Tangle Strings

This week's Diva Challenge is to use a tangle pattern as a string. I did a couple of tiles, and enjoyed both of them a lot!

But also this past week, I went with last week's theme of "Old School, Basic Zentangle" and made myself an ensemble, of six tiles


You can sort of see the string here. It was a 3x2 ensemble, and I just put all six tiles together, and made the string over all six.

Here I've got three of the tiles done. Each tile was like doing the Diva challenge for last week: quiet, meditative, breathing, in the moment...

 One thing that would have made this a lot more fun would have been if there had been six people, each person taking one tile, and putting it all together, like in a zentangle class....


but that's not happening right now, so I got to do the next best thing.

Completed!

LaBel, Floatfest, DivaDance, Pineapple, Rixty, Meeko, opus, Concert, B'tweed, Brax, Fishnet, Hollibaugh, Undling, Aquafleur, Flez, Ennies, N'zeppel, (with my crax in the lines) Flux,  some ribbons and tipple, Macramee,Frond, Punzel, N'Zeppel, Buttercup, Bubblz, Pais, ArcFlower, Cadent,
Putki, Axlexa,

and several random beadlines, tipple, ribbony things, and sparkles.











So that's what I did while waiting for this week's Diva challenge! ha!

It was a fun challenge, too. Use a tangle as a string.

My first one, I was in a Meringue mood, so I put that on as my string:

 this is the string with a couple of patterns.

This is my Meringue String

Three tangles in each "leaf", and some Meringue leaves off to the sides. This was fun!

Then I thought W-2 would be fun to play with

Here's the string...and when it came time to put tangles in it, I thought


PARADOX!


and look what I ended up with

It ended up a monotangle and how cool it looks! I want to try it with the "twisty" version of paradox, so each section of W2 is a bit more distinct.

Fun challenge, Creative week.

Suzy *Q* Mosh

This week Suzy's place   has a challenge: to use new Q tangles...that is, what we have never used before, and something of our choice from the patterns of Barbara Finwall.


for my  Q pattern, new to me, is Quickzly and I also used Queen's Crown.

Barbara's patterns that I used were Gnarly and Ole.

The "string" is a freehand copy of a template by Ben Kwok. You can find his amazing and fun to play with templates at the FB page Ornation Creation

It's a closed group, but you might be able to see some of the work that people have done. I'm going to get some transfer paper for putting a template in my sketchbook. Printing it up means that the template is on printer paper...not my favorite. Anyway, that's why I did the freehand onto my sketchbook.

You can see the quickzly on her forehead and the tip of her nose; queen's crown across her brow (where else) and along the upper edge of the eyes. And Barbara's Ole comes down the bridge of the nose, while her Gnarly is bursting out across the cheekbones.

Other patterns are: zenith, phicops, fescu, onomato, zedbra, and finery, framing the nose sort of feathery like. It was fun tangling this, and coloring, too. Prismacolor pencils with a little bit of white gelly roller as highlights on the eyes.

The asymmetry, so important and SO elegant in the original, makes me giggle. Those lopsided ears! ha!

It's a Sharp String

Joey has been leading us through musical challenges. Last week we had a flat string, and this week we played with a sharp and Knightsbridge.

This is the first one I did. I actually ended up liking it quite a bit. Somehow, it ended up looking like a landscape with depth, and a bit of horizon. In a purely boxy, linear, black and white way.

This one didn't turn out like I expected and it's my least favorite. I guess the spiral and the wavy banner-ish thing are okay but it's...whatever.

BUT! this one gave me the idea of making the string more noticeable

So I made the string double on all lines, and drew in the sections of the string, and they were sort of rounded so then...why not Aquafleur them?

I think this one turned out pretty cool.

Old School Zentangle

This week's Diva challenge was to create a good old fashioned tangle, on a 3.5x3.5 card, black on white with shading, and using the technique of silence and appreciation during creation.

This was a very good exercise for me, as I rarely tangle in silence. I usually have something going in the background. Sitting and doing this in silence was good for me. Thoughts were able to flow: my daughter whom I helped move yesterday; my sweety who was still asleep; some incredible thinking and learning I've been doing about quantum physics and near death experiences and the afterlife.

Under the surface of the pond

I started by holding the tile in my hand, and appreciating the quality of the tiepolo paper I had. Breathed. Put the border on in pencil, enjoying the line of graphite as it went down. Decided on a string, and began with the ink.

Using an idea I got from Shelly Beauch, I used a W string and filled it up with favorites. Because I woke up with it in my mind, I started with seedling in the center. Then Hollibaugh, printemps with some Mr E; b'tweed, flux, mooka, and zinger. I finished with the varied dots, and shading.

It took me about a half hour, and it was a very pleasant, calm 30 minutes.

I created this tile earlier in the week, but then realized I had sat with the TV on while doing it...

I call it "The Flow" because my thoughts have been so full of the nature of the universe, the flow of life energy through EVERYTHING, how the realm of the spirit flows into and through the physical and around it.

After I shaded it, I decided the bottom was the light source so things look lit from below.

There is cracked, nipon, flux, knights bridge, dyon, beadlines, Mr E and fronds. With some tipple and some aaaah!

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.