Suzy Mosh *I* Challenge

some good challenges this week, and the first one I completed is SuzyMosh's. The challenge is to use new tangles, starting with the letter I.

There are a few at tanglepatterns.com, and I chose insydout and itsytwisty. Itsytwisty is one I've been wanting to learn, and it IS a lot of fun.

As I played with it, I found there's an easy way to make the "ribbon" look really nice, but not until I was almost done with my piece.

 Here I have the first two strands of itsytwisty, and you can see how the "twist" looks kind of pointy and not elegant. I don't dislike it, but it really doesn't look ribbony at all. I was following the step outs on  Diana Sexton's blog the best i could but for some reason, I thought the idea was to make these points connect, but it really didn't make a smooth, flowing ribbon at all. (Though I actually like the look of that last twist in the burgundy ribbon. I'd like to explore the sort of angular effect it has in other patterns that have a curve to them.

In this one, I figure it out, and it has a much smoother look.

So I thought I'd put a little tutorial here, to sort of show what I finally figured out.

so, in itsytwisty, you have a line of buttons, with a ribbon threading through them. To show what I did, I just made the lines that go inside each "button."

Notice, I numbered the ends of each line 1 or 2.
when drawing the lines for the ribbons, go from 1 to 1, and then from 2 to 2. This causes the lines to naturally cross each other.
On the bottom, you do the same thing, on the alternating lines. Without the disc shapes there, it's easy to connect them on the bottom, but when you have the "buttons" in place, you have to sort of eyeball where the connections on the bottom would appear, but you still go from 1 to 1 and from 2 to 2. 

So, that is how I did the last strand of itsytwisty in my piece.

And this is what I ended up with:

On the left edge is something I enjoy doing, that I've never named. It's got elements of flux with some classic Mehndi thrown in, and lots of spirals. A double aura around that. Then a rounded Insydout. some Flux and Fescu along the edge of that, with Niuroda nestled up in the corner. And three strands of itsytwisty flowing out from there. The starry things are a simplified version of my Starsket.

Insydout will be fun to play with some more, and I like insydout. It has potential for a lot of variety.

Okay for Oke!

At Joey's place we are up to the letter O, and the tangle we're challenged to monotangle is Oke by Shelly Beauch.

This was done in July.

Fun tangle! One of the first ones I learned, and then didn't use it for a long time. But there was a recent challenge using Oke, which turned out one of my favorite tiles.

I posted about it here ... a SuzyMosh challenge using something by Michelle Beauchamp ... heh.

Well, with this tile, I fell in love with Oke.




I have created two tiles, then, for Joey's challenge.

This one, on red with a burgundy micron and dahlia purple shading, some sand yellow and white highlights...I like it. The shading and highlights make it look 3D. That's the great thing about colored paper: You can use highlights, which are so cool.

Another favorite tile using Oke.

And this bijou tile on gray with slate gray prisma and white charcoal highlights.

LOVE!

This was a terrific challenge! Good stuff, Maynard.

Suzymosh T Challenge

This week over at SuzyMosh's we are tasked with creating art using T patterns and the patterns of Sandra Strait.

For my T patterns I chose Tortuca, from tanglepatterns.com and Two Monkeys by Neil Burley

The patterns by Sandra that I chose were Fohbraid (I've been wanting to play with this one for a while) and Rosewood.

To start, I traced tiles here and there, overlapping on a page in my sketchbook, then filled the spaces. Fohbraid, I just let it fall where it would, randomly within the squares.

Fohbraid drapes across the centers of both big tiles, and there's a smaller version dangling from the upper big tile. In playing with Fohbraid, I found that I really like making the initial shape more a tear drop, than a triangle.

In the upper right corner is a tangle I created, but not sure what to call it. It is essentially a spiral with Tropicana drawn inside it. I used a burgundy micron and colored in both positive and negative spaces, for a different effect. Hard to see in this pic.

Navaho in the center reminds me of a picnic chair, and there is dlNebula in the lower left corner, looking like a hankie or something.

The upper left is Pineapple, also by Neil, but I've gone all minimalist on it...LOVE IT that way.


The Two Monkeys in the background reminds me of tiles on a kitchen backsplash.

Usually a piece will remind me of something, and this one is hard to pin down, but I think it is like a gathering in a patio at a very fine southwestern home. There's platters of delicious food, decorative tile in the "outdoor living space", rhythms and energy.

Stripey String

It has been a couple of weeks since I participated in the Diva Challenge. It was a dry spell, in more than just my art. Things were pretty much in slow motion in every aspect of my life. And that's okay. I still took out my sketchbook and pens every day and scribbled, practiced lines and circles, did some shading, practiced new patterns (Zenith is REALLY fun) even did some of the challenges without submitting them  because I didn't feel like fiddling around with my blog.

But one morning I woke up with this curly thing in my mind, and once I was up I grabbed my big sketchbook and began drawing what I saw. I drew many of them...lots and lots of curly things. When I was done, most of the page was full, but the lower right section was open...and so I finished it, with a face:

 

Dreaming

 She turned out sorta neat, didn't she? Someone in repose, sitting in stillness. Maybe her mind is full of amazing things and that shows in her hair! ha!












