Weekly Challenge #97: String Theory v. XX -“No Strings Attached”

Well, it’s Monday again, which means it’s Diva Challenge day.  Today, Laura challenged us to make a zentangle, ZIA, or zendala with no strings.  That is not a really big challenge for me, as long as I am doing organic anyway.  I often don’t start with a string.  However, I got really challenged about trying to do something geometric or structured without a string, and ended up skipping it.  Since it’s only Monday, I may think on it, and try it out a little later in the week.  I did a total of three.  Here is the first one:

Tangles: Frondous, Flux, Coil and Ribbon.

All the tiles are 3.5″ square, drawn in Micron 01 and shaded with graphite.  Below is the second tile.

Tangles: Opus and variations, and tipple

And now for the third tile.  This one is sooooooooooo far out of my comfort zone, but I decided to try it anyway.  I recently bought Sandy Steen Bartholomew’s e-book called Tangles of Kell.  I have all her books but one (and I’m expecting that for Christmas, I love her work, and her instruction style, and I’ve wanted to do a tile based on the tangles in that book ever since I got it.  This week’s challenge just beckoned out to me to try it.  Believe it or not, this tile took twice as long to do as the first two.  I think that’s because it’s so abstract and “doodley”  (is that a word?).  I didn’t try to name the tangles there are so many, but I believe all but one of them is named in the e-book.

Hope you like my tiles this week, and if you take the time to leave a comment, it will be very much appreciated.  I love getting and giving comments.

And now a quick word of thanks to Laura (the Diva).  I’ve been doing her challenges since I first got introduced to zentangles, about mid year. I’ve followed her family, and prayed for Artoo, Chewie, B-rad and Laura many times. I feel like I know them, although it’s not likely we will ever meet.  I have the utmost respect and admiration for Laura’s positive attitude and creative spirit in the face of heavy adversity.

I’m now a CZT myself, and it’s people like Laura and Erin, over at The Bright Owl, and my friend Carolyn Bocher, through their websites, and in the case of Carolyn, personal encouragement, that caused me to take the plunge and go east to meet Rick and Maria.  It was the trip of a lifetime.  I wish I could go every year, like a “reunion”.

There are a few other people who have encouraged me by their work or their books.  Sandy Steen Bartholomew is one of those.  Maria Browning, who teaches at My Creative Classroom is another one.  Then there are all the friends I’ve made on Flickr, who have commented on my work, encouraged me, given me tips, and egged me on.  There are too many to name, and I wouldn’t want to leave anybody out.  They are all important to me and tangling friends I may never meet.

I guess because it was just Thanksgiving last week, I felt led to say a few words about all my tangling friends for whom I am so grateful.  Have a great week my friends, and until next time, Happy Tangling!

Zendala Dare #33

On this dare, after I saw the bottom of a bell on part of the template, it suddenly became all about Christmas.  By the time I got finished with the zendala, I knew I could use this as one of the Christmas cards I would make this year.  The card on the left is still a draft, and it needs something else to give it some oomph, but I’ll work on that later.   Would love to hear what you think, comments always brighten my day.

I hope I’ll have time to do one or two more, but wanted to get one up so I can start looking at all the other Dare submissions over at The Bright Owl.  Hope everyone in the United States had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and until next time, Happy Tangling!

I am the Diva Weekly Challenge #96: New(old) Tangle: Zinger!

This may be the funnest (is that a word? probably not) most fun challenge I’ve done so far.  I’ve seen this tangle in so many, many zentangles and ZIA’s, and always wondered where it came from.  It is a super easy to draw tangle with so much impact, especially as a “go-with” tangle.  I usually don’t post until I have several done, but this being Thanksgiving week here in the United States, and getting ready for a whole family feast of about 20 on Thursday, I thought I better get this one up while I still have a little spare time.  I did a Zentangle Inspired Art piece for this one; making liberal use of Maria’s example in the Zentangle newsletter.  I’ve actually done this kind of ZIA before, with several ZT size tiles partially drawn, and I’ve used the staples and pins before, but today I added Maria’s slash way to incorporate a couple of the tiles.  Way, way fun.  Here it is:

It’s pretty big, 11″ x 5″, and I’m considering having it custom framed, or, more likely doing a second one, where I’m more careful about my shading, or maybe a size that’s more easily framed.  Anyhow, from top to bottom and left to right, these are the tangles besides Zinger I’ve drawn:  1st tile – Oke; 2nd tile – Quipple, Poke Root, Poke Leaf and Fescu; 3rd tile left – Nightsbridge and Florz, 4th tile right – Just Zinger and Orbs, 5th tile – I think I did a “Tango (new term) that is Bunzo morphing into Striping combined with Zander in my cornucopia; then also Fronds, Verdigogh, Tipple, and then there’s the rim of the Cornucopia.  I know I’ve seen it before and it’s not original, but I couldn’t find it today, so if you know what it is, I’d love to hear it.  Also, this fifth tile is a ZIA within a ZIA, because I tangled something that looks like something and it has an up and down .    I hope you like it and any comment you make will be very much appreciated.

Well, it’s Sunday now and I did one more, so I thought I’d throw it in just for the fun of it.  It’s drawn in sepia micron pen and colored with sponged inks in shades of brown.  I guess I was going for “shabby chic” look.  Thanks for looking.

Until next time, Happy Tangling – and for those of you in the United States – very happy Thanksgiving!!

Weekly Challenge #95: Guest Post – “Mickey Challenge”

Laura gave us a guest poster this week, a fellow CZT who had a great idea for a challenge.  Her name is  Courtney Frantz.  Courtney tells us: “On November 18, 1928 the Walt Disney Studio released the animated short film, “Steamboat Willie”. This was the official debut of Mickey Mouse as well as his girlfriend, Minnie.  Since Mickey has been touted as one of the world’s most popular cartoon characters and noting that his debut was in a black and white film, I feel it is only fitting that we use our black and white Zentangle art to pay tribute to Mickey, Minnie and/or Walt Disney.”

