Flux Has Arrived!

The Diva Challenge for The Final Week of March

First of all, it was only last week that I realized, Flux had never been published on tanglepatterns.com. This was pointed out to me by a friend at work who just this past couple of weeks or so, began exploring zentangle after seeing some of my art on my cubicle walls.

Flux? Not on tanglepatterns.com? Really?

Really.

A day or two later, after this very strange revelation (for Flux is a popular tangle, with lots of uses, which I have seen in a lot of works, and have used in almost every piece I have done. How could such a widely used pattern NOT be on tanglepatterns.com?)...

ehem...

A day or two later, Zentangle. com comes out with a blog entry, officially "announcing" the Zentangle pattern Flux, and a sample or two of Maria's version, and some of Rick's. Isn't that something, one of the most popular, first used and most used tangle patterns out there, only "officially" came out THIS week.

of course Maria and Rick have amazingly creative uses of Flux, and I could have gone to almost any piece I've ever done and find samples of flux that I've used (including the 200th challenge on the diva's website)...but then I got to looking around my front room, at some art I've framed and put on the walls. One of my favorite pieces, once I got looking at it, actually is loaded with flux, although it is more paisley looking, and not so leaf looking.

Lots of perfs, lots of curls, and plenteousness of a teardrop shape. All filled in with black, which lends it a modern look, not real ruffley. I never thought it was very flux-y until this challenge. So, I got out a tile and did a smaller version of the pieces I have on my wall.

This has whetted my appetite for fooling around with this tangleation some more. Fun stuff!

Flux on the Swirl

O! My!

Suzy Mosh's challenge this week is to use patterns beginning with O, that we've never used before.


I have several strips of cardstock, left over from making some 3.5x3.5  tiles homemade. I think they are the right size for bookmarks, and have been filling them with patterns.

my luscious green blanket, over my lap, for a background

so I decided to run with a bookmark for the O challenge and chose Opus, which I loved for the layering. Then, behind and under it, Oof. I used pretty much the patterns as shown in the step outs, but I think they would be fun to play around with, especially Opus. Lots of potential there.

Both of these patterns can be found on tanglepatterns.com and they both happen to be from Rick and Maria themselves. I want to do another O entry, but this is what I have gotten done.
I shaded it with sky blue prismacolor pencil.

I was surprised, how many O patterns I just never saw before. (O) is one of my faves. And onomato is fun I use it a lot. Oolo I discovered recently. But wow, there's a LOT I have no acquaintance with.




a close up from the corner

Spiraling

This week's Diva Challenge is to create a tile using a spiral as string.

it was harder than i thought it would be, because i wanted to break away from the seashell effect...to no avail. I did two pieces, and both are so seashelly

 This is phicops, and each edge has a border pattern. Trimond, tropicana, copada, cabana, antique, hitched, LoLo, xyp, onomato. I got the idea of borders from Joey's Challenge (which I might not get to post, because my computer is VERY iffy)
I added some ribbons, and then put sand swirl all around. The ribbons disappeared into the sand swirl, so i shaded them with violet and lavendar prismacolor pencil.
Sorry about that blur.




The second piece i like a lot.

maybe because it is simpler. The main pattern is Ammon, and I put some vortex (or some such) inside the shell. Btljz and some beadlines coming out, like a nautilus. Tipple on the bottom. Very seashelly.

You can see where I was playing with flux on that page.


It was fun to do, but I feel like I stayed right inside the box on this one. It's given me a lot of play ideas though. I shall experiment with spirals.

In fact, this isn't an official entry in the challenge, but I'll share it. It is Dave Hunter's pattern, newly published on tanglepatterns.com   pinbawl   I drew a double spiral, and tried to figure out how to put pinbawl in all of it. It's wonky, but not horrendous, maybe? you can go direct to Dave's blog for pinbawl instructions here, and I highly recommend clicking around his blog. He has some simply amazing stuff on there. A genuine artist.

Surrounded by footlights. I am sure enjoying the prismacolor pencils i bought with the $50 gift card! I won it in a drawing, from a comment on Art Room Blog 
There is a drawing there every month, and it really is a charming blog.

and that's it for now. I hope to get clicking on everyone's entries today. My computer was so balky at even reading my camera chip today...don't know how many more challenges I'll be able to post.

Double Challenge: Green and B

This week, I managed to get two challenges into one tile.

The Diva has a challenge for St Pat's Day (which it IS right now yay St Paddy's!) and that is to use green of any kind in our tangles. And Suzy Mosh's challenge this week is to use B patterns that we've never used before
Here is the tile I ended up with

It is green card stock, black micron pen, with highlights in green glitter gel, and gold metallic gel.

B patterns I used are Bing (upper left corner) and Bask-it in the bottom left. Doesn't Bing look downright Celtic. So cool. Bing is at Kell's place. The step out is right here.
Other patterns: niuroda, lantern pho, onomato, and tipple.





It was a fun little piece to do, and I love the effect of the gold gel ink. SO pretty.

and as a bonus, here are some little bits I did in my free time today, sort of going with the green theme.

oolo all over

three bijous Oolo, Mooka, and Circfleur

I think it would be fun to learn some Celtic knotwork...very Irish. And Norwegian.

the A's have it

TUESDAY MARCH 10

This week over at Suzy Mosh's place, we encounter an A challenge.

Pick any A tangles that we've never used before, and go for it.

(The simplest challenges often turn out to be the most fun!)

I created my favorite type of "string" by tracing around several templates of various sized tiles: the standard 3.5x3.5, a couple of bijous, and some ATC sizes.

