Bijou and friends

Bijou has joined the Zentangle family! Bijou tiles are small tiles that measure 2" x 2". They are made from the same high quality paper that the regular tiles are made from. They are from a little snail named Bijou that Rick and Maria met in Paris. You can read all about him (or her?) on the zentangle page at http://www.zentangle.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=82&Itemid=174

 I have been doing Twinchies for a little while now and hand coloring them. So when I got my official Bijou tiles I just had to introduce Bijou to my twinchies. Wouldn't you know, they formed a fast friendship! The twinchies above were hand colored to approximate the color of the Renaissance tiles from zentangle. I used the same pens and shading and highlighting that I use on the regular Renaissance tiles.

string 51

String 51 from Tanglepatterns.com is pretty straightforward. It's just some straight parallel lines that run at an angle. But the tangles that Adele Bruno suggested were so pretty! I decided to use the strings as suggestions only (as we always should do) and let the patterns show off in all their glory. Oh, I threw in a little lacing too just for grins. I used a blue hand colored tile, a blue micron pen, and colored pencils for shading.

Alphabet Soup - U

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 U.

Undiala - Cris LeTourneau

Undling - Susie Achter

Up-n-down - Kathy Barringer

I tried something different here. I used my 005 pen for the Undling (in the U) and then went back to my o1 for the rest. I liked how I was able to get finer lines with the 005 for that pattern.

S - J

This doutangle challenge asked us to use only two tangles and those two tangles were to be tangles that started with our initials. There are so may wonderful tangles that start with the letter S that it was hard to choose only one. Finally I decided on the beautiful pattern, Scrolled Feather from Helen Williams. In the background I drew Japan Diamond for J.

I used one of my hand colored tiles (for sale in my 'store'). I used two different white pens as one gave a much thicker line than the other. I liked how the thinner lines pushed the Japan Diamond even more into the background. Colored pencils were used for shading and also highlighting.

Organic fun

This was the classroom I walked into at McHenry County college last night. When I teach there I never know which classroom I'll be in so it's always an adventure, but this was a real surprise. And it was sooo perfect for the class I was teaching on organic tangles. We had a group of  four. Keep scrolling down to see what they did!

All we had to do was look around the room for inspiration.

This collection of dried materials had all sorts of textures to feast our eyes on.

The greenery tower had tangle patterns in the leaf shapes.

And wow - the cards that they were working on are beautiful! Thanks ladies!

Twinchie box

I am frequently asked what I actually do with my zentangle tiles when I am finished and to that I reply, it's a two part answer.

First: you don't have to do ANYTHING. Zentangle is more about the process than the finished product. If you enjoy it, if you found it relaxing, then zentangle has already  done its thing.

But if, as frequently happens, you are happy with the results of your journey, you may want to display them. A friend told me about these boxes at Michaels so I trotted right off to buy one. It measures 2 1/2" by 2 1/2' inches so with the black frame, it's perfect for my colored twinchies. It's made of plastic so if your looking for something really classy, this isn't it, but it suits my purposes well.

My hand colored tiles are done with professional grade watercolors so that's how I get the rich background colors. I tangle them with colored pens and shade and highlight with colored pencils. And yes, I do sell my colored tiles. Click over to the 'store' tab for details.

Truffle Ballet

I'm getting to this challenge party a little late. It's to draw the tangle pattern 'Truffle' by Caroline Broady. I saw the challenge right away but I wasn't inspired to do anything right away. Last night I sat down and told myself it was now or never and I just started to draw. As I drew the tangle it struck me that it looked like tiny ballerina tutus so off I went.

I pulled out one of my hand colored pink tiles and a pink pen and made it more 'girly' by adding a pink ribbon. The truffle pattern came next, drawing it going behind the ribbon. I added a few simple shapes to complete my ballerinas and then some shading and highlighting with colored pencils.

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By the way, I do sell my blank, hand colored tiles. If you are interested, click on the tab above marked 'Store' for details.

String 50

String 50 on Tanglepatterns.com is one of my favorite strings. It's got a certain symmetry that I find soothing - just as I find the symmetry in zendalas soothing. I also found this tile was a fun one to shade. Adele Bruno at Tickled to Tangle suggested we complete it with tangles that start with the letter C. She gave us 5 tangle patterns but I was happy only using 3. These are the ones I used;

Ciceron by Mariët Lustenhouwer
Click Clack by CZT Jane Monk
Crescent Moon by Maria Thomas and Rick Roberts

Alphabet soup T

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 T.

Twistee - Molossus

Torzon lace - Lori Howe

Tuscan - Elaine Benfatto

Tesli - Helena - Belatrix

These are the pictures from Sunday's class at Banbury. As you can see from the picture below, we had a mix of ages. The 8 year old did just as well as everyone else and you sure can't tell from the tiles which is his! (He was faster than some of the others and is just thinking in the picture below.)

BYOB

This tile started with a stain of wine. My husband and I enjoy wine but sometimes we don't finish it quickly enough so when I tasted this wine I decided it would be the perfect medium for this challenge. I dribbled some on the tile but it seemed kind of boring to me. So I let it dry and then dribbled some more wine. Now I had something to work with - but what? Then I saw Joey's challenge to incorporate a tree into our design. Inspiration came quickly after that! 

I started with a colored Micron that echoed the color of the wine for the tree shape. I meant to use it all the way thru but I ended up picking up a black micron instead. Oh well, I still like the way it looks. A colored pencil was used for the shading.

I take my pictures on the slate walk in front of my house when it's nice and sunny. Can you see the ant that snuck into the picture at the top!

This is the before shot with the two layers of wine stains.

Alphabet soup S

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 S.

Snag - Jem Miller

Shard - Carole Ohl

Steem - Sandy Bartholomew

Sindoo - Shawn Robinson

Socc - Erin Koetz Olson

The pictures below are from last night at McHenry County college. Be sure to click on them to see all the tangleations they came up with!

String #46

Adele Bruno over at http://tickledtotangle.blogspot.com/, challenged us to use String #46 in her challenge this week. She also gave us 4 P tangles to work with. As I worked I ended up using the string more as a suggestion and I varied it as I went. And then I ended up deciding I was done after only two tangles. So this tile was really a pretty quick one to do.

Good thing it was quick as I had a very busy weekend. I was up in Madison, WI for the Zentangle Expo. What fun! I've have pictures to share with you later. Right now I'm catching my breath!

Crux zendala

Crux is the tangle pattern that was chosen for the challenge this week. The step-outs come from Henrike Bratz. This pattern has elements of a number of different tangle patterns but puts them together in such a beautiful way. I used on of my hand-colored tiles and a colored micron pen. I then highlighted and shaded with colored pencils. (The hand-colored tiles are now for sale - see the tab marked 'store' above.)

This weekend is the zentangle Expo in Madison ,Wisconsin. I will be teaching and also selling at the expo. If you have read this far, I have a gift for you! Come find me on Saturday and tell me you read my blog - I'll have a surprise gift for you! (This is in person only.)

Alphabet Soup - R

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 R.

Rokpol - Neil Burley

Riggin' - Lizzie Mayne

Ripples - Helen Williams

Reeds - Belatrix (Helena)

Adele's July challenge

Adele Bruno CZT over at  Tickled to Tangle came up with a fun new string especially for the Fourth of July and challenged us to do it with tangles that start with J -U- L -Y. It's a fun string and I was excited to try it but I was so busy over the weekend that I couldn't do it until Sunday morning. I hope it got in to her in time!

The tangles that I used are;

Joy - Joyce Block CZT

Unyun - Carole Ohl CZT

Lightning Bolt - Suzanne McNeil CZT