Curvy line tangles

African Artist is the challenge tangle this week. It's the one all around the border. As I was working with it I was thinking about all the other tangles that start out in the same way - with curvy lines. So I pulled all the similar tangles out of my files and put as many as I could into this tile. I could only fit 7 into this tile so I drew an entire sheet with all the ones I found. I'm sure there are more out there that I haven't included - if there is one you know of that I should include please let me know!

It's amazing that so many tangles can start out in the same way but still look so different. 

Click on this picture to enlarge it for the details. (Sorry it's sideways!) I added shading to the bottom half of each tangle but of course, you can adapt the shading however you want.

monotangle trees

purk, echoism, cayke

arukas, meer variation, flux, shattuck, opus

These little pieces are quick and easy to do for Christmas cards. I cut a piece of black cardstock to 5 x 7. I lightly sketched a few triangles and then filled each one with a white gel pen and monotangle. The snow drifts were then added with a white charcoal pencil that I smudged and softened.  

Art supply stores sell watercolor cards that measure 5 x 7 when folded so these can be attached as is or trimmed slightly so that you will have a white border around your piece.

Hollibaugh Plus

Hollibaugh is a tangle that is wonderful for adding a different sort of element to my tangles. While it has the repetitive element of the two parallel lines, it also has a lot of randomness in where those lines are placed. There are also many tangleations you can do with this tangle and if you look at the challenge pieces from 'The Diva' web site you will find lots of inspiration.

One aspect of Hollibaugh that I find intriguing is that you can use it to connect other tangle patterns to each other. In the tile here I used four different tangle patterns around the edges and then used Hollibaugh to find ways to join them.

Here is the tile before shading - (and the photo was taken late at night so the focus is a little off).

Tangling in the hospital

As many of you know, being in the hospital is not fun. Since I knew my surgery was coming up soon, I packed a bag of tangling supplies. I did these ATC tiles when I was at the sweet spot in my meds so I could do  them. You know - when the medicine has started to wear off and you aren't too loopy - but before the pain started up again.

I decided to each tile diffently while keeping to a basic string and a small group of tangles.

I cut them out a paper I found at Jerry's artorama . The backrooms were done with watercolor paints. Tangles were drawn with a fine tipped pen. Finally I added the shading and highlights with colored pencils.

I'm hoping to go home later today.

Trip to Tripoli

I don't know much about Tripoli - and I don't do this tangle pattern very often so I'm not very comfortable with it. That pretty much describes how I'm feeling this morning. In a couple of hours I will be at the hospital undergoing surgery. It's something I've been anticipating for a while but I'm still very nervous and somewhat scared about. (I do have great doctors and confidence in the facility.) I will be in the hospital for about 4 days so as you can expect, it's not a minor procedure. I would appreciate it if you would send some prayers and healing thoughts my way.

See you on the flip side!

class pictures

This is a collection of pictures from fall classes this year. You can see Basics classes, Beyond the Basics, Jewelry, Shrink art, Holidays and Zenspirations. I apologize that some are not in good focus. AND be sure to scroll to the bottom of this post to see a special one on one class photo.

Zenspirations

Holiday tangles

This is my granddaughter who tried her hand at an art piece with lots of triangle shapes that she glued down. She was so proud of what she accomplished!

Just a taste

Let's call this an experiment.  I've been wanting to tangle my suitcase that I carry class supplies in but I just haven't - until now. Really, the idea of adding just a taste of Zentangle was just the right idea.

I used a white pen so I have no idea how durable it will be. Check back in a few months and I'll post an update.

Gourdgeous

Gourdgeous is the newest tangle pattern featured in the Zentangle newsletter. It was inspired by the pattern on bead board and it evolved into the pattern that is similar to all the gourds that we see in autumn. This is a tangle that challenged me at first - so I just decided to keep doing it until I was happy. 

This is how I started out. I did it a couple of times and wasn't too thrilled. So I tried the version with the dimple at the bottom and was happier. One more time in the basic way to balance out the zendala. So far so good - now what. Well, I got this far on Monday and hit a mental block. I couldn't decide what do do next. Finally last night I settled on the patterns to complete this piece. There is a version of Sampson in the middle and Vigne around the border. Done!

