CYRANO - a new tangle

Tangles: Cyrano, and variations, the basic version on the right.

Why Cyrano? Good question. Allow me to explain.

This tangle begins with a grid of X's interspersed with a grid of O's. X's and O's, X's and O's. The more I said X's 'n' O's to myself the more it started to sound like 'excess nose, excess nose, excess nose' and that made me think of Cyrano de Bergerac!

Aaand... I'm using a brand new step-out template recently given to the CZTs by Rick and Maria. Lots of space for step-outs, examples, and even extra notes. Thanks a bunch of flowers to you, R&M!

BTW: It's getting harder and harder to keep track of tangles and names. If this pattern has been presented elsewhere, or if the name has been used earlier, please let me know!

CZTs get together

A visit with Barb Round
Recently I took a little vacation to Vancouver where my eldest daughter and her husband live. I had e-mailed ahead to see if it might be possible to visit any of the B.C. C.Z.T..s while I was in the area, but most were not in the area I was going to be in. :P
One worked out, however, and I was able to have tea and a great chat with Barb Round while she was showing at an art and craft show in Victoria. I came close to meeting Marie Browning, but our last day on Vancouver Island filled up. Another time.

Barb's husband's hands and knees, Barb, me

A visit with Carol Graham and Laura Harms
Carol Graham of Winnipeg, newly minted CZT, contacted me recently wondering if it would be possible to get together with me and Laura Harms (everyone's favorite diva) when she was passing through Saskatoon. Well, yes! Here we are (thanks Laura for the photo).

Me, Laura, Carol

We met at Laura's and Carol brought us our choice of drinks from Starbucks. Laura thought we should all tangle. Well, yes! We each did four dots and passed it to the next person, drew a border line and passed it, did a string and passed it. Then we tangled one section and passed it along, and so on and so on and so on.  We each shaded one tile and initialed all the tiles. Here's what we did:
Then we turned them over, mixed them around and chose one. What a great morning! Here is the tile I got to keep:

500 posts!

No, no! Not that kind!

This is my 500th blog post!

Hard to believe that three years ago I barely knew what a blog was. 'Way back then I understood a blog to be some sort of online diary and I wondered why anyone would want a diary that everybody could read. Well... life-long learning. I now know a whole lot more about blogs!

When I started I expected the blog to be about art generally, frequently featuring zentangle but having a lot of other art-related posts as well. That quickly changed. I think now it's about 99% zentangle. Not that I mind, no sirree!

Just out of curiosity I did a little tally of topics.

53 posts feature tangles that I've deconstructed/designed, some pretty terrific, others not so much. You can find them all (with thumbnails) here.

46 posts feature my artwork: some older, some new, some zentangle-inspired, some not. Generally I haven't included any classic, square Zentangle tiles. You can see a lot of it here, although I know I've forgotten to label some posts. And you can check out my website, although I don't update it as often as this blog. :P

127 posts (I think) mention other CZTs, and again, I'm sure I've forgotten to label some.

82 posts mention mandalas. Before I fell into Zentangle I focused on mandala artwork, mainly in acrylic paint, but also drawing, collage, and mixed media.

56 posts talk about circles.

72 posts show artwork on zendala tiles (the round ones).

8 posts reference my idea to use an 'apple corer thingy' as a mandala template.

10 posts reference my 'two pencil string' idea.

127 posts show zentangle-inspired art (ZIA for short).

11 posts mention ATCs (Artist Trading Cards).

57 posts are for Art Every Day Month (November) when I generally attempt to try a new tangle each day and show you what I've done. This year I just got totally too busy!

1 post mentions an eraser.

All my tangles:
Black Pearlz, Boss, Chebucto, Gingham, Jemz, Many Moons,
Ninja Stars, Prestwood, Screen, Shing, Wildwood, Zedbra

And a lot more, of course.
THANK YOU for stopping by, regularly or occasionally!
I must say, I really enjoy sharing all this with you and always appreciate your comments, corrections and inquiries. Keep visiting!

Kaleidoscope

I love the colors in this zendala, but now that it's finished I don't think I like all the black lines dividing the sections. On the other hand, it makes it look a little like a stained glass window. What do you think?

Tangles: Cubine, Shattuck, elements of Drupe

Up cycle. Join a swap.

In a recent post I showed 30-some ATCs I made for a swap. I mentioned that sometimes I up cycle pieces of art.

Up cycle!
When I do a piece of art that I'm not entirely happy with, I often can't bear to just chuck the whole thing. There's got to be some good in anything, right? So I save the good parts and make ATCs or bookmarks. Some of the ATCs for this swap were originally part of a zentangle mandala that I wasn't happy with, although I liked parts. Below you can see some of these ATCs re-assembled to where they were in the mandala I cut up. The original art was the main "black" circle. I added more to the outside, blank paper to complete the ATCs.

