New Tangle "BWS"

While we were busy painting the outside of our house the past 2 weeks (finally done-yea!) I noticed all the spider webs we had to clear out in corners and under eaves. I also noticed that when you went back to the same spot a day later, another web was already being formed. They are busy little creatures. So, as I was doing this I was being careful about where I put my hands because a few times (2 or 3 over 16 years, so not many) when working in the flower garden or in the garage, I have seen black widow spiders which have a venom that is extremely potent. I didn't know until I looked it up that their venom is 15 times more potent than that of a rattlesnake. Next I was thinking about the hourglass marker the females have on the underside of their abdomen and then I started thinking about a tangle. Rick and Maria told us in CZT class, and I pass along in my classes, that some of the best tangles can be found in nature. If you have been tangling for some time, you know that you see patterns everywhere. I am not sure if it is just me, or do you sometimes wonder what the world was like prior to deconstructing everything into a zentangle pattern? LOL! So after playing with this spider shape (8 legs) for a couple days, I came up with a simple tangle that has lots of possibilities for variations and can look really different and not at all like a black widow spider when drawn in a grid. I had several different names, but settled on BWS (black widow spider) for ease of remembering it. I hope you have fun tangling you own webs!

Click to enlarge

Nautilus Shell

I am always finding inspiration from one (and I have many) of my favorite zentangle artists, Margaret Bremner.  I love to browse through her work on her blog, Enthusiastic Artist.  I was really intrigued with a piece she did using the shape of a nautilus shell.  Here is the link to that beautiful piece.  You need to scroll to the bottom of the post to find it, where she also has a link to pictures of nautilus shells.  While I was scanning those pictures, I couldn't help but see how this spiral shape with all of its natural divisions really lends itself to tangling. I really enjoyed making this piece and I am happy with how it turned out.  Thanks, Margaret for your inspiration and for your advise on shading.  I really appreciate both! 

Challenge #36 New Tangle "Assunta"

Over at the one and only DIVA's blog this week the challenge was to try out the new tangle that was introduced by in the latest newsletter from Zentangle, "Assunta".  It is a really fun new tangle with a a lot of possibilities and variations.  I didn't have a lot of time to play with it, but as I was drawing it, I kept thinking I was making a lot of little hot air balloons.  On one part I colored in all the little balloons and on the other I colored in the space in between.  I am looking forward to seeing what everyone creates with this new tangle.  Hope you all have a wonderful week! 

Challenge 35 Tile On A Tile

Another wonderful guest challenger on the "I Am The Diva Blog", the very talented Margaret Bremner.  If you haven't checked out her blog Enthusiastic Artist yet, you are in for a treat.  Margaret came up with a challenge of creating a "tile on a tile".   I really love this idea and the examples she did.  Unfortunately, I have not had much time to play with this challenge this week.  My husband and I are in the process of painting the exterior of our house.  Yes, it was one of those temporary (hopefully) insanity moments that we thought we could save a little money and we have lots of time...so why now.  While I actually love to paint because it has the same meditative qualities as Zentangle does, it is not soothing on the body, and we soon discovered that we aren't as young as we want to think we are (when did this happen?).  Actually, the painting itself hasn't been as physically demanding as putting together and taking apart the scaffolding, climbing the ladders, bending, stooping, and you get the picture.  We take a 3-4 hour break in the heat of the day, but have been at it for a week now and hopefully should be done in another week (fingers crossed).  On one of these exhausting days (not sure when it was) I attempted to do this challenge before nodding off, thinking I'd get back to it and give it a better try.  Well, time has run out and I wanted to get this posted since I haven't missed a challenge yet.  So, forgive my lame attempt.  I hope to try this challenge again soon when I have more time.  Thanks Margaret & Laura! 



Tangles:  Hekzee, Hopscotch, Lilypads, Pinwheels, DL Sunray, BTL Joos



Challenge #34 Opposites Attract

Another great challenge at I am the Diva blog from a returning guest challenger Christina at stART. 
Create your string using EITHER straight lines alone, or solely curving shapes and then fill the string with its opposite!
If you used the straight-line string, fill it with curves and orbs and other soft tangles.
If you used the curvy string, try to fill it using only grid-based and angular tangles.
Here's my contibution to this week's challenge using both a straight line and curvy stings.  Thanks ladies!

Playing with Lines

When I went back to CZT training last October, one of the many things that really inspired me was the art journal of Maria Thomas.  I gazed at and admired that little black book a lot!  I took a picture of two of the pages that had just incredibly beautiful line work.  I was looking thru my pictures from the training this past weekend and came across those pages again. When I looked closer, Maria had written that her inspiration was Houshang Seyhoun.  So, of course, I had to look him up.  He is known as the "father of Iranian architecture" and was very prominent in the 1950's for his design work.  I found his facebook page that shows a lot of his art work and the beautiful line work that was Maria's inspiration. 

Another artist who does beautiful line work is Justine Ashbee.  I found out about her work on Margaret Bremner's blog Enthusiastic Artist.  There is also a tangle, JASH that was created by Phine that you can see here.  I have played around with this tangle on some bookmarks in the past but nothing bigger.

So, I did a little playing with lines the past two days.  What fun it is to just have your lines go here and there in different directions.  I also did some with the Micron pen (which I like better) and some with a fine line Bic pen for some different colors.   While I know that these are no where close to the quality of Maria Thomas, Houshang Seyhoun, and Justine Ashbee, I thank all of them for the inspiration! 

Challenge #33 New Tangle "PENDRILLS"

We have another new "official tangle" from Rick & Maria.  If you missed the newsletter, you can check out the instructions here.  For this week's challenge, Laura, our DIVA is requesting that we try out the new tangle.  I wasn't really sure if I'd like this one when I first started, because I wasn't sure how to use it and couldn't see how it would end up in my mind.  Well.....what was I thinking, that's not what Zentangle is about.  No need to pre-plan the outcome...so I just started it and pretty soon it was taking me in all different directions and I noticed it was creating a string...ah ha, how cool is that, just tangle in and outside the string it created.  That was my first tile, and since that was so fun I had to do another.  On the second one I started on two opposite sides and let the Pendrills overlap and wind around each other.  Pretty soon I had a wonderful little border, so I just tangled inside.  I am anxious to go see now what everyone else has been doing with Pendrills.