green Derwent Watercolor Pencil. I laid down the color where I wanted the darkest shade and then used a good brush with clean water to wet the color and pull it out into the rest of the space. I was able to repeat this step a couple of times so I could get the color as intense as I wanted it. I then did my tangles with a green Sakura Micron Pigma pen. A little additional shading with the same watercolor pencil at the end finished it.

Sunday class pictures 1/13

I love to post the pictures from my basics classes. Even though the tangles that I teach are the same, the results are always so varied and interesting. This group had some great tiles. Take a look!

Click on the pictures to enlarge them!

'Jilli' - new tangle pattern

I enjoy going on my "tangle trips". I look at buildings, I look at carpeting, I look, well, everywhere. This pattern was in the wallpaper at a hotel. I loved the dimensionality of it. 

It starts with a curving line that is seen in a number of other tangle patterns.

-That curving line is repeated as often as desired to fill a section of your tile. 

-The curving line is filled with lines that echo one side of the shape. If you start with the side it echos it looks like auras - If you prefer you can start at the other side and it's more like crescent moon.

-New lines are added that curve in the opposite direction BUT, they only are done on the bottom half of each shape.

Shading is added at the base if each shape. 

I drew a single section at the bottom of each step so you can see more clearly what each stage entails.

If you click on the picture it will open up bigger on your computer.

Variations are welcome - If you fill in the smallest curve it's more like crescent moon!.

How did I come up with this name? Well, the curving line is kinda like rolling hills - hilly - and the J is one of my initials - so, Jilli!

If I've somehow repeated a tangle pattern that someone else has developed please let me know!

This tile incorporate Jilli with other official tangle patterns.

Phicops challenge

I'm so glad to get back into the challenges. I find the prompts from Laura "the Diva", lead me to so many new ways of exploring zentangle and art in general. Glad to have you back Laura!

This challenge asks us to use a new tangle that B-rad (her hubby) came up with. Go here to find the instructions. http://iamthedivaczt.blogspot.com/2013/01/weekly-challenge-101.html

This tangle, 'Phicops', is a lot of fun to draw and shade.

As I was thinking about what I wanted to do I spotted this zendala tile that I had previously added color to. Since 'Phicops' was partially inspired by the shape of a shell I decided to go with a water inspired theme. I imagined I was looking out of an underwater porthole.

The photo below is the tile with just the background done. - I know the coloring looks a little different but that's what happens when you take the picture late at night under artificial light with the camera on your phone! I used a pink ironing board for my background too ! LOL!

The background is done with Tombow markers and a watercolor technique. The tangles are done with a blue Micron pen and shaded with a colored pencil.

Tangles from Margaret Bremner

One of my new year resolutions is to try to use more tangles that I haven't used before. So to do this I decided to pick a name from those artists that have named and provided step outs for multiple tangles  At this point I have 17 names on my list and I plan to get to them all as time allows.

On this tile I've used tangles from Margaret Bremner CZT. If you would like to visit her page to see the step outs, go here. http://enthusiasticartist.blogspot.com/p/my-tangles.html

The tangle patterns are; Copada, Magma, Shattuck fan variation and Lilypads. 

Thank you Jeanne Paglio!

Early in December Jeanne Paglio had a contest on her blog http://zenoftangling.blogspot.com/. I entered by leaving a comment and to my surprise, I was a winner. Jeanne sent me this cool, tangled T-shirt! I had hoped to take a picture of me wearing it but since the temperature outside is currently 18 degrees, the picture will just be of the T-shirt on a hanger.

In the confusion of the holidays I forgot to properly thank her on my blog so I'm doing this today!

Jeanne is a talented CZT living in Rhode Island. We were in the same Zentangle certification class. Jeanne is also an author! She has several books on tangling and novels too. In her novels (Tangled to Death in particular) she weaves aspects of Zentangle into the story. Her books are available on Kindle. She also tweets and occasionally I've seen through her Facebook account that Kindle has them free or at special prices.(I haven't become a Kindle convert yet myself yet)

Her novels are under the pen name of JM Griffin. Today one of them is free! http://www.amazon.com/Love-Livvy-Book-Esposito-ebook/dp/B003YCPF88/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1355396087&sr=1-1&keywords=for+love+of+livvy

This is the link to her books on Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/Jeanne-Paglio/e/B007P0QDUO/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1357148210&sr=1-2-ent