Monday, December 31, 2012

2013

patsy monk has organized a new year ZIA postcard swap among some of the CZTs. I stuck with the classic black on white, on 4"x6" cards. The only real requirement was that the date "2013-01-01" appear on the card somewhere, somehow, and that we list the tangles we used on the back.

Sometimes I put "2013/01/01 in one section of the string. Here are two like that, both in the upper left corners:


I didn't do that with all of them. Sometimes I used '2013' as a string and placed the "01 01" in a section. Here are two like that. Can you find the "01 01" in each of them? 
("01 01" can be found in the lower left and upper left, respectively)

Sometimes I even used "2013 01 01" as the string. So here's a little puzzle for you: can you find "2013 01 01" on this card? Happy hunting! And Happy New Year (Gregorian that is)!
Tangles: Beadlines, Black Pearlz, Crossview, Drupe, Fleurette, Flux, Jalousie, Knightsbridge, Sanibelle, Tipple, and a triquetra

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Tea? Coffee?




Here is a lovely white thermal carafe for serving tea or coffee when we have guests. Are you thinking what I was thinking?


We have three of the darn things and I thought it would be helpful if people knew what was inside without having to remove the lid, release some heat, and sniff the contents. So... yes... I tangled them! Ta-da!
Carafe view for right-handed folks.
Carafe view for left-handed folks.
I used Identi-pens. Oh, for a gray Identi-pen. We can wipe the carafes with a damp cloth with no damage to the drawing, but unfortunately they are susceptible to scratching and require the occasional touch-up. One carafe remains to be tangled.

Shattuck variation with fan fill

I stumbled on an interesting pattern by using an curved zigzag line. You can see the line on the far right here. I tried it side-by-side and then side-by-side with a thin stripe between the rows. Then it struck me that it's basically Shattuck with a fan-style fill.

Here it is on a standard 3.5" tile. Shattuck is in the middle and this fan variation is above it. Below is the same variation but without the stripes in between. There's a short row where I striped the fans because it seemed to need a little more darkness there.
Tangles: Jonqal, Knase, Shattuck and fan variations,
Tripoli, Zedbra, Zewm variation

Friday, December 21, 2012

Zentangle 7 - new book

Yikes! I found this, half-written, in my draft posts. It had fallen out the bottom of the screen and I'd forgotten about it. Now it's finished and ready for you, dear readers. :)


Some months ago Suzanne McNeill asked if I would be interersted in contibuting artwork to the next book about Zentangle from Design Originals. Are you kidding?!? YES! She asked me to use some of the new tangles that would be in the book, so I got a sneak preview and have been trying to hold back from using any of them in work that I've posted between then and now.

However, Zentangle 7 is published and available and now I can share! 

Here are two mandalas that I have in the book, showing some of those 40 new tangles, in situ.
This pink one (it's on the cover!) is on a standard 3.5" tile. I used Prismacolor's Magenta pencil for shading. I began with an apple corer as a template. (Search 'apple corer' under my Labels for more examples.)
Lots of NEW Tangles! Blooms, Cuddles, Sunflower, Thorns.
Plus Hurakán, Knightsbridge Aura and Black Pearlz

This multi-colored one was done on a blank Zendala tile, and again I used the apple corer as a template, adding the smaller circles and the outer ring. The new tangle Firecracker (love it!) reminded me of the outer ring on some Tibetan mandalas so I chose pen colors that reminded me of those also. Besides the basic colored pens I also used black ink, white ink, some metallic inks, and colored pencils for shading.
ALL NEW Tangles! Firecracker and Starburst,
plus Amaze, Tortuca and Tripoli.

Suzanne did a video to promote Zentangle 7. You will recognize these two pieces in it! In case you haven't seen it, here it is.



In the video Suzanne demonstrates a method to create a six-pointed mandala. I tried this idea using a peanut butter lid and a Zendala tile.
Tangles: Black Pearlz, Dansk, Lotus Pods, Seljuk
 That piece is another example of how different, and better, something can look with shading. Here it is, before and after:

And another one. Here I added some "pearls" and black gems.
Tangles: Allium (sort of), Pearlz, Starburst

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Diva Dance

100 weekly zentangle challenges! That's a milestone alright. Congratulations Laura! In honor of the occasion Maria Thomas and Rick Roberts have released a new tangle and they're calling it Diva Dance.