That really sounded like a lot of fun; and I have done two ZIA’s, both black and white as a tribute to Mickey Mouse’s ‘birthday’.  Here is the first one:

The tangles I used are on the tile, which is about 8″ x 4″.  As you can see they spell M.I.C.K.E.Y M.(ouse).  It was really fun and relaxing to do, and Moving Day was one I’ve never drawn before.  I really like it; it has a sort of psychedelic look to it, and I know I’ll be using it again.

For the second one I decided to do a Mickey Mouse hat, and all the tangles start with the letter “M”.  In addition, I had never drawn any of them before.  Yikes!  A couple of them show that too; since they didn’t come out exactly like drawn by the original artist.  They are:  Mi2 by Mimi Lambert, Maylea by Simone Bischoff, Meo by Jonathan Baetens, Muffit by Sandy Bartholomew, and a variation of the tangle Mickey, which Courtney designed just for this challenge.

I hope you’ll let me know you were here by leaving a comment.  Comments make my day.  Be sure to grab the link on the right to Laura’s blog, and look at all the art that is gathered there.  Until next time, happy tangling!

Zendala Dare 31

Well, Saturday rolls around every week and is one of my favorite days, because Erin gives us a brand new zendala template to play with.  I really liked this one with all its angles.  I named this one Wine and Flowers, because it’s made primarily of tangles named for a wine, or tangles that remind me of floral shapes.

The tangles I used starting on the outside edge, are Rose’ by Linda Farmer, Dyon by ZT, Flora by Sandy Bartholomew, then a variation of Zin by Linda Farmer, individual triangles of first steps of Hibred, by ZT, and Drupe in the center, also by ZT.  It is about 7″ in diameter, and took a while to do because of the black fill, but I’m pretty pleased with the results.

Here’s the second one.  This one I transferred so I had a lot more latitude with the design.

I can’t name all the tangles I used, because I did it from memory without looking anything up; and I’m not even sure they are all published tangles.

Next I did one in color.  For this one I decided to do tangles from the new book I just got; Joy of Zentangle.

I made that decision after I did the little leafy vines on the edge, which came from Totally Tangled by Sandy Bartholomew.  The rest of the tangles from outer edge to the center are: Flora, by Sandy Bartholomew, Fronds and Growth, and Tufted Leaves (var) by Suzanne McNeill, Lacy by Sandra Strait, and Dandelion Seeds (var) by Suzanne McNeill.  It is colored with colored pencils.  I hope you will let me know you were here and tell me what you think of my zendalas.

Now I’m heading  to enjoy the art show.  Until next time, Happy Tangling.

Zendala Dare #30

This week, Erin over at http://thebrightowl.com, added a challenge to her dare.  Because Thanksgiving is this month, and it’s the first week of the month, she asked us to use PIE (tangles that start with those letters) in our dare.  Further, we were to use at least one tangle in each zendala that we had never done before.  That turned out to be the hardest part for me, because I tangle several hours every day, and I’m always trying new ones.  But I did find some.  Here are the two zendala tiles I did.

This is the first one I did, and it has Paizel, Ibex (new to me), Ennies amd Purk.

Here is the second one.

This one I built from the outside in, and by the time I got to the center I thought it was starting to look very, very busy; so I filled in the middle and left the ovals as negative space.  I had planned to put Purk in them.  All of the tangles I used in this one were new to me.  They are Prestwood (Margaret Bremner), Isochor (Zentangle), Eddy, and Pouf (both brand new by Suzanne McNeil).  These were both fun to do, and I didn’t think color would add anything to them, so they are just shaded.  If I have time, I may do another one and add colored pencil.  In the meantime, though, I hope you will let me know you were here by leaving me a comment; and don’t forget to stop by the Bright Owl to see all the gorgeous zendalas done.  I haven’t looked yet, but I saw there were a whole bunch of them.  Erin’s going to get to 50 soon.

Happy Tangling!

Weekly Challenge #94: “UMT v. X: Socc”

This week is “Use my Tangle week; and Laura challenged us to use Socc, by Erin Koetz Olsen, the CZT who runs the zendala dare at http://thebrightowl.com.  This is a tangle I had never drawn before, and it took me a couple of times of practice to get the strokes right.  It is quite dramatic, and I must have been in a very organic mood this week, which you’ll see in the tiles I did below.  Here’s the first photo:

Both of these tiles are drawn in Sakura Micron 01 pens on a 3.5″ zentangle tile.  The left tile is really quite simple, with Socc in the middle, and Flux variation and a big flower (ala Sandy Bartholomew) on the outside, with a single aura around the whole tile.  The tile on the right starts with Socc in the middle also; but then I added several Bronx cheers (only one of them is covering a booboo).  I also included a couple of lonely Socc squares, a partial of the official ZT tangle, Sampson, a few individual ennies leaves, and some embellishment type of drawings also from Sandy Bartholomew.

Then I did a 5″ square ZIA colored with Tombow Irogiten colored pencils.

This tile starts with a small rectangle in the center of Socc, surrounded by  variations of Crescent Moon and a variation of either Ennies or Flux (take your pick).  The border is Tideberry by Sandy Bartholomew.  Between the border and the main part of the piece are Baseflake and Flake by Sandy Bartholomew from Yoga for the Brain;  and some small Printemps and a few orbs.

Hope you will let me know you were here.  Hey, I got done really early this week.  Also, stop by the Diva’s website (see link on the right) and take a gander at all the lovely eye candy.  Until next time, Happy Tangling!