Alcohol Ink Painting

I have really been absent from blogging since I now post most of my work on Instagram and/or Facebook.  Thank goodness the DIVA challenges are back or I probably wouldn't blog at all.  So, since I had Blogger open to post this week's DIVA challenge, I thought I should post some of my alcohol ink painting too.  

These are from a class I took this summer with Alexis Bonavitacola.com called Florals in Bloom.....

DIVA Challenge #369 Orb-tastic

As the DIVA says, you either love drawing orbs or you hate it.  I happen to love drawing orbs and find it very relaxing and Zen like, as you get lost in making varied sizes of orbs and filling in all the little crevices.  I made a pretty traditional tile with orbs highlighting Marasu.  Hope you are all enjoying your weekend!  

DIVA Challenge #368 Straight Lines

This week's challenge is to use only straight lines.  I'll be honest, I didn't give this challenge or tile much thought.  The 1st two tangles to come to mind were Hollibaugh and Munchin, so that's what I went with.  To me it's a boring tile.  I guess I find the curvy lines more appealing.  

I also had another art form to try this week.  My sister is throwing a girl weekend (lots of out of town wedding party) for dress shopping in Oct for her future daughter-in-law, and asked me if I could do some chalkboard sign art.  The wedding theme will be a rustic Colorado mountain wedding and their Save The Date announcement has an aspen tree with their initials and date carved in it.  She told me the wording and I came up with the design and did the art.  Having never tried something like this, I did quite a bit of research.  So glad I found out that there are chalkboard markers (who knew) to use instead of actual chalk!  This made things so much easier. This was a lot harder then it looks and I have a new respect for all of those really cool chalkboards I see! I got it done yesterday, and I'm very happy with how it turned out.  Hopefully, they will like it too!

DIVA Challenge 367 'Nzeppel

I love that Laura, the DIVA, has decided to ease back into tangling with some of the early (but always loved) tangles.  I have been more into playing with my alcohol inks, so this suits me fine.  I decided to look at some of the strings on TanglePatterns.com and picked #012 by Barbara Finwall. Once I filled in the string with 'Nzeppel it sure reminded my of my tangle pattern Tri-Po, so I added that to the 'Nzeppel.  

DIVA Challenge #365 Back to Basics

Yay! The Diva's challenge is back after a much needed summer break. That makes me and a lot of other people in Zentangle land very happy, as we love Laura and her family!

But wait, I haven't  blogged anything since June! OMG it looks like I took a break from blogging too.  It wasn't intentional, I've been busy the whole summer creating art (either Zentangle or Alcohol Inks, my latest muse). So where is it....on my Facebook and Instagram page (both under TangledInkArt).  I've had the Facebook page for years now and after I created a website last year I was told I needed to do an Instagram page to promote my website.  I started a Tangled Ink Art Instagram page in Nov 2017 and try to post there at least twice a week, if possible.  So if you are on either Facebook or Instragram, I love for you to follow me!  Also, if you are on either, leave me your page name and I will follow you too! After all who's knows when I'll blog again.....just kidding, now that the DIVA is back I hope to blog the weekly challenges again.  After all,  90% of blog seems to be the DIVA challenges anyway, LOL!  Maybe I'll try soon to get some of my other artwork posted here soon too.

So much for my rambling thoughts today.....on to the challenge tile!

I kept it simple with tangles; Hollibaugh, Crescent Moon, and Static

Commissioned Piece for Law Student Graduation Gift

In April, I was commissioned by a very nice lady, JoAnne, to create to a piece for her nephew who was graduating from law school in May.  She wanted the scales of justice to be prominent, his initials, the college, and year of graduation to be "hidden" in the tangling. 

I used an Opus tile to do the piece with the traditional black Micron pen to tangle with.  I used embedded letters for his initials and hid the school and year in the end of the gavel. I also did a tangled border to frame the piece.

The client framed it by putting in on a piece of 12x12 card stock and in a 12x12 frame.  Her and her husband loved the piece and said that her nephew did also.  He kept looking at all the different things in the tangling and looked up my website right away. 

I really enjoyed doing this piece and was so grateful to hear that they all loved it!

DIVA Challenge #363 Laura's Auras

This week the challenge is all about using auras on your tile.  The first tangle I thought of was my own, Cheers.  I haven't done it in awhile, but it's basically a tangle of just auras.  Then I added some others that have auras in them and some that I just added auras to.  Making auras is probably one of my favorite tangle enhancers so this was a fun challenge.  

