Projects from the Michigan retreat

Lots of fun projects at the retreat for CZTs in Michigan.  I'm blogging from my phone so I'll tell you more later.

Handmade portfolios that we tangled on later.They are getting a protective spray here.

Yes, this picture is upside down but it's hard to adjust things when I blog from my phone!

Michigan jammie retreat

A group of CZTs has gathered in Michigan this weekend.  We are learning new techniques and getting our creative juices flowing. I'm looking foward to sharing more info next week.

Tipple and Alphabet Soup rewarmed

Tipple is one of those tangle patterns that you can do anything with. It stands on its own or it fills any string you have.  I decided to try a little 'mooka' string and filled it with tipple and then added some extra big tipple in the back - 'drawing behind'. Fun to do!

I've also gotten myself started up again on my Alphabet Soup Challenge. The Alphabet Soup challenge is one I issued to myself. The goal is to try to use tangle patterns that are not official patterns, but to use only the ones that start with a certain letter of the alphabet. I realized as I looked through my collection of tangles that this was a project that could certainly be done!!!

This tile 'G' features the following tangles;

Golven - Mariet

Girlande - Simone Bischoff

Gear 1 - Molossus

Genoa - Donald Wilka

Gingham - Margaret Bremner

Anyone is welcome to join me in this challenge. Post it wherever you like - I don't have a linky machine. If you don't have a blog or Facebook page just email me a picture and I'll post it here.

And if you wonder why I have the letter G here - well, I'm a Gemini, I tend to get too many projects going at one time and get sidetracked. If you go back in my blog to October and November of 2012, you will see the beginning of the alphabet posted

Gewgle

I'm playing with a sweet little tangle from Sandy Steen Bartholomew here. It's called Gewgle. Sandy invited people to play with this tangle, add variations, and post it on her facebook page. I had fun with this. It's basically just orbs, like 'tipple' but the orbs in gewgle have such a personality! So that's why I added wings and feet to my tangleations. And of course, color for me!!

Tangles were done with colored Micron pens. Shading with colored pencils and background was shaded with my basic zentangle black pencil.

zendala 70 and Fremont PL

Erin posted a new zendala template on her site 'the bright owl'. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it so after staring at it for a while, I went to my colors and started to play. I was actually quite happy with the results. So as I went to add tangles I decided that this time I would hold back with the amount of tangles I added. And when I added 'Bumper' to the outer ovals I saw the perfect opportunity to add another color touch. My husband looked at the completed tile and asked me why it was so different from my usual style. He likes it - but was surprised by the different direction I took. So, I ask you, what do you think?

This is from the group that came out to the Fremont Public Library last night. We got a chance to dive into some more complicated tangles. Didn't they do a great job!

Bales as a Lefty

I usually enjoy doing the Diva challenges. The challenges that are issued on the website http://iamthedivaczt.blogspot.com/ are a great way to inspire me to try new things. But this challenge, well, I was happy to have it behind me.

This challenge asks us to use the tangle pattern Bales, one of my favorites, but to do it with our non-dominant hand. In my case, I had to use my left hand. I found it to be more work than relaxation. And I doubt I'll be doing it again.

I started out the grid with my pigma Micron 01 pen. The lines were shaky and spidery. So I thought about how I could change it up and pulled out my IDentipen. I found that if I slowed myself WAAAY down, I could get a little more control with the pen. The lines are still woobly but at least they are more graphic. I added a little color with my Koi coloring brush pen. I couldn't stay in the lines with my left hand but I went for it anyway. Shading was also a challenge as you can see by all the stray pencil marks.

weekend fun and NEW CLASSES schedule

This weekend was the last weekend for my son's summer. He's back to school at The Ohio State University. We took advantage of the beautiful weather to meet my daughter and granddaughter at a local playground so they could get together before he left.

On Sunday I had a great group of students do the basics class at The Shops of Banbury in Bartlett, Il. There are new dates set for Banbury so click on over the the 'classes' tab for more info.

Beautiful work!

Dex 2

I wanted to do another tile for the Dex challenge as my first one wasn't strictly a monotangle. This one is. I used the two string method by attaching two pencils together with a rubber band. When I found the two lines to be a little two close together, I put two Popsicle sticks between the pencils and then I was happy. I explored some different tangleations of Dex here.

