Alphabet Soup - P

Alphabet soup is a challenge I issued to myself a while back with the idea of using a wider variety of tangle patterns. I decided to try to use as many non-official tangle patterns that I could find. I use tangle patterns I have found on the web in addition to the ones posted on Tanglepatterns.com. Now that Cheryl has begun her version of the challenge on her site  http://cherylsartfulcreations.blogspot.com/, I decided it was time for me to get going again too.  Here are the tangles I used starting with the letter P.

Prestwood by Margaret Bremner

Pear Drops by Neal Burley

Postl - Susan S.

Revisit, remixing Bales

Whee - A tangleation challenge - and a challenge to do it with one of my comfort tangles. Tangleations are both fun and tricky. You want to do something different but you don't want to lose the essence of the tangle either. Bales is one of the first tangles I learned. It's one of those tangles that sneaks its way into a lot of my tiles. But to do it here - well - let's start by changing the standard grid pattern into a zendala. And then, in each row I tried to go a different way with the tangle. Can you still find the original bales?

To help me with this challenge I referred to a BRAND NEW Zentangle Book. It's called 'Pattern Play' by Cris Letourneau CZT and Sonya Yencer CZT. It's a thick book with lots of stuff between the covers. The focus of this book is Tangleations. There are a number of new tangle patterns with their step-outs. More importantly however, are the variations of each tangle. Cris and Sonya will inspire you to find new ways - your own ways -  to make your zentangle artwork come to life. There is space in this book for you to draw in it - the best way I think, for you to remember all the new ideas you are bound to come up with! I heartily recommend this book to any Zentangle addict. It will be available on Amazon starting June 27 - Many CZTs will also carry this book for sale in their classes. 

Cris Letourneau is also the author of 'Made in the Shade'. This book came out last year. It's the most helpful book out there for shading in Zentangle and I also feel strongly that you should have this book in your library if you don't already!

String 108

This tile is done with String 108 from tangle patterns.com. When I saw the challenge from Adele Bruno at Tickled to Tangle I wasn't sure I liked the string very much. But the tangles she suggested suited this string perfectly for me. I found I could get into the zen of tangling right away on this tile. Thanks Adele!

Tangles used are;

Diva Dance and Dex - official Zentangle® patterns

Demi by Genevieve Crabe
Diamonds & Squares by Deanne Stewart-Mills
Dooledo by Ksenija Vojisavlijevic

Fun Week!

This has been a busy and fun week for me. At the start of the week I had my son and his family visiting from Austin, TX. It's a long way from me so I was so excited to see the grandkids again. They grow up so fast!

Then, over the course of this week I got two exciting pieces of mail. On the left is a tile from Margaret Bremner CZT.  - website -  I've long admired her work. We traded cards by mail and I am so excited to now have an original of hers! I also traded cards with Sandy Hunter CZT. - website -  Her tile shows a new tangle of hers called 'Lola'. I can't wait to start using this tangle!

Duotangle - Auraknot Mooka

This weeks challenge is to combine the tangles Auraknot and Mooka. After trying various ideas of ways to make one morph into the other, I finally settled on using the technique of 'drawing behind' and found that they combined to make a pleasing zendala.

Alphabet soup - O

Alphabet soup is a challenge I issued to myself a while back with the idea of using a wider variety of tangle patterns. I decided to try to use as many non-official tangle patterns that I could find. I use tangle patterns I have found on the web in addition to the ones posted on Tanglepatterns.com. Now that Cheryl has begun her version of the challenge here, I decided it was time for me to get going again too. I had several O tangles that I wanted to use so I got a little more complicated with the string this week. Here are the tangles I used starting with the letter O.

Oslo - Elaine Benfatto

Olb - Helen Williams

O'Bob - Moon Attic

Oval Chain - Suzanne McNeill

Ollove - Linda Rea

Ogen - Christina Vanderlist

Beads of Courage

Laura, the Diva, has brought information to us about the 'Beads of Courage' program. The Beads of Courage are given to children dealing with life threatening or chronic illnesses to recognize that they have gone through a variety of ordeals during the medical journeys. These range from needle pokes, hospital stays, surgeries, radiation treatments, and on and on. As the kids collect their strings of beads they can realize just how strong and brave they have been in the past.

I was happy to be inspired by this challenge by the Diva in the past so when she issued this challenge after her color run last week, I wanted to do something different. Something with 'color'!

There are scraps from my colored tiles in containers in my studio so when I was looking at those scraps, I had an idea! I grabbed my paper punch and went to town. The little circles were randomly glued down to a small zendala and then I started doing auras around each one. A few simple tangles, a little shading, and here is the result.

ALSO! - I've added pricing and information about how to order my hand- colored tiles under the tab marked STORE above.

Happy! Zendala

Erin, at The Bright Owl, is back with her zendala dare templates. WELCOME back Erin!!! We missed you. For her first dare back she has challenged us to be inspired by the word 'Happy'. 

When I think about going to my 'happy place' I think about the ocean. I grew up on the East Coast and have many happy memories of days spent on the beach and playing in the waves. When I learned to snorkel I was in love with the new world that was unlocked for me.

When I looked at the template Erin created I saw jellyfish shapes and fish shapes. The fish shapes were not actually there but we can always adapt the lines of a template to whatever suits our ideas - so I did!

Octonet, one of my tangle patterns, was the jump off point for the center. I used the technique of 'drawing behind' that is seen in the Hollibaugh tangle for my jellyfish. 

It is done on one of my hand colored tiles using a blue Micron and two shades of blue and bluegren colored pencils.

ALSO! - I've added pricing and information about how to order my hand- colored tiles under the tab marked STORE above.

String 37

This tile uses String 37 from tanglepatterns.com. Adele Bruno from Tickled to tangle challenged us to use it with our choice of 'H' tangles. I ended up only using only two tangles.The string made me think of a whirling star that a hypnotist might use in the movies "You are getting very sleepy." Hypnotic is a fun tangle to use so I put it in the background. Staying with the Hypnotic/optical illusion theme I added in Hibred and shaded it to add to the illusion. 

Twinchies

What are Twinchies? To my mind they are simply tiles that measure two inches square. When I do my hand colored tiles I usually have a strip of paper left over at the edges so I decided to cut them into small two inch squares to make these 'Twinchies'. They are done in the same manner that I do my regular colored tiles - with colored Microns and colored pencil shading, but since they are so small, they work up very quickly. I can experiment with new tangles and different ways to highlight and shade too. It's a fun way to have a supply of finished tiles for giveaway purposes when I am at shows. 

Bugles and the Blues

The challenge this week is to use the tangle Bugles in our tile,  When I looked at the tangle pattern it reminded me of some other tangles I had in my sketchbook. They all have a Bugles type of theme but they are drawn quite differently. I decided to do them together on stage - all playing the Blues!

The tangles shown are;

 Bugles - Joyce Evans

Toeter - Mariet L.

Fungee - Leslie Crumpler, Sakura

Footlight - Carole Ohl

Knightsbridge with Dewdrops

This tile is a monotangle of the tangle Knightsbridge. It started off using string #38. However, I really just used the string as a jumping off point this week. As I drew my Knightsbridge in I used the flow of the string to suggest where I wanted the lines of the tangle to go. But what struck me most about the string was the perfect shapes for dewdrops. So I knew that's exactly what I wanted to focus on this week. 

Dewdrops are one of the tangleations I teach in classes. I love how they take a basic tangle and add a whole new dimension to it.