Dare 15 - finally

Sometimes I get a little behind (well, more than sometimes) so this zendala dare 15 is a little late in getting done. But I had fun with it anyway. When I looked at the template I started thinking about the way the ground looks when you are flying in a plane. The rectangular patches of farmland look so ordered from above. So I started with the green and picked tangle patterns that looked somewhat organic.

Patterns used are Looby Loo, Maylea, Agua and LaBel. Hypnotic (a tangleation) is in the blue areas.

Mi2! Challenge

When I first saw the tangle Mi2 by CZT Mimi Lempart I was fascinated. I copied all the steps down and added it to my notebook. I'm embarrassed to admit though, that I didn't do it in a tile. So when this challenge came up I was happy that it got me to really play around with the tangle. I decided I wanted to play with it using color. 

The first one uses a tile that I colored using a watercolor technique and my Tombow markers. The tangles were done with a colored Micron pen for the dark pink and a white gelly roll pen for the rest. Colored pencils did the shading.

For the second tile I tried doing it on a circle so that it could be used as an ornament. (It's only 5 months till Christmas!) I also tried being a little more careful in my spacing - Not so careful that it took away from the zen aspects though!

Tangle ideas in Ohio

Last week I was in Ohio with my son. This fall he will officially become a Buckeye as he starts at The Ohio State University. My husband and I will finally become empty nesters as we send our baby off to college. We drove to Columbus to take part in freshman orientation. Lots of kids, lots of parents, and lots of walking.    I was very impressed with everything Ohio State has to offer. I was also a little intimidated but my son seems to be eagerly awaiting the start of school.

Walking around campus I admired all the beautiful buildings on campus. It wasn't until the second day though that I started seeing the tangle patterns right in front of me. I had collapsed into a comfy chair in the student union when I noticed the fabric on the chair. Lots of 'Os' and really cool the way they overlapped. Then I noticed the carpet. The Buckeyes had all those squares drawn behind. 

Later, in the shopping mall I saw this carpet pattern. Very intriguing!

For now they are just pictures. Sometime over the next few days I plan to try these tangle patterns out and get them into tiles. I'll let you know what I come up with.

Olympic challenge

The newest challenge from the Diva was to do a tile or ZIA inspired by the Olympics. To be precise the challenge is "Citius, Altius, Fortius" - The Olympic motto meaning swifter, higher, stronger!

I've been very busy this past week so I'm a little late but still wanted to do this. I found out that an athlete on the woman's volleyball team attended our local high school so I was inspired to do something about volleyball. When I went online to see exactly what a volleyball looked like I thought it would make a neat tangle on it's own. Maybe later this week I'll try to break it down. For now though - my Olympic rings are volleyballs.

CHA 2012

It's here - the CHA show 2012. I'm there at the booth for Fox Chapel /Design Originals. We have a table set up for zentangle 'make it and take its'. It certainly isn't the full zentangle experience but it does give participants enough get them started. The trade full is buzzing with excitement. And there are several CZT's there. Here are a few pictures from today's events.

 A mini CZT convention

 These are some of the new zentangle books on the horizon - Not quite on the market yet - but soon!

 Fashion show using all sorts of unusual materials.

CHA and Zendala Dare 14

This Zendala challenged me to work in tiny spaces. A little tricky but that's something that I like so I went for it. I picked 4 tangle patterns and as I did them in the smaller spaces I spiraled them down to the middle. Click on the picture to see details. I rather enjoyed finding patterns that word work both in the circles and also in tiny spaces. Thanks Erin!

CHA

CHA is the Craft and Hobby Association show that will be held in Chicago this week. Alas, it's a trade show and not open to the public. I will be there though - doing make-it-and-take-its at the Fox Chapel/Design Originals Booth. If you are also attending please stop by and say HI. I'll be there all day Tuesday and Wed morning.

Auraknot play

'Auraknot' is the newest tangle pattern put out by Zentangle.com. Directions are in the July 7th newsletter. I've been having so much fun with this tangle. I've drawn it on the newspaper, on napkins, and the back of envelopes. So now that I'm more comfortable with it I tried a couple of tiles. 

