Tangles from Elena

Today's tile features tangles from Elena Hadzijaneva. Elena is a talented artist from Macedonia. I first spotted her tangle patterns as she posted them on Flickr. She posts there under the name Belatrix29. She also has several tangle patterns posted on Tangle patterns.com.

The tangle patterns used in this tile are;

Piza

Tesali

Retro

Inka

Bran

Hypnotic

By the way, you may think that 'Bran' looks familiar. It's in the upper left corner. It has a number of similarities to my tangle 'Plaited'. Elana's steps are finished differently but as I saw the similarities as I was doing it, I just had to see what the the finished product would look like if I put my finishing steps into her starting steps.

This is part of my continuing challenge to myself to use tangles by different artists (that have created multiple tangles) and to use them together in a single tile.

Schaumburg and S Barrington

I've been busy this week! On Wednesday I was at the Schaumburg Public Library. We had a full signup of 30 with a waiting list. Oh - and a tech guy to help me get my projection system set up. Now that is luxury to me! They all did a great job and really enjoyed looking at our mosaic of tiles at the end. I'll be there again next month for a beyond the basics class. Signup is close to filled already but call the library to see if you can still get in.

Thursday took me to the S Barrington Park District. It was a smaller class but that means I get to really get into the nitty gritty of tangle patterns. Fun, FUN! Thanks ladies!

Earth Day

Earth Day was this past Monday. Zendalas are the perfect way for me to honor it. Erin at the Bright Owl had a wonderful zendala template last Satuday so I was happy to use that. I loved that the template inspired me to do a warm sunny image - And I had the perfect Tombow markers to use too!  The Tombow markers used are # 985, #905 and #856. The tangles were done with a sepia colored Micron pigma pen.

The sun compliments the sphere zendala that I did last week. This was was done on one of my hand colored tiles. If you are coming to any of my classes or speaking engagements, I will be selling my hand colored tiles there. Lots of choices and color schemes!

Tangles from Jane Monk, CZT

Today's tile shows tangles that come from the blog of Jane Monk CZT. Jane is a CZT from Tasmania, Australia. Yikes - that's a long way away from where I am! She is also very well known for her quilting skills. If you are a quilter you will want to visit her blog and really look around. Her blog can be found at http://janemonkstudio.blogspot.com/p/about-jane.html  I've been following her for a while and have collected her tangle patterns in my notebook. I found her work through her blog and on Flickr. I didn't see a link on her blog for her patterns although some can be found on tangle patterns.com at http://tanglepatterns.com/tag/jane-monk 

The ones I've tried here are;

Calipo

Tadpegs

Kitty

Raindotty

Loave it

This is part of my continuing challenge to myself to use tangles by different artists (that have created multiple tangles) and to use them together in a single tile.  - If you wonder why you haven't seen more of these lately - well, life has kept me busy lately. 

peace on earth

After all the craziness in the news this past week I needed to do something to calm my nerves. Of course, tangling is the perfect way to help with the stress. I know my little tangle will not do much to help with all the problems in the world, but as I was doing this I kept thinking of the song, 'Let there be peace on earth'.

Let there be peace on earth

And let it begin with me.

Let there be peace on earth

The peace that was meant to be.

With God as our father

Brothers all are we.

Let me walk with my brother

In perfect harmony.

Let peace begin with me

Let this be the moment now.

With every step I take

Let this be my solemn vow.

To take each moment 

And live each moment 

With peace eternally.

Let there be peace on earth,

And let it begin with me.

This piece was done on a zendala blank tile that I had hand colored first with blue and green artists watercolor paints. I used the templates for spheres that Margaret Bremner suggested in an earlier blog post -   http://enthusiasticartist.blogspot.ca/2013/03/sphere-look-zendalas.html  

I just used one tangle - LaBel - because I wanted to emphasize the lines with a delicate tangle. The pen is a dark green Micron and the small amount of shading is a blue Prismacolor pencil.

Hey there, You with the stars in your eyes!

The Diva challenged us this week to be inspired by stars. I thought about doing a zendala with a star shape but I've been doing a lot of zendalas lately so I wanted to go in a different direction. I started looking through a stack of tiles I had hand colored a while ago and when I saw this one I knew what I wanted to do. 

