The African Artist Challenge

Last week, jewels began appearing in people's zentangle art here and there. How ASTOUNDINGLY beautiful! Of course I followed a link and found the tutorial here at TangleFan.  It is amazing how simple it is, and yet the results are stunning

 can you believe, this is the VERY FIRST piece I did. Rather mind boggling, isn't it? And I haven't even shaded it.

Then I spent some time at work between calls, making little jewels on bijou tiles. And...there are some gold balls there, too. I want to work on that technique some more.

In fact, today is my day off and once the domestic stuff is done, I plan on following through with the tear drop earring I had in my mind when I woke up this morning. Will it be silver, or pearl? Or gold!

Okay, on to the Diva Challenge: UMT African Artist by Tina of Akua Art. Tina is a creative genius with new tangle patterns. Two of my very favorites EVER are her Niuroda and Hamail. Tina has a pattern gallery at her blog with lots of other lovely patterns.

anyway, African Artist is a fun one, so fabricky :) which was Tina's inspiration, fabric from Africa. I played with it in a couple of pieces, then decided to use a string. String 186...that'll do.

This is what I ended up with:

There's purk, ta-da, rashell, onomato, and of course African Artist...and lots of random little squiggly spirals.

I like this quite a bit as is...but then the jewel bug bit, and I finished it...





...like this:

Isn't that something!

Well, I got to clicking around and found some more inspiration at Coffee and Creativity where Michelle Wynne put jewels in EVERYTHING! which gave me the idea of maybe some African Artist with jewels nestled among the folds...

Again I chose a string, #185 and started tangling

Meh. It didn't turn out as I had pictured, though I did a few variations on African Artist, which is the main feature in this one, and gem stones ARE peeking out from the folds.It would have been better if I'd stuck with one color scheme, I think. Flord in the background finished it. Now notice the one piece of African Artist at the bottom there, with a single strip rather than lots of lines. It is important, because...well you'll see...

For a third piece, I made up my own string and simply started filling spaces with patterns. African Artist, of course, and also Tortuca, Umble, Flux, and one I created called Ripl

 

This time I put a gemstone in the narrow places of African Artist, and I stuck with one color palette in each section. So the gemstones in the upper African Artist are green/yellow, and this tangleation of AA, with the single curved strip...which is a pretty way to do it, isn't it...has purples. Scattered throughout the Ripl are amber gems. I rather like this one. 

Good times with zentangle!

TreeTangles

Oh I love trees! They are wonderful in all seasons, even in the middle of winter, how delightful the patterns of their bare limbs.

There was a favorite tree at my old job, along the edge of the parking lot. It has such graceful limbs, arcing up and weaving among each other. I called it The Brigid Tree.

I love how the branches sort of plait themselves in the trunk area. Just lovely to look at and I have lots of art featuring this tree from a few years ago.

I tried to make it Celtic Knotty

Hm. It's been a while since I looked at my Brigid Tree Art.

Well, this week we have a guest CZT at Laura's Blog. Dilip Patel, a very innovative and creative artist whose work I always enjoy looking at. He challenges us to create a tree monotangle using a tangle pattern. 

There is last week's Hollibaugh entry

Pretty cool, eh?






But I wanted to do new art for this, so I went with an idea I developed in an old sketchbook: a Bales variation that morphed into a glen.

If I were to do this again, I'd make the trunks slimmer.

(Wylie thinks it looks like sheep hahaha)

It's that time of year...do these look like Xmas trees? It's KandyRibnz, with some little orbs dangling into the negative spaces.
With those wavering trunks, they look like they're lifting off the ground hahaha!

And, a snow laden evergreen out on a winter night.

Tearce and some shading. It kind of looks like stones stacked up, but I guess it'll do.

Zingertime!

This is our last week of Alphabet Monotangles...and the tangle is a fun one: Zinger!

I was excited about it, because that is a pattern I like a lot. Thing is, zinger is a filler, not necessarily the star of any given tile. It adds a lot of sparkle and some wonderful detail in any corner, or along any line, but it's rare to find it as the centerpiece. Hence, it was actually pretty tough to get a piece that I liked. For several pages in my sketchbook I played with zinger. *sigh*

It didn't work on a string,

bleh

 it didn't really work "biggified" (isn't Lori Byerly's style just something! I love what she does with EVERY pattern)  anyway, when I tried "biggifying" zinger, it was pretty much laughable.

 

 

snork

 

 

Maybe REALLY big? Like, fill the page with one zinger? 

Well, I was getting kind of bored with it, when the idea to do something inside a shape, with some depth maybe. So I started with a circle and drew my zingers inside, trying to make it look deep. It was turning out to be another disappointment because I couldn't get it the way I envisioned.

But, I had started, so I called the circle good and looked at it for a bit. Put some rays coming straight out and zingered them. Ugh! What on EARTH did it need? Because nothing I did was turning into a pleasing piece.

So I went back to the beginning. That is, what had always pleased me about zinger? It reminds me of little heads of grass or tiny flower buds. So, just for fun I put a row of zinger along the bottom of the page. Ahhh...this was nice.

At this point, I was really playing, not trying to get it looking good or pleasant. Just one line at a time, playing around with the pattern. Over and over again, I made many little buds on slender stems. NOW it was starting to please me.

Some dotted swirls rising up from the zinger "meadow" ... then since there was motion from the "ground" upward, I thought the "sky" might respond...with a shower of random zingers.

Added a border and some corners et voila!

And looky there! It's a likable piece, after all. Like the sky and the land blessing each other.