This tile uses a brown Pigma Micron pen. I used a tile I had hand colored with watercolor paints. It's shaded first with an orange colored pencil and then again in a smaller area with a brown colored pencil.

Dex

Playing around with the tangle pattern 'Dex', I came up with this. It uses the sphere template that Margaret Bremner posted on her blog a while back. I love how that template allows me to make almost any tangle dimensional!

I used 4 different colored Sakura Micron pens for the tangle. Then I added shading with colored pencils.

HOOT convention recap

Our booth on the trade floor. Cris Letourneau CZT is on the left. She was signing copies of her book 'Made in the Shade'. (I brought back several copies to Illinois by the way - so check them out in your next class - or call me!). Betsy Queen CZT is in the middle. She had some beautiful tangled and framed pieces for sale. I'm on the right. I was selling tangled jewelry and my hand colored tiles for zentangle inspired art. We also had a wide selection of all the zentangle books, pens, paper and other supplies. It was such fun to see people come in knowing very little about Zentangle and introducing them to the practice. Those that already knew about Zentangle shared their stories about how they were enjoying it. 

I taught two Zentangle classes. One was a basics class that included tangling on a canvas bag. The second class was an intermediate class that included tangling on jewelry. They were both big classes. I'll admit to some nerves on the first night but I got much more relaxed by the second night. I was flattered to hear that so many students enjoyed the classes.

 zentangle tote bag class

tiles from zentangle tote bag class

tiles from zentangle jewelry class

lucky winner of door prize donated by Sakura

We were thrilled that so many people came by our booth on the trade show. Over and over we heard the comment, "This is the newest and most exciting thing in the convention!" We introduced many new people to Zentangle. Since people came from all over the Midwest, I imagine other CZTs (certified zentangle teachers) will be getting some emails!

Hoot shopping has begun!

Tonight was the first night for the exhibit sales floor at the HOOT convention in Columbus Ohio.  As you can see from the pictures, we had many excited shoppers.  There were times that I could barely get into the booth myself because it was crowded with shoppers.  It was exciting to talk with them about how much they were enjoying Zentangle and how it was helping them in their daily life.

We still have good stock but I can see that we will run out of some book titles before the end of the show. Stop by soon if you are in Columbus.

AND,  if you tell me that you saw this blog entry at the show, I'll have a gift for you!

Drawing Yin Yang lines

When I did the last zendala I tried doing the curved Yin Yang line freehand,  but I found it frustrating.  Then I found this tip on line so I wanted to share it with you.
With a pencil - Start with a large circle.  In the drawing it's 4 inches.  Add two small circles within the big circle. Stack them one over the other.  These measure 2 inches.  If desired,  little circles can be added within. (See picture ) You can adapt this to any size circle. Just make the smaller circles half the size of the bigger one. The tiniest circles can be whatever looks good to you.
Go back and emphasize the S shape that results if you start at the top circle,  go to the midpoint, and then go around the other side of the lower circle.
You can use circle templates, a ruler,  and/or a compass.  If you are computer savy you could do it in a drawing program too.
After I got my yin yang drawing done I simply placed it under my zendala outline.  I turned the zendala around until I was happy with the alignment and traced it on.

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

This zendala has a split personality. It is dare #68 from Erin at http://thebrightowl.blogspot.com/

I was quite taken with this template. I like the stars and orbs. Even so, I stared at it for a while before I could finally decide which tangles to use. 

I knew right away I wanted to divide this using a curved line - like a yin yang symbol. So one half was colored black leaving only the template lines white. I used my IDentipen to color the black parts. It filled in those areas quickly and solidly. The tangles were done with a white gelly roll pen on the black sections and a black Micron was used on the white sections. I used a white Conte chalk pencil in the black area and a regular pencil to shade on the white side.

string idea 04

Over at Tanglepatterns.com there is a section for string ideas. Getting the 'string', the initial starting place, is sometimes a challenging thing for my students, so I'm happy there is this resource available to them. This string is number 04 in the resources and it was contributed by Sue Agnew. Follow  THIS LINK  to see it on her site.

I'm happy to get back to doing a true Zentangle here. I do a lot of zendalas and ZIAs (zentangle inspired artwork), and I add color frequently, but this follows the core of what zentangle is.

Zentangle, at its core, is a 3 1/2 inch paper tile. It is started with a pencil frame and pencil string. All the tangles are done with a black pen and the shading is done with a pencil. No erasing.