'Nzeppel - Renaissance road

Follow your path, wherever it goes. The tangle used in this tile is 'Nzeppel. It has always reminded me of a cobblestone path so I decided to go with that theme. I used a Renaissance tile, brown Micron, colored penil to shade and a white chalk pencil to highlight.

My path in life is very different than it was two years ago. My husband and I were settling into retirement and enjoying the grandkids. Now that he is gone I am looking at my new life as a widow and wondering what my future will hold. But just like the Zentangle philosophy of  'one stroke at a time', I'm taking things one day at a time. My new phase of life may be a renaissance. We will see.

Twisted Corners

Sometimes I get into an artistic funk. I just can't really get going. I've been in this funk for a while now. I surf the web and see all sorts of beautiful work but I haven't been inspired much.

Thankfully I have the CZT group to inspire and encourage me. Yesterday I saw a Facebook post by Romi Marks CZT showing the tiles from her latest class. She taught the tangle pattern Twisted Corners from Alexandria Cortez Diaz. As I hadn't tried this tangle before now I had to try it out. The other tangle patterns here are Diamond drop, Cadent, and Flux. I added colored pens and colored pencils.

new pen play

At a recent gathering of Zentangle fans in Wisconsin I was introduced to a new way to use a pen. It's the Elegant Writer pen and its main use is for calligraphy.  But someone discovered that when the lines are touched with water the ink bleeds in a variety of colors. Now if you are trying to do an elaborate calligraphy piece that would be a problem. But since there are no mistakes in Zentangle, this is just a happy accident.

In the pieces pictured above I tangled using a variety of tangles, with the main tangle being Aquafleur.  I used the pen both with the thick part of the pen as intended, and also holding the pen so I used only the thin edge. Then I used a brush loaded with plain water and touched the edges of the tangling, allowing the pen to bleed.

 I did a quick video to show how this pen bleeds when it hits the water. I'm trying to figure out how to show the video here but until I figure that out just click on the blue type - 

 video link

I tried running the pen through a wet area on a card just so I could see what would happen. I suspect that this isn't the best idea for the future as it may dilute the ink in the pen. But WOW! it was so cool to see what happened. Look in the picture below to see what happened after the piece was fully dry.

Twisted rope two ways

Twisted rope is the name that was given to this string. It's a string that is fairly simple but I love what you can do with it. And there are several variations too. You can see the basic string at Margaret Bremer's blog by clicking here. 

Here I used it twice. Once in a traditional black and white and then again with color. The colored one was done using Derwent Intense colored pencils with a watercolor technique. I did the color first so I could focus on the highlights. Then I added the tangles with penwork, purposely skipping the highlight area to add some sparkles.

Puffin and Munich

Traveling to new places can be so inspirational for tangling. I was recently in Munich, Germany and had the pleasure of visiting several of the beautiful and historic churches. The ornate decoration in many of them is amazing. I took lots of pictures. I was fustrated in visiting some of them as they had a service going every time I got there and of course they don't want you to take pictures or walk around during the service. I finally waited and was rewarded with magnificent organ music and choirs. And when the service ended I was amazed at how each smaller altar was decorated differently.

The tile here was inspired by the elaborate carvings around the columns and on the walls. I used some tangleations of the tangle "puffin" as I did this.

Picture in a picture

This challenge was to find an image. Adhere it to a tile. And tangle around it. I found an image in some junk mail. It spoke to me as I'm getting ready to go on a trip to Germany.  I'm looking forward to exploring the country.

I decided to add color with my Inktense pencils since the image I began with was colored. Fun tile.

string thing 195

Adele Bruno has a challenge on her blog for using a particular string and specified tangles. I haven't done many of the challenges lately but this week I got the bug and had to try it out. I was inspired to try out the technique of linking one tangle to another. You can see the way the Printemps and Strutz connect. The tangles used here are Printemps from Zentangle, Strutz from Sarah Fowler, and Tessell from Judy Okawa,  If you want to try it yourself the link is  http://tickledtotangle.blogspot.com/2017/05/its-string-thing-195.html.

Moonstripes

Moonstripes is what I'm calling this tile. I had one thing in my head when I started but as Zentangle often does, it ended up going in a different direction when I finished.

 I started with a black Zentangle tile. I used a Zenstone to do a few quick string lines. I went to grab my white Sakura gellyroll pen but instead I grabbed my Sakura clear glaze gellyroll pen. The clear pen makes beautiful lines that also act as a resist so I ended up deciding to go in a new direction. I took two pictures here so you could see the glaze lines better. I also used my Zenstone to highlight the 'moon' area.

I then picked up the Zenstone that I used to do my string. Using a metal file I scraped the Zenstone and created dust. (I like to call it Fairy Dust!)

With my fingertip, I gently rubbed the white dust into the paper. Wherever the pen lines were, the dust did not stick. After it was all rubbed in I went over some areas again to remove any dust from on top of the glaze lines. Fun project!

I love experimenting with my tools and seeing what different effects I get. Have fun with your supplies!

Scallamps

A quick tile I did last night. The diva challenged us to try a tangle named Scallamps that was deconstructed by Sarah Uram. This tangle was new to me. It seems to me to be a tangleation of several other patterns.