Then I went ahead and filled it all in with tangles.

A tangles are in no certain order:
Angel fish, amoeba, Asian fans, AA's, Ammon, amaze and a new favorite Akoya (along the upper edge of Flord. )

Akoya is fun to do, and ends up looking so cool and twisty.

Other patterns I used were Oolo, aquafleur ribbons, mooka, flux, flord, luvya, cruffle, and undling.

other than the aquafleur element, I haven't used any of the A tangles, though I think Asian fans is one I practiced when I was first starting out in zentangle. Angel fish I've seen in many places and never did anything with it until today...it didn't turn out as cool as i thought it would, for some reason.

I would like to play with amoeba more. Ammon turned out cool, making it sort of "hollow" with the shading and putting some cruffle inside the spaces.


FRIDAY, MARCH 13 (a few days later, edited to add:)


 I did some Amoeba play over the last couple of days, and added another A pattern that I've never used: Axlexa. Boy was this a fun piece to do! I worked the ink part of it between calls at work, and this morning when I got up, i was in a "sit and think" mood, so I got out some pencils and added color. I used my Derwent water colour pencils, but didn't wet anything, just used them dry. Oh! I LOVE how it turned out! Fun fun challenge!


And now, for the true star of the show: Becky Ann. My cat.

draw  me like one of your French girls

About three months old

Becky came to me from a colony of feral cats in my apartment complex. She was about six weeks old when I got her...the super found her in a utility closet, just snoozing on the floor, and he thought she was a pile of rags!

                                                                                    

She is packed with personality, especially in the "what can I do at 3 am to wake up mom?" genre. I find earrings missing (and then find the missing earrings in a completely other room.) Yesterday she got me out of bed by knocking my keys to the floor from the kitchen table.

Currently Becky is beating up a box in the kitchen, the one my 10 count micron pens and large sketchbook arrived in, yesterday! Yay! 

Diva Challenge---Poke Root vs. Cubine

 The Diva (Laura Harms) challenges us this week to create a piece using two tangles, cubine and pokeroot.

cubine is so square and pokeroot is so round. It was a fun challenge.

I started with string 125 and used paper that Annie from our latest Intermountain Tanglers Gathering brought. She had samples for everyone, and I took a yellow and a blue green.

It was the yellow one I used for this challenge, and a sepia micron pen. I also used dark brown and tan colored pencil for shading.

 

Balance is achieved not only with the round and square elements, but I was very pleased with how the light and dark balance out, too. The over/under thing is pretty cool too. 

This paper has a rather rough tooth which you can see in the colored pencil shading. It almost looks like crayon. I wish the yellow showed up better.  

So the time has come to introduce my own Diva: Becky Ann, the cat. 

She came to me from the feral colony that lives in my apartment complex, when she was about six weeks old. The super found her snoozing in a utility closet, and in the dim light, thought she was a pile of rags. 

 Becky is packed with personality

and energy.

She loves to play the game It's Three o'clock in the morning what shall I do to wake mom up. Usually this involves getting up on the dresser and rummaging through my jewelry. Sometimes it means dashing through the house like she's chasing...ghosts?

Kitty Loves Boxes

She just got done beating up a box in the other room. ha! The box that my 10 micron pens and large sketchbook came in, from Amazon! woo hoo!
Right  now she is quiet...wonder what she's plotting.

draw me like one of your French girls?

 

 

 

 

Diva Challenge #207 UMT Unbatz

For this month's UMT challenge, The Diva presents us with a tangle Unbatz by the very talented Sandy Hunter.

Oh my, what a fun tangle this is! It is simple to create, and ends up with the most interesting shapes as you play with it.


I put several pages of my sketchbook to this one, as I learned it and maneuvered it and played with it.

I created this tile

unbatz three ways, and b'twined in the middle

which is okay, but my mind turned back to my original playing around. I really like the shape that one element of this tangle makes. It reminds me of an intricate bead.

so that's what I'm running with this time: The piece I threw together, playing with dangles and beadlike things, and jewelry looking stuff. The image is a little bit blurry...sorry. At the top left and bottom right is a pattern I'm working on that I call gala (based on the sequins and dangles on a dress I saw on TV, worn by a celebrity at a party) I also used Roel and a variation of LinQ

Unbatz. What a fun shape.

 Maybe I'll play with this concept some more, creating a drapery of dangles, with unbatz as the star. This piece itself could benefit from some shading. If i make another entry in this challenge, that's what it'll be.

Thanks to Laura Harms for such a great challenge (as always) and thank you to everyone who comments here. I read every comment and appreciate all of them.

the H challenge

this week's challenge from SuzyMosh has the letter H as our inspiration.

There is an H pattern that I've had my eye on for a long time, and that is Hurry. It looks so cool, and yet is so simple. I don't know why I never ran with it before, but that's okay because this turns out to be just the right opportunity.

Last week, the string challenge had Inaura as one of the patterns. I played with that one a bit and had fun,though I didn't enter in that challenge.

and then got busy with several zendalas (and one VERY COOL traditional mandala) then the H challenge came along and I decided Hurry would be my H tangle.

Flipping thru my sketchbook, I saw my page of Inaura and an idea struck.
And, to cut a long story a little bit short, here is what I created, using Hurry and Inaura.

This was probably the most relaxing AND energizing piece I've done for a long time. Relaxing because of the repetition, and energizing because of how EXTREMELY cool it was to do. It kept my interest, and every line was more "wow! this is SO COOL!"

so, here it is. I call it "Loose Ends"

Loose Ends