Stone tangles

Stones are fun to tangle. It really gives you a very tactile experience. First you need to choose the right stone. As I walked along the beach I saw many to choose from. If the shape looked promising I picked it up. I turned it over, I felt it to see if it was smooth enough. If it felt right I put it in my pocket. Sometimes I would catch myself playing with the rock in my pocket later that day - feeling the shape in my hand.

Washing the stone would reveal other aspects to the stone. I would discover cracks, and/or see that the water would darken the color of the stone.

After it dried I would turn the stone in all directions, trying to see if there were any tangles that seemed to be wanting to be drawn on that particular stone. When I 'discovered' them it was almost a Eureka moment!

I did most of my tangles with the Sakura IDentipen and the white graphite pencil. On the really dark rocks I used my white gelly roll pens. 

I have accumulated quite a few rocks now. These rocks are a combination of rocks I found along the shoreline in Rhode Island and rocks that I have purchased. I discovered that my big box home improvement store sells bags of rocks for landscaping. The river rock bags had several lovely shapes! (If you live in a Northern climate you may need to wait for spring to see these in stock again.)

 I love drawing Zendalas so it seemed only natural to create a small rock mandala. I used a black placemat under the composition to keep my rocks organized. Fun - and soothing.

Tangled Owls

This little project falls into the crafting with recycled materials category. Yes, The main material is the core of a roll of TP. You could also use the tube from a roll of gift wrap paper and cut it to shorter lengths. It's very easy to push in one end to create the ears and then the fun part of adding tangles comes in. I used a Sakura IDentipen and a white graphite pencil. It was quick and easy and I did all three of these in a couple of hours.

If you live in an area of the country where rain is predicted on Halloween - this would be a good project to keep those little goblins busy!

side view

Full disclosure - I saw something similar to this on Pinterest and realized that tangles would be a great addition to this project.

Almost Halloween - W2

This tile began as a way to do a montangle with W2. I laid out all my little squares and was about to start when I spotted one of my rulers that has a serrated edge. It's a ruler that's meant to be used when you want to rip paper and get a perfectly uneven deckled edge. Somehow that inspired me to do my lines in a wiggly, shakey fashion. (I didn't actually use the ruler - just was inspired by it.)

I've always liked to add linework to my W2 and as I started it I continued with the shakey lines, and that led to the Msst tangle. Now I could see it was starting to become kind of strange and spooky. I thought of adding spiders but that would be a little too representational for Zentangle. So then I came up with a few Tipple like orbs - and with the dots inside they can be seen as eyeballs. Lots of deep shading finished it.

I'm happy with the way this came out. Especially because I frequently have students who complain that their linework is too shakey. Well, now I can show them that if they just go with it they can come up with all sorts of possibilities!

Leaf Zendala

With fall coming there is lots of inspiration to include leaves and fall colors into our artwork. I started with a colored tile (seen below). I used the Zendala dare # 112 from Erin Olsen at The Bright Owl. This is a lovely Zendala template that I'm sure I will use again. I only used two tangles - Poke leaf and Meer but the template has such lovely lines that I didn't need more. Tangles were done with a brown Micron and shaded with colored pencils.

Yes - this is the tile I started with - but I took this picture late at night with artificial lighting. It's frustrating when you try to take pictures and it comes out so different form what you expect. You can see the lines from the template. I lightly penciled them in using a light box.

Nymph

Playing with the tangle pattern Nymph from Melinda Barlow. Nymph begins with the Zentangle pattern N'zeppel. I did most of the tangling with an 02 size pen and then did the linework for Nymph with an 005. This is done on a regular 3 1/2" tile and just turned on the diagonal.

On this tile I did Nymph two ways. The center area starts with Nymph in a grid based N'Zeppel. In the outer area I did a random N'Zeppel. I did the grid in a wonky fashion so my resulting Nymph has a very different feel. Then I added some Paradox on top.

