Paradox and Bunzo doutangle

There is a definite comfort to doing tiles with limited tangles. Decisions are limited so you can just start tangling. In this tile the two tangles are Paradox and Bunzo. I'm starting to get inspired by all the holiday things I'm seeing on TV so I started with a star shaped string and the rest of the tile grew from there. I used a sepia colored pen so I added some simple background shading with colored pencils. I liked the way the tangling was so I decided not to do any shading on the inside of the star shape.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Tangled Rocks

Tangled rocks. Sometimes I need to switch things up. While I love doing Zentangle tiles, I get the urge to try out new techniques and products. Lately I've been seeing posts on Facebook about people that paint rocks and then leave them for other people to find. And hopefully those people will post a picture of their find and maybe hide them again, thus continuing the cycle. above are a few of the rocks I've painted with the intent of hiding them. I'm not sure when or where, but keep your eye out!

I was inspired by another artist that posted some of her work, Judy Feskun. She got me going into the recesses of my craft supplies to find my old metallic paints.

The rocks themselves come from a variety of sources. Some came from a friend's garden (with her permission). Others came from a big bag I bought at a Home Depot. Look in the gardening supply area and ask for the 'river rocks'. It costs about $10 for a big bag.

These have been basecoated. Sometimes I started with a coat of white gesso. Sometimes black gesso, and sometimes I just went right for it on the bare rock. Most of these have a variety of colors mixed together. I would put one color down and before it dried I would smoosh another color into it. 

As I said, these paints are OLD! If you have been crafting for a while you will know that most of these labels are the old version and some of these paints aren't even made anymore. If you want to try this yourself, just look for acrylic, metallic paints.

I used an IDentipen on top of the metallic paints. I was pleasantly surprised to find it didn't bleed when I spayed the finish coat on top. The white chalk pencil was what I used on the black rock. And it's also what I used to write on the back of the rocks (not shown).

Have fun! And I'll also be posting these on the Facebook group, 'Chicago Suburb Rocks!'.

wibble

Trying out a new tangle here. It's called Wibble from Shawna Martin and you can find the step outs here. It's a fun tangle that as I played with it, it reminded me of a strange little worm.  I drew it with the tangle 'laced' and 'printemps' in the background. This was done with a sepia colored pen and shaded with colored pencils.

Fall and Hollitwig tangleation

Fall is truly here in Illinois. The weather has definitely turned colder and leaves have changed into the glorious colors of autumn. I love playing with color so for this Zendala tile I started with one of my precolored Zendala tiles. I tangled using a sepia Micron, and added colored pencils in several shades. I came up with a new (to me) tangleation of the Hollibaugh tangle. The step outs are below.

This picture shows the early stages. While this isn't the exact tile I used, it does show a similar colored tile. On the note pad you can see how I played with the Flux/leaf shape that I wanted to use for my border.

Hollitwig takes the basic steps from the Hollibaugh tangle and tweaks them a bit. To draw Hollitwig imagine you are doing an outline of the letter 'Y'. Do not use a ruler or even worry about straight lines, it's better when you just go for it. Draw as many outlined 'Y' shapes as you wish - each time drawing the new one 'behind' the ones in front. As your space fills up you may want to add a few basic double lines as needed. (see picture). Shade as desired.

There are many tangleations you can do and pictured are just a few. Draw Hollitwig with very shakey lines, Draw it thicker than before and try out different shading techniques, or fill in the negative space with other tangles.