The first tile is done on colored cardstock. I used two different colored Micron pens so you can clearly see how there are two shapes that weave together. The second tile isn't quite finished - I 'm not sure yet what I want to add to it. But I wanted to show you how I changed the lines to become more like lace. Auraknot didn't seem at first like it would be good for tangleations but I knew there had to be something different I could do with it!

Zendala Dare #13

Erin at 'the Bright Owl' has been putting out some lovely zendala patterns that I've been enjoying working with. This week she had another good one but added a twist to the challenge. She challenged us to use a paper other than our usual tangling paper. So - being contrary as I sometimes am, I decide to take this challenge and do it ONLY with a variety of papers. So there is no ink involved here. I used my scissors, paper cutter and craft punches to create a variety of shapes. I had fun creating the 'tipple' pattern using my papers. I used a colored pencil only to sign my initials.

Will I do this again? I doubt it - It took me sooo much longer to punch out all the paper first - and my fingertip hurts from rubbing away all the excess rubber cement. - Oh, and by the way, this one was done on an 8 1/2 inch square - I'm not totally nuts!

Banbury class and shopping tips

These are the pictures from the July 9th class at Banbury. We had a great mix of ages, and both women and a man. Looking at the tiles above I doubt you can tell which were done by the kids or the man. They all came out great! It was a full class so I'm happy to tell you we have a date for the next  basics class. It's set for August 5th at 1 PM. Sign up now before it fills! More info is found under the tab for classes.

After the class I sat down with my Sunday paper and noticed all the ads for school supplies are beginning. If you want to expand your supplies for crafting and are budget conscious (aren't we all!) - this is the time to start looking for bargains. Office supply stores have lots of things to choose from and I've found many supplies there. Some of the things to look for are page protectors, post-it notes, colored pencils, index cards, rulers, storage options, etc.  - Note - I'm not recommending any of the stores in particular whose ad I pictured above - I just want to get you started in looking for these supplies.

"Fiore di Pietro"

The latest Diva challenge is to use a new tangle called "Fiore di Pietro" . It was created by Rho Densmore as  a tribute to her brother-in-law. It's a lovely tangle but at first I wasn't feeling it. As the end of the week is approaching I simply sat down and got to work with it. Once I looked over and saw my zendala tiles though, everything clicked and I knew what I wanted to do. It's a beautiful tangle and fun to add tangleations to it! 

Rho will be collecting all the pictures of these tiles for her family. It sounds like a lovely tribute. Of course she has my permission to include this one. 

celebrating the 4th

Here's wishing everyone a happy and safe 4th of July. I hope I'll get to see some fireworks. They are always my favorite part of the day.

I did a ZIA tile last year that used fireworks as the inspiration. I wanted to expand on that theme a little more this year.

I started with a  plain round tile and did a watercolor backgound using bright yellows and oranges. When it was fully dry I did my tangles on it using the Sakura clear glaze gelly roll pen. You can see the tangles used are 'Bumps', 'Mumsy', and 'Tripoli'. Next I went over the whole tile with a watercolor wash of bright pink.  When that had dried I did more basic tangles with the same clear gelly roll pen. Again I did another wash of light purple - more tangles and a final wash of dark purple. I did a light wipe with a paper towel to clean up and it was done.

I loved how the gelly roll pen provided a resist so the color beneath showed up. This is the same concept that I use when I do Ukrainian Easter eggs - There a wax pen provides the resist - but you have to remove the wax at the end.

Tomorrow will be a day off to spend with family and friends. Have a great day everyone!

green and blue zendala - dare

I used the newest zendala template from Erin's challenge's here.  http://thebrightowl.blogspot.com/2012/06/zendala-dare-12.html
And I loved the zendala Margaret Bremner did about the 'little blue planet' so much that I wanted to try a similar inspiration here. So I was sort of thinking about our planet - the earth and the oceans - as I started this. 

I used my same favorite watercolor technique with the Tombow markers here. And colored Micron pens too. I also posted a picture of the tile at the first stage. I was tempted to stop here as I was thinking about letting the background shading take the spotlight. What do you think?