As I looked at it it reminded me of some type of fantasy sea life so I went with that theme. I know zentangle is really more non-represetational. (It shouldn't look like anything). So this is definately a ZIA - zentangle inspired art.

I used a green Micron pen to do the Scallamps and Mooka fish. The color was added with Inktense pencils and then a water brush.

Zendala Swap

One of my favorite things about teaching Zentangle is when we create a mosaic of everyone's tiles. Seeing how everyone did the same tangle patterns but did them in their own way, with their own style, brings home the message that we are all unique in this world. We may walk similar paths, but we have the power to make it our own. Since we just celebrated Earth Day, I choose to look for the ways we can find our points of agreement among our differences to save our earth.

I recently attended a seminar with over 100 Zentangle Teachers in Florida. Many of us created Zendalas using 4 tiles. We then traded with others to create new unique Zendalas. I did two sets and the two pictures that start this post are the two sets that I did.

All of the tiles were displayed on tables so we could see all of them at once and ooh and ahh. I took LOTS of pictures. These are just a few.

As you can see, you don't even have to arrange them in a circle to make an effective display.

These two sets are the ones I went home with.

Thank you to all who participated!!!!

Circle Square

I went crazy with ideas for the circle/square string challenge this week. There are many ways I could have varied the sizes of the shapes but I decided to use only a 2"square and 2" circle. I did 3 tiles with  technique variations. All the backgrounds are done with watercolor paint. I used colored pens for the tangles and colored pencils for the shading on all the tiles. I couldn't decide which one I liked best. Which one is your favorite?\

On the first tile, the background was colored a light violet first. I did the entire square with pink and let it dry. Then I did the entire circle with blue. The tangles are Zenith, Paradox, Cadent and Diva Dance.

On the tile above I started with a tile colored pink. I then cut out the square shape from paper colored purple and the circle used a blue paper. I glued them onto the pink paper and tangled away. Tangles are Bales and Hurry Holli.

I started here with a tile with a lightly mottled pink color. Then I put a circle shape and a square shape on top. With a spray bottle I spayed additional pink paint. I carefully removed the circle and square. When it was fully dry I added the tangles and shading. Tangles are Ditto, Raddox and Tripoli.

These are the tiles before the tangles were added. I photographed this late at night so the color isn't very good. I started adding tangles to the one tile before I remembered to take the picture but hey, that happens!

Frunky

Frunky is a new tangle pattern that I started playing with last night. Laura Harms started doing a video chat where she demonstrated it and I tangled along with her. Frunky is a tangle developed by  Katharina Königsbauer-Kolb. It seems to be a combination of Fescue and Shattuck. The step outs can be found by clicking here.  After I followed Laura I found the original step outs online and found that I ended up doing the tangle in a similar way to the way Katharina did hers.

As I was halfway through I realized I wanted to take a picture without all the shading so you can see what shading adds. Well, since I was already half done I figured I would just photograph the tile at that stage. I added a little more shading to refine details that you can see above.

Noom tangle

Noom is a new tangle pattern that was introduced last November. You can find the instructions by clicking here.  It isn't had to do but really gives a neat illusion when completed. I've been playing with it in it's basic form and then adding curves and color.

The first zendala is very simple. I origionally thought of adding all sorts of additional tangles but then stopped and decided I liked it just as it was. On the second tile I wanted to add color so I got out some colored pens and colored pencils and just went nuts. It was fun 

Bales - my Mac n' Cheese

Bales has been my mac n' cheese tangle since the beginning of my Zentangle journey. It's similar to the type of doodle I used to do while waiting on a phone call. I love how Bales starts out simply with a grid and then lends itself to lots of embellishments. I like how it can be symmetrical or not. Some days I love the sense of order while others I fly off into realms of creativity. As you can see in the tile above I mixed both symmetry and some wonkyness and then played with embellishments and tangleations. Fun, fun!

I know there are people who read my blog who may not be familiar with the term mac n' cheese. Macaroni and cheese is considered a comfort food. It's something gives you emotional comfort and is frequently a high fat or sweet dish. It's often associated with something that brings you back to your childhood. So when I refer to Bales as my Mac n' cheese, I mean that it is a comforting and easy tangle for me to do. I am looking forward to seeing what other people feel their Mac n' cheese tangles are.

Zingo Deconstructed

Zingo is a fun little tangle that was charmingly demonstrated recently by two very young tanglers on the Zentangle blog. The Diva asked us all to try it out this week so here are my efforts. 

I started with the colored one below and while it was fun, I thought I could do a lot more with it. So I spent some time thinking about it. Late Thursday night it came to me. DECONSTRUCT IT!

Taking Zingo apart was simple enough. I thought it almost looked like an Indian blanket. So I filled the remaining space with basic Knightsbridge (a checkered pattern).  A little shading really popped it off the page and it was done!

The colored Zingo tile was tangled first in ink. It was colored with Tombow markers. Then the background was done with the same Tombow markers but a watercolor technique was used.

If you want to see the original video where this tangle is demonstrated, this link will take you there.   Indy and Mazy tangle