Striping or Stripping

Stripping /striping - I had to laugh when I saw that the focus tangle on my Facebook group was Striping but the typo made it Stripping. I couldn't get that picture out of my mind so I decided to play with it. I drew a string that reminded me of curvy unmentionables and stripped off the striping wherever it seemed I could.

I added a number of other tiles that have striping below. These are all older tiles that you may have seen posted on this blog before. Striping is a good way to add strong contrasts to any tile. 

Just a little striping in a small area.

Red and black striping

Striping as a way to add a tangleation to another tangle

Gold striping on a red tile

Purple striping

Circles

Circles - It's an interesting way to start a design. This was the challenge this week and I wasn't sure how I wanted to approach this. I remembered how much fun I had with the stacked challenge a few months ago so I decided to revisit that only with circles. I hunted through the stash of papers I have in my studio and found this assortment of neutral colors. (The black is an official Zendala tile for size reference.) I tried out different ways to put the circles and ended up liking this off center placement.

I wasn't sure which way to go with the tangles so I just started with whatever came to mind.  Then I added some gold paint along with the shading. I think it actually shows up in this picture for a change!

Meandering Echoism

Echoism is one of my go to tangles. It sneaks into many of my pieces including the post from last week. When it became the focus tangle of one of my Facebook groups this week I wanted to try it in different ways than I normally use it. 

I started with a meandering line for a string in pencil. I then added echoism in a very random manner - more or less following the pencil line I started with. I added a variation on Henna drum and some auras. Shading / Highlighting completed the piece.

Which do you prefer? Black or white?

A late addition to the post here - someone asked me where the echoism was in this tile so I hope this picture explains it better. The picture on the left show the way we usually start basic echoism. The one on the right has the pencil line that I used as a string and then a more freeform echoism.

tangling while traveling

I love to tangle while I travel. I always have the basic supplies in my bag and can pull them out anyplace, anytime. I was on a plane when I did this one. A plane has very limited space but the tray table is just fine for tangling. The last time I tangled on a plane the tween girl that was sitting beside me was fascinated with what I was doing. After I finished the shading and signed my name I handed it to her as a gift. You should have seen the smile on her face. Of course, I took the opportunity to tell her mom all about Zentangle.

On this tile I started with a very simple string. I don't know quite how it happened, but all the tangles made me think of traveling and movement. They are; Ditto, Schway, Twing, and Echoism.

Imagine Peace

It makes me so sad to see the craziness in this world of late. I don't understand how such hatred toward people different than each other has gotten so out of hand. I certainly don't have the answers so instead I will try to let peace begin with me and ask the almighty for help.

My artwork this week uses a gold metallic paint from Finetec. I wish I could figure out how to photograph it better - trust me when I say it is glorious in person. The dove and simple tangling was done with the white chalk pencil. I wanted to keep it simple and understated.

Fireworks zendala

Today I am really stepping outside the box of traditional Zentangle. I wanted to do something that was inspired by the 4th of July and fireworks came to mind.

 I started with red paper. I recently acquired a product from the Martha Stewart line of products called a 'cut and fold punch'. It's a fun little gizmo that punches cut lines all around the paper and then you go back and fold them to create this design. It has magnets to help you line them up. After I had it all punched and folded I noticed the inner circle was the perfect place to tangle.

The tangles that I used were less traditional tangles than bits and pieces that come from other tangles. Once I got going it was fun to keep creating. I used a white gelly roll pen and bits of a gold gelly roll pen too.

Tangle Remix

Not every tile that I do excites me. Some are simply 'meh'. So when the diva invited us to do a Tangle Remix, I pulled out my stack of old tiles that I wasn't thrilled with and pulled out this one. It was originally done with an emphasis on simplicity. It did suit that challenge but I knew I could take it further. I started by embellishing the flux and dittos patterns that I had already done and then I set it aside. After thinking for a while I decided to add a field of black. I then added more of the ditto pattern with a white pen. Wow, I'm happy with it now.

Before shot (late at night on the kitchen table).