Zenith

Zenith jewelry

Zenith is the latest tangle pattern posted by Zentangle.com. You can get to it by clicking HERE. I'm am really enjoying playing with this tangle because I love tangles that look really challenging. This one can be as complicated as you like, but as with most tangles, once you break it into steps, it's easy! And the possibilities for tangleations - well, you can see I had fun.

I did these on shrink plastic and photographed them before I shrunk them. In the second photo there is a piece that has been shrunk so you can see what the scale is. These will be either a necklace or earrings. At some point I may sell them on my blog shop but for now you have to get them from me in person at a class.

Sunny Zendala

Summer is winding down so I wanted to try a zendala to remember the warm, lazy days of summer. (However, for me, this summer has been busier than ever.) I love the template, #107, Erin posted at The Bright Owl so I got started with it on one of my hand colored tiles. The tangles were done with a brown Micron and the shading with colored pencils. A few highlights were then added with my white graphite pencil.

Betweed and Bijous

Betweed is the tangle pattern suggested by the Diva Challenge this week. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it. I started thinking about a star so that prompted me to pick the colored tile but after I started the tile just went its own way. I'm pleased with it anyway. I used two different gel pens that have different thicknesses so I was able to vary the effects. I then shaded with a colored pencil.

I tried the audio meditations too.  I'm not sure that they were 'my thing'. I'm going to go against the grain here and say that for me, the meditative aspect comes when I do it in my own way and I don't try to follow the meditation process. I suppose that comes from my background in decorative painting as many other CZTs come from backgrounds that include yoga and other meditative aspects. In any case, I think it's all good and we can take from Zentangle what works for us.

Undulating tangles in C and S minor

Undulating tangles in C and S minor. When I first saw this challenge my first reaction was "HUH?" But as I read through the entire post I realized that I LOVE these type of tangles. So when I started to do these I couldn't do just one. 

In the first Zendala Cadent uses a basic S stroke but as you can see I love to triple the strokes. I did it within a Yin Yang framework since that shape is the ultimate curved line. I did Cadent in pencil VERY LIGHTLY on the side that would be black and then filled in the space around it leaving the negative space as the Cadent.

The second tile also began with a simple S shaped string. I drew Surf's up in the middle and added Nebel to the left and Ditto to the right.

Tangling on seashells

Spending time at the ocean is my idea of heaven.  I love collecting shells.  And tangling on them afterwards brings back those memories.

I'm at a Zentangle retreat for CZTS in Michigan this weekend and I brought along shells I collected in Florida last winter.  We had fun adding our special touch to our shells.

I like to use a Sakura Microperm pen on shells but I know some people successfully use the IDentipen and even the regular Micron pens.  Shells are free and they usually aren't handled much so there are several options.

Zendala Diva Challenge

I LOVED this challenge! I really enjoy doing Zendalas and Erin over at the Bright Owl has come up with many wonderful templates to work with. This is one of my all time favorite templates. I love templates that give me a focus but still leave lots of room for me to play with them.

I started with one of my colored tiles and used a brown Micron for all the tangles. I used a terra cotta colored pencil for the shading and a white charcoal pencil for the highlights.  

The tangles used include, Cirquital, Paradox, and Flux.

Here is the colored tile before I started tangling. You can see the light pencil lines where I traced the template on using my light box. I wanted to show you this 'before' picture because I want you to see that even those tiles that seem to have a problem - like this big water bloom in the upper right section - can become beautiful finished tiles! So remember the 'no mistakes' mantra and tangle on!

An Empty Space

A good friend of mine lost her dad last week. He made it to the age of 90 - and was counting the days that he made it 90+. My friend would always tell me the latest story about her dad. He had a wonderful sense of humor. He will be missed but he left behind so many wonderful memories. This tile is dedicated to him.

The diva challenge had asked us to incorporate negative space into this weeks project. So when I thought about my friend's dad, the empty heart fit the theme perfectly. I used a renaissance tile along with black and brown Microns and then shaded with black pencil, brown colored pencil, and white chalk for highlights.

Zendala Dare 102 - Zen time

The last challenge I did was the Organic wreath. To do it I needed to go through all my resources to put together a group of organic tangles. It was fun, but this time I needed a project to appeal to the zen aspect. One stroke at a time. The Zendala Dare 102 appealed to me because I could easily visualize a continuous tangle 'Surf's Up'. It's been a favorite tangle since I first saw it used and it had a different name - but back then I didn't write down the name of the person to credit. So now it's 'Surf's Up' an excellent name for this tangle.