Interested in joining an ATC swap?

There are ATC swaps going on all over. It's a lovely way to collect mini original artwork.

This particular swap is sponsored by Cathy Wilson on her Facebook page Zentangle Artist Trading Card Swap.

The Yahoo group 'Zentangle Inspired Art' does ATC (and other) swaps. You'll also find a monthly challenge and other fun activities.

Also on Facebook is the Altered Artist Trading Card Swap,  managed by Chari-Lynn Reithmeyer. (Just to be clear, it's the ATCs that are altered, not the artists!). It's for all sorts of art media. If you're not sure what 'altered art' is, check it out.

Another place you can join in is at CZT Deb Prewitt's blog, Blue Twig Studio. She organizes a swap once a month, always with an interesting theme. This is not specifically for zentangle art. One lucky person wins all the submissions that month!

Or, just plug "ATC swap" into your search engine and see what comes up.

Cruze

Challenge 143 from the DivaCZT, a Use My Tangle challenge and the tangle is Cruze from CZT Caren Mlot. I had just tried this tangle on an ATC I did for a swap and quite liked it.

I had a few ideas I wanted to try with Cruze and this is a good opportunity. One idea was to do an additional row of squares on each side of the one original row. You can see that in the first two tiles below. In the first and third tiles you can see where I accidentally sent the loops in the wrong direction, giving myself an opportunity to be creative and see what else could be done! :)

Tangles: Black Pearlz, Cruze, Paizel, Phuds

I tried striping one of the bands that goes through Cruze. There are actually three bands and it would be interesting to do Cruze in three shades (or colors).

Tangles: Bunzo, Crescent Moon, Cruze, Flux, Golven, Knightsbridge, Pearlz

I wanted to try unravelling an end of Cruze. Again, I started some of the side loops in the wrong direction. That was rescued with a few squares on Yincut. I also used a little white ink on this one.

Tangles: Cruze, Diva Dance Hollibaugh, Purslane, Yincut

I see a lot of possibilities with this tangle. I think the next thing I'd like to try is using it on a round tile.

Eye candy! Zentangle ATC swap

(Warning: this post has a LOT of images!)

I signed up for an ATC (Artist Trading Card) swap a couple of months ago. It kept growing until finally there were 47 participants and I wanted to send a card to each one!

The theme or goal was to use black and one color as an accent. Some of my cards were rather heavily accented. :P
Sometimes I make ATCs when I have leftover bits of paper, so I had some already done that would qualify for this swap. A few others I adapted. Some are up cycled; more on that in my next post. Then I created more to fit the theme.

Here are many of them for you to enjoy before I put them in the mail. I'm not going to attempt to list all the tangles!

Some resemble temple roofs. These four all have tiny gems in the matching color.
Some are from a mandala that I up cycled.

Some resemble trees, especially with a blue background.

Some are mandala middles.

I made four cards similar to the one on the lower left.
They're from another piece of art that I up cycled.

Cut-paper stencil mandalas

I've been doing more cut-paper stencil mandalas as a bit of testing for part of a workshop I'm developing. It's amazing how many different results you can get using the same stencil as a template. I show some in the recent book "The Art of Zentangle" - page 118 ;) - from Walter Foster Publishing. Some have referred to this as a 'snowflake' mandala but I'm a bit of a stickler for accuracy and a snowflake has six or twelve points and these generally have four or eight.

I wanted to work on a zendala tile, although in the end this project will be done in a larger size. Here's the stencil I cut:

Below is one of infinite possible outcomes. Perhaps this is an odd thing to say about a zentangle, but I think it's a little busy! Or maybe it needs more solid blacks and fewer mid-tones (grays)?

Tangles: Black Pearlz, Zedbra and elements
of Munchin, Tortuca, and Tripoli

I've mentioned that I enjoy overlapping images. I selected a pre-strung zendala tile with two large squares in the design and traced my template onto it. That gave me two overlaid mandala designs. I used some gray inks here too and I think turned out rather nicely.

Tangles: Black Pearlz, Crescent Moon, Pearlz, Striping,
and elements of Munchin and Tripoli

I decided to try one in color. I laid down a random acrylic wash using red, green and yellow and let it dry. As I worked on it, it started to look like yellow tulips so I developed it in that direction. It took a few tries to get the middle to be something I was happy with. That's a rather crucial part of a mandala!

Tangles: Black Pearlz, Tipple, Wud
plus stripes, spirals, and some grassy stuff.

Here's another in black and white. I can't decide whether I prefer it oriented as a cross or an 'X'. What do you think?

Tangles: Betweed, Caviar, Crescent Moon, and stripes and more