Gemini Munchin

The car saga has come to an end. We made it home safely. We will still follow up with the Ford dealer and see if they will reimburse us for expenses - (since I had them inspect the car for any problems two weeks before we left). So after a day of doing absolutely nothing, I'm back to my tangling.

The Diva linked us to the video that Molly Hollibaugh made for the tangle pattern Munchin. I haven't used that tangle too much and I don't know why. It's actually easy and fun to do.

Since this tangle begins with random dots that remind me of the night sky, I decided to use dots that were not quite random. My dots represent the Gemini constellation. I googled it and found multiple images to inspire me. (See below) From there I used my gelly roll pen, the white graphite pencil and the Zenstone around the edges.

Rocky roads

The East coast vacation was fantastic. I saw family, we got a chance to get a last sail of the season, great seafood dinners, and teaching Zentangle at the New England Traditions convention.

Coming back home however has not been so much fun. It's been a long drive. That's OK - I anticipated that. What I didn't anticipate was the last day when the car started making noises and the rear end started shimmying as we were driving at highway speeds on the Interstate. We limped into a rest area and began a 5 hour ordeal of contacting our insurance to get a tow. We ended up with two different tow trucks as the insurance approved company wasn't authorized to pick up on the Interstate. So now I'm sitting in a hotel room as the dealership works on some very expensive repairs.

So I tangled on my rocks to keep calm and pass the time.

I finally got a chance to do the Diva challenge with the Tri-bee tangle pattern.

I did this one as I was thinking about the repairs being done to my car!

And I tangled with Zenith some more.

The car up on the tow truck. My husband is on the right - looking rather frustrated.

Tangling on rocks

This tangled rock was left at my sister's home tucked among the other rocks by her fireplace.  Her home in Rhode Island is near the coast. I love walking along the rocky coastline looking for perfectly shaped rocks.

This rock was tangled with an IDentipen.  Highlights were added with a white charcoal pencil.

Color Strings

Color! - Oh, how it excites me! This weeks challenge is to use color as our string. One of the suggestions was to use a stencil and to spritz or daub the color over it. I ended up going more free form with my color. In the tile above I dribbled three colors of ink onto my tile and kind of played with it. I purposely left areas of white space. When it was dry I outlined everything and tangled in the white spaces. There is also a little bit of shading with colored pencil to make those areas more defined but it's hard to see that in the photograph.

This is another tile I did at the same time as the first one. I've done the outlining but haven't started the tangles yet.

This tile was done with a wet into wet technique. I used water to wet the whole tile first and then added color here and there. I didn't have the white spaces to tangle within so I used my colored pens and tried a different approach.

This is a group of tiles I did at the same time while I was playing with my inks. As you can see, you will get quite a few unexpected results as you try to get the one that inspires you.

The two tiles below are ones that I think will be next to go up on the drawing table. Stay tuned!

More Zenith tangleations

Playing with the Zenith tangle pattern again. I used bolder lines and lots of 'comma' shapes. I love how the Zenith tangle pattern allows so many different options.

Tangle Unexpected

The Diva challenged us to tangle something different this week - I LOVE to think outside the box and I've tangled a wide variety of things in the past. I tangled in the sand at the beach. I've drawn tangles on the driveway with chalk. Canvas bags, canvas jackets, T shirts and more have received a tangled touch. I even tangled on the bucket that we used in the ALS icebucket challenge. If you go back through the pictures on this blog you will see them. I had a few on this computer I added below so you can see a few of them here.

This particular project was done on an old AOL promotional disc. I used black, acrylic paint to cover the shiny side of the disc. After it dried I used a ball stylus and scratched my tangles into the surface to exposing the shiny surface below the paint.

Here I tangled on my sandals with a white gelly roll pen.

This plastic luminary was tangled with a Sakura Microperm pen.

DuPage Art League classes

I have had some great classes at the DuPage Art League in Wheaton, IL. The pictures below are class mosaics. The first two are from the second class of a two week workshop. The last picture is from a one hour intro to Zentangle session. 

There will be another two week session in October on the 19th and 26th. Contact them to sign up.

I always find it amazing how I can teach the same tangles and the students come up with such exciting tangleations.