This sort of broke down the artist's block I was going thru. It gave me inspiration to do it again.

Gazing at the sky

I really like the string of onomato beads, and she has flowers in her hair! the Mi2 in the lower right was odd, but it was the first time I put that tangle in a random shape and it's okay.

Not sure about the roller coaster looking huggins there on the right side of her face. But it's still okay. Again, I wonder how amazing must her thoughts be as she gazes upward.

Little Guy

 While I was working on the long haired woman, I thought of this one: short curly hair on a child. The main pattern here is a bran-new one on Tanglepatterns.com: Pixioze. In fact, I filled a page in my big sketchbook with Pixioze during my dry spell. There's other patterns scattered around in there.

That's so Louis XIV

Looking online, I saw several faces with their hair piled up, and gave that a try. Doesn't Undling (across her hairline in front) look JUST LIKE hair? I also love the paisley and of course Tropicana like a crown is yummy! She also has flowers in her hair.
And notice the horizon of Zenith running behind her.


These were so much fun to do, and I plan on making many more, not just faces, but anything that has layers or piles (e.g., I saw a tangles soft serve ice cream cone)





Thank you for going along on my little tour.

Now for the Diva Challenge   This week we are to make a string that is Stripey, so I did. I used a micron burgundy pen in 05 and just created a simple horizontal stripe, with a curve in it.

The Land of Counterpane

Keeko, Striping, A-torm, Maizey, MacDee, and fringe. Looks sorta blankety, doesn't it?

It's also been a more active week. I went hiking twice (got pictures of only one hike)

Lake Mary and me!

On the way to Mary

and took my little cat Becky out for a walk:

Wait...woah! this isn't the apartment!

Walking the cat

 There's a courtyard in the apartment building where I live, and I took her out there. She did want to stay under the shrub, but wasn't resistant when I scooped her up and put her out in the open.

Hi BeckyAnne!

I am going to take her out every day in good weather. She'll love it and I bet as she gets used to it, we'll go exploring quite a bit.

The Y Challenge

This week, Suzy Mosh is challenging us to use Y tangles that we've never used before. There were a few, and I chose two: Yoga and Yabbut.

I drew them in red, because I've had an upheaval in my life this week: a year long relationship ended on Monday and red is the color of stability, balance, rootedness...which I need in a time of turmoil.

But I did draw something else in red, that I want to show you first.

This piece is ALL ABOUT the relationship that broke up.

Pretty self-explanatory, I think.


Dang, there's a lot of energy on that page!









So red is my theme this week. I've been wearing various hues of red to work and at home, and drinking my tea out of a mug with a red flower painted on it. Actually, that mug was given to me by my sister, as a house warming gift for a delightful little duplex I lived in a few years back. Beautiful mug, truly.

Anyway.

Here are my entries for Suzy's Challenge:

 This is Yoga in red micron. (Looks orange, due to the lighting) I thought Yoga was apropos, as deep breathing, relaxing, and having some quiet alone time have been very beneficial this week. 

The section of ombre is blended prismacolor pencil going from sky blue, to lavender, to rose pink, to canary yellow. I outlined the ombre and the two end lozenges in burgundy micron.

This is yabbut, done in burgundy micron, with Tuscan Red shading.


Both of these are bijou tiles, and I want to try both of them as part of a piece with lots of patterns, not only as monotangles, but it came up Saturday this morning and I wanted to get an entry in, so here you go.


Next week, I predict I will be back in the flow of all the challenges.

Thanks to all who read and comment. It's encouraging to see people interested.

N'zeppel

Woah, I've been offline for a while. Chalk it up to a rather lengthy dry spell, and a kind of "meh" attitude about blogging. In fact, I didn't even look at Joey's page last week. Wish I had, because I love Maryhill.

Well this week's challenge is to do a monotangle using N'zeppel...another big favorite of mine.

I made four tiles...two regular and two bijou.

Here they are

This is a bijou tile, with one motif of the classic N'zeppel, and shaded as if tiles or stepping stones. This one is good in a grid, but it isn't my favorite way to do N'zeppel.

To the right, that classic N'zeppel on an oblong, with shading. It's very cool looking, and it is surrounded by tangleations of the pattern. Across the back, the rough looking lines, is my pattern crax done N'zeppel style, but I don't like the shading. Some grid N'zeppel along the right edge, each section shaded. And there in the mid lower right, the N'zeppel lines shaded, in a reverse effect from the standard pattern.

This one was done in sepia, and shaded with black grape and tuscan red. Not my favorite.

This one is a random N'zeppel on a slate gray bijou tile, with tipple in the lines, and white charcoal pencil to highlight. Very pretty, but not my favorite.

Yes, THIS is my favorite.

Now looky here, see what I did? I shaded N'zeppel here, the opposite of usual.

It makes the lines stand off of the page...isn't that cool?