I'm not particularly pleased with this first one, but I wanted to try Diva Dance in Shattuck and it's rather interesting. I also wanted to try another new tangle, Denyse Jones's Afreeka.
Tangles: Afreeka, Black Pearlz, Diva Dance, Shattuck, Tipple

I like this one better. I didn't have the step-outs in front of me and couldn't remember how to start Diva Dance as a spiral, so above I used Black Pearlz. In the next one I intended to use a droplet shape with a highlight but there was too much white left so they became tai chi symbols. How cool is that?!?
Tangles: Black Pearlz, Camelia, Diva Dance, Tortuca, and stripes

Monday, December 17, 2012

Looped border string mandalas in color

Recently I showed how using a looped border string twice, on a round tile, offers a nice irregular mandala to fill with tangles. What I showed was all black and white. I also tried this in color.

This one I began with an acrylic wash in turquoise and magenta. I think the fuchsia ink made it all a bit gray and you don't really see the wash colors much at all. But... oh well!
Tangles: Beadlines, Black Pearlz, Khirkee, Munchin, Pearlz, Sanibelle,
Tipple, Tripoli, and stripes and spirals
I did one with three triangles (with looped borders) instead of two squares. That gave me a nine-pointed star. One of the Jonqal star points was just too big so I colored one side of it with a light blue pen, giving an interesting highlight of green. But that green was all alone so I colored yellow over the sides of two other points. I looks a little more balanced now. I used many different pens on this one.
Tangles: Black Pearlz, Bunzo, Jonqal, Knase, Pearlz, Sanibelle,
Tripoli, and stripes

I started with a wash of turquoise and sap green and the 'star' shape made me think of a lotus flower.
Tangles: C-Scape, Fleurette, Hurly Burly, Jonqal, Knase, Paizel, Tripoli

Friday, December 14, 2012

bookmark swap

As you've probably noticed, I'm really into mandalas. Because of that I do a lot of work on square paper but paper generally comes in rectangles. Sometimes this leaves me with thin strips of nice paper that I often use to make bookmarks. I got involved in a zentangle bookmark swap so I'm sending off three and will get three in return. Here are my contributions.
Tangles in red: Black Pearlz, Cadox, Paradox, Rouche, Tripoli
Tangles in black: Black Pearlz, Cadox, Jalousie, Zapateado, Zedbra
Tangles in blue:
Black Pearlz, Cadox, Florz, N'zeppel, Paradox and stripes

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

(Looped border string) x 2 = mandala

Recently I used a looped border on four sides of a Zentangle tile and found that the loops created a string. You can see that post here. Laura the DivaCZT has made that idea the Zentangle challenge this week.

It occurred to me that I could do the same thing twice, on a round tile, and that might give me an irregular mandala form.

Here's my first one. I even used white on black and was happy with it!
Tangles: Black Pearlz, Knase, Paradox, Pearlz, Tipple, Tripoli

In the middle there were a LOT of small spaces to fill! I combined a few sections. In my second one I combined even more sections, ignoring some of the string lines (there are no Rules, remember?) It also struck me that an irregular N'zeppel was an ideal tangle to accomodate some of those tiny sections. Interesting how the dark 'star ends' of Tripoli make the points look rounded.
Tangles: Dansk, N'zeppel, Pearlz, Sand Swirls, Tripoli

I also tried sending the loop out rather than in. I think it's better the other way. I used some gray ink and some white ink, too.
Tangles: Black Pearlz, Crescent Moon, Ixorus, Tripoli and more

Then I thought, hmmm... color! But I'll show you some of those later.

Friday, December 7, 2012

More zendala dares

I've set myself the "task" of doing more of the zendala dares, although not necessarily promptly! Here are two more.

ZENDALA DARE #7
Tangles: Black Pearlz, Copada, Tipple, stripes with highlights

ZENDALA DARE #31
Tangle: Cubine

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Keenees

Donna Hornsby, a CZT in Texas, came up with the tangle Keenees some time ago. This week it's the Zentangle challenge. I like this tangle but don't use it a lot (like so many tangles!). It's made of circles :) and uses stippling which very few tangles do.
Tangles: Crescent Moon, Keenees, Knase, Lotus Pods, Paizel, Wildwood

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

tanglepatterns string #7


Tanglepatterns.com's string idea #7 is very curvy. It was fun to work in and I like how the tangles meet and flow.
Tangles: Black Pearlz, Drobbles, Fleuri, Knightsbridge, Spinning, Sprix, Tipple

You can see what I did with other tanglepatterns string ideas here:
Strings #3 and #12
String #15
String #10

And if you'd like to support tanglepatterns.com, and get a ZIA reproduction, read this!