I did lots of small stars with a light gray colored pencil and then outlined them with a white Sakura Gelly Roll pen. I also put a dot in each center. I then used the tangle pattern Munchin. Munchin is a tangle that I haven't used too much, but I had fun with it here. If you are interested in learning the steps to Munchin, they are in the Zentangle newsletter from March 31, 2009. http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs023/1101168872594/archive/1102532072865.html#LETTER.BLOCK18

Tangles from Lara Williams

Today's tile shows tangles that come from the blog of Lara Williams CZT. Lara is a CZT from the Indianapolis, IN area. Her blog can be found at http://laralina-tangleware.blogspot.com/  On her home page look in the column on the right for the section that says 'my tangles'. All the step-outs for her tangles are there.

The ones I've tried here are;

Tuscadero

Sparkool

Koryl

Kloonz

This is part of my continuing challenge to myself to use tangles by different artists (that have created multiple tangles) and to use them together in a single tile.  - If you wonder why you haven't seen more of these lately - well, life has kept me busy lately. 

It's hip to be square

This week the Diva challenged us to uses squares in our tile. Squares are fun! They appeal to the orderly side of me but when I tangle them I can get all funky. I like that contrast of styles.

I used one of my hand-colored tiles for this challenge. I love the way this particular tile has a variety of coloring in it so when I did the tangling I purposely left some areas open so you could still see the background. Tangles were done with a blue Micron pen and shading was done with a blue colored pencil.

April showers

April showers bring May flowers - or so they say! The storms are coming and I suppose all the rain will be good for the plants. So I'll put on my rain boots and slog through it!

This is a template from Erin's series of zendala challenges - it's number 41. I wanted to do it with color to bring some spring cheer. This uses Tombow markers in a watercolor technique for the background and Micron pigma colored pens for the tangles.

Illinois Prairie Painters and Banbury classes

This weekend was a busy one for me. On Saturday I did a presentation to the Illinois Prairie Painters. They are all very talented artists and welcome Zentangle as a way to stretch their artistic abilities. Several of the ladies had taken classes with me before so I added several new tangles to this presentation.

On Sunday I was back at Banbury with a group new to Zentangle. They were all amazing and created some wonderful tangleations. I hope to see them back at the advanced classes!

Sepia Dare with Irojiten shading

It looks like spring may finally be coming out way. YIPPEE! So I  was in a really good mood as I did this zendala. It uses Dare 51 from Erin at the Bright Owl. The center and most of the rings going out, started as a basic 'Bales ' . Then I added variations and tangleations to make each ring a little different. 

I got a new tool to play with here. It's a colored pencil from the IROJITEN line. I was lucky enough to get a set to try out for the 100 days of Tombow. This zendala only uses one color for the shading. It's the fawn color. I like how it complimented my sepia Micron pen. It went on smoothly and was very easy to get a light shading where I wanted the shading to be light. I'll be playing with these pencils a lot more over the next few weeks so I'll let you know what I think of the rest of them as I go. Thanks Tombow!

I also wanted to share a picture of my granddaughter enjoying some yummy frozen yogurt at Yumz in Libertyville. If you live nearby, stop over for their grand opening this weekend. They are at 163 N Milwaukee in Libertyville. Looks like the weather will finally be right for enjoying that treat!

Tuxedos and Prom

'Tuxedo' - That's the tangle pattern we have been challenged to use this week. It's a fun tangle from LeeAnn so I was happy to use it again. I decided to pair it with 'Teeny', a tangle pattern from Moon Attic. Teeny is inspired by martini glasses so I like it paired with Tuxedo.

I was planning to do the stars with a clear glaze pen and do a watercolor wash over them but when I found my clear glaze pen had dried up I had to switch gears. I realized that if I used enough pressure with my pen I could make an impression on the paper. Then when I used the side of my colored pencil I was able to leave the impressions white!

As I was doing this tile I thought about couples dancing under a starry sky - or maybe just the sparkles of reflected light in a high school gym. Can you tell I was watching "Dancing with the Stars" last night on TV. The theme this week was Prom night. Seeing everybody in there prom best made me look for my old prom picture so I thought I'd share it here. My prom dress makes me smile as it brings back memories of shopping for it with my mom. My mom was always very frugal. When she heard that sample sizes of bridesmaid dresses could be bought cheaply, that's where she took me to get this dress.