DIVA challenge #360 Shattuck vs. Tripoli

Another fun duotangle challenge over at the Diva's this week. We are to use the tangles Shattuck and Tripoli.  I put Tripoli in a circle string and then Shattuck just grew from there.  Have to keep this short today and go make some lunch for my hubby who has been working hard the last the last couple of weeks making 8 waist high raised bed garden boxes.  Have a good day, everyone!  Thanks for stopping by!

Diva Challenge #358 Pickpocket

This week the DIVA is challenging us to try the tangle, Pickpocket by Tomas Padros.  I love trying new tangles and this one was definitely a challenge!  I had to practice it several times before I got it and even then I wasn't sure it looked right.  After concentrating so hard to get all the straight lines in place for this tangle it felt good just to let go with some Tipple, Rixty, and Fescu.

I took at look at Tomas's Instagram page and decided to follow him.  Wow, does he have a lot of cool tangles and art to gaze at!  If you are on Instagram, make sure to check it out with the link on the DIVA's post.  
Also, I would be thrilled to have you follow my Instagram page at tangledinkart. If you'd like to leave a comment with your Instagram page, I'd be happy to follow you too if I'm not already.  

Have a good week, everyone.  Tangle On!

Paradox (DC357)

I'm a little late this week getting to the DIVA challenge, but I had some time to sit down and tangle today.  This week's challenge was to make a monotangle of Paradox.  I have always loved Paradox, so it was fun to try it in a different way.  

I started out by drawing random sizes of triangles....

Then I started filling random ones in for some variety.....

Was going to stop here and start shading, but I wondered how it would look all filled in....

Alcohol Ink Cacti Series

I had fun painting a series of desert cacti, so I thought I would share them here on my blog.  Still having fun with the inks and have some new ideas I will be trying out soon.

DESERT MOON on a 6x6 ceramic tile

DESERT GLOW on a 4x4 ceramic tile

DESERT BLOOM on Yupo paper

DESERT BEAUTY on translucent Yupo paper

DESERT FUN on Yupo paper

Heart String Zendala

The DIVA challenge #353 this week is to create a zendala using a heart string. I love doing zendala's and its been a long time since I created my own string for one.  I used a regular size tile and started with 4 hearts in the middle, then just kept adding hearts around and around in pencil.

Then I traced my template in ink and filled in some of the areas in black ink. Feel free to copy and use this hand drawn template if you wish.

Then I tangled.  I like to only use 2-3 tangle patterns on a zendala to give them more of a symmetrical look. In this case I stuck to some oldies...Printemps, Crescent Moon, and Florz.  Here is my tile pre-shading and highlighting.

The finished tile with shading and highlights. I enjoyed this challenge!

DIVA’s challenge #349 Rumpus

The challenge this week is to use the new official tangle, Rumpus.  I love this tangle and have tried it several times, but this week I only had time for a small one.  Enjoy the weekend, everyone!  

DIVA Challenge 348 Moebius Syndrome Awareness Day

Every Jan 24th is Moebius Syndrome Awareness Day and the Diva, Laura Harms always does a challenge to raise awareness of this syndrome.  Her son Artoo (internet name) was born with this syndrome.  Rather then me explaining it, hop on over to Laura's blog to read all about it at this link: I AM THE DIVA.  I have done this challenge since the beginning, and have enjoying watching Artoo, and Chewie (big brother) grow through the years! Laura has had her hands full with two young growing boys and especially when Artoo gets sick, but still manages to run this challenge every week.  Cheers to you Laura, you are a wonderful Mom to your little guys!

Here is my challenge tile for this week.  Enjoy your weekend everyone and keep on tangling or creating any kind of art.  It's good for our souls!

DIVA Challenge #347 Traced Objects

This week the Diva is having us do a string theory challenge. For the string we just use some objects in the house to trace on the tile to use as your string. I didn't go far to find some objects to use either.  I have a desk full of stuff that would work, so I'll need to remember this next time I'm in a string rut.

Here is a picture of my string with the objects I used:

 Here's my finished tile...fun challenge!

Have a wonderful rest of your week everyone!

DIVA Challenge #346/I’m finally back!

Well, it’s been a long time since I’ve participated in a DIVA challenge!  My last one was #325 in July.   I went from not missing a single challenge to missing 21of them due to my wrist and hand injury that I wrote about in an earlier post.  I’m happy to be back again, done with my OT, and just rebuilding strength in my hand and fingers now.

I’ve done a few tiles here and there (that’s my strength limit right now), but when I saw this week’s challenge was a duo tangle challenge, I knew I had to give it a try since they are usually my favorite challenges. This week it’s Phicops vs. Huggins....interesting pair to put together! I cheated a little and used Crazy Huggins.

Here’s my tile....so happy to be back at the challenges!