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. 

Challenge #32 Zentangle Is For Everyone

Laura Harms, our DIVA has another guest challenger this week....the very talented, Carole Ohl from Open Seed Arts.  If you are new to Zentangle make sure to click on the link and check out Carole's site.  Carole's work is going to be featured at one of her local restaurants as "Artist of the Month" and she is asking for tiles from all of us to be included in the show.  For this challenge we are all using the same 4 tangles, Pais (by Mikee Huber), Zedbra (by Laura Harms and Margaret Bremner), Keenees (by Donna Hornsby), and Baton (by Carole Ohl).  If you have been to a Zentangle class, you know how wonderful it is to see everyone's work all together in a mosaic when the same tangles have been used, because each of us brings our own unique interpretation to our work.  That is also why it is also so much fun to see the slide shows of these challenges each week.  So, now is the time to join in the fun if you haven't done so yet....your tile can be in an art show, how fun is that!  Thanks, Carole for including all of us in your show! 

Mandala Galaxy

I really love to create Mandala's and every now and then I love to do a bigger piece of ZIA (zentangle inspired art).  I started this piece with a lot of different size circles, or orbs (as Maria would say).  I made a Mandala in each circle.  Then I used Tink to connect them all, and as a string.  I tangled inside the lines that Tink created and in some of the actual circles from Tink.  It looks kind of galaxy like to me.  What do you think? 

Thought For Today

In my newspaper this morning, so I had to share..........

Challenge #31 Fairyland

Carol Bailey Floyd from Celebrate Possibilities is the guest challenger this week at Laura Harms, I Am The Diva Blog and she has us creating an environment where fairies would feel at home.  Right away my mind pictures a soft magical place with an airy feel.  I purchased a small fairy statue several years ago that sits among my plants in the living room.  I have always loved it's presence because after it sits in the sun during the day, the orb glows at night and it is very pretty and calming.  I tried to take a picture at night, but it was hard to get the glow with a flash and without a flash it is somewhat blurry.....but you'll be able to see it's beauty.  I hope the fairies find my tile and stay for awhile!  Thanks for the fun and magical challenge, Carol!

Finding More Shade

As I watch the evening news each night, I see that a lot of the country is in a heat wave.  Here in Colorado I think this is around our 15th day of 90 (plus) degree weather.  I don't want to complain too much though because we don't have the high humidity that a lot of you have on top of the heat.  We have also had some really incredible thunderstorms with awesome lightning displays that light up the sky.  Anyway, if and when you go out,  it leaves one searching for some shade, shade, and more shade.  So how does that relate to Zentangle?   Shading....   I find shading a hard thing to teach.  I think it is really something that you have to practice a lot on and hopefully you get better and better as you go.  I always tell my students to start out with a little, because you can always add more and more.  Hopefully, you do practice adding more and more.  I have recently been trying that myself and I am finding that when I do shade more I am liking the results.  It definitely gives more dimension to my work.   So, don't be afraid to shade and if you can find a shady spot under a tree, tangle outside! 

Ladies Night Out Class/Party

My sister, Joanne DèLeon is a very successful realtor at The Group, Inc. in Ft Collins, CO and as a "thank you" to some of her clients she hosted a ladies night out by treating them to a Zentangle class/party last Friday evening.  It was held in the Group's meeting room (beautiful facility) from 6:30-9:00, and it was my largest class so far.  Joanne served wine, beer, iced tea and some wonderful munchies.  I made and brought the chocolate covered strawberries. The ladies all had a great time learning the art of Zentangle!  I took some pictures of the set-up prior to the party and some pictures of their tiles, but got so busy teaching I forgot to take pictures of the group of people (note to self).  I also made some fun name tags inspired by this video by Joanne Fink.   I can't thank my sister enough for asking me to teach this class!  I hope her clients enjoyed it as much a I did. 

Challenge #30 Initialize

While our DIVA takes some much needed time off, we have another wonderful guest challenger and CZT, Christina Vandervlist at stART taking us in another string direction.   This week we are using our initials and overlapping them for our string.  Another great string idea and challenge!  Thank you, Christina.

Mandala Monday

Just playing with another Mandala/Zendala and adding color with Sakura Gelly Roll Pens.........oh how they sparkle!

Challenge #29 Creative Genesis

This week over at Casa Diva's we have a guest challenger, Sue Jacobs/CZT from Chicago.   Sue came up with a great idea of using a string to create a string.  Find anything around the house to use as a weight, tie a string to it and let it drop on your tile. I found a necklace with a heavy pendant to use. I love this idea and it gives me one more thing to talk about with strings in my Beyond the Basics class.  Thanks Sue for hosting the challenge this week and for the great idea!

More Mandala/Zendala Fun

At my "Beyond the Basics" class I spend about 30-40 minutes on strings, tangle enhancers, shading techniques and then we complete one tile with tangles that take a higher level of concentration. After that I let the students pick what they want to work on......more tiles, ensembles, zentangle inspired art, or mandala's/zendala's.  Recently I met with a really nice lady from Texas who had taken a basic class there and was here in Colorado with her family visiting her mother on vacation.  She requested a private "Beyond the Basics" class and she choose to work on mandala's/zendala's.  We made the same template from scratch, doing a little math, etc...and sat down and had fun talking and tangling together.   Of course, the time flew by as it always does when you are tangling and we didn't finish, but we did email each other our results.   As in true Zentangle fashion, even though we started with the same mandala outline (string) we ended up with our own unique results.  She also said she would call me next year when she visits Colorado to play with Zentangle.  How nice to make another new tangle friend.  So good to meet you "M"!

New Black Zentangle Tiles!

My long awaited (not really long, it just felt that way) box of goodies from Zentangle arrived this week.  I felt like a kid at Christmas checking out all the new products (toys) that Zentangle is now offering.  What fun!  The new black tiles are fabulous!  Maria's advise about the gelly roll pens was to hold them very lightly and just "tickle" the paper and I found this worked beautifully.  Thanks to everyone at Zentangle for your hard work in developing and getting us all of these great new products to play with!

Challenge #28 Trip to Tripoli

TRIPOLI is the new tangle introduced by Rick & Maria at Zentangle this week.  I had the feeling that this would be the challenge for the week from Laura, the one and only CZT diva, so I started playing with it a little last night.  I love this tangle because it has so much potential and variety, but I will need to play with it more because I am having some trouble getting all my little triangles the same size, turned the right way, and the same distance apart.  Normally, I would wait and work with this more, but I have a full week planned and I am not sure I will have the time to get back to this again.  So, I am posting my 1st attempts, one on a tile and the other on a small piece of Stonehenge paper that I had left over from another project.  I applied a color pencil wash to it first and then tangled.  I had fun experimenting with color, trying a new tangle, and really enjoyed the process of creating.  So after reading the post on the Zentangle blog today, I am not waiting for time to try something "better" to post!  Thanks,  Rick and Maria for that great post!  Thanks, Laura for another great challenge. 

Challenge #27 Duo-Tangle

In this challenge the Diva has us using only 2 tangles, Dex & Verdigogh.  These are two very different tangles, Dex with straight lines and Verdigogh being more organinc.  This was one I had to sit and think about for awhile.  Instead of starting with the usual string I decided to draw all the large black squares of Dex and use my white Gelly Roll pen to draw Verdigogh on top of those squares.  I then extended the Verdigogh branches with my black pen in some area but not in others.  After that I completed the outside lines of Dex.  

I have always admired the way that Maria Thomas weaves her tangles together and continues one tangle with another by using the same lines.  She makes it look so easy and the results are always so beautiful!  This is something I need to continue to work on, because I love how it looks.  I can see it, but getting it from my mind to the paper.....now that is something else altogether!  Practice, practice practice, and continue to enjoy the process.  :)

Challenge #26/Spiral Out

This week's challenge is to make your string a "spiral".  I love spiral's and I needed an easy challenge this week.  Thank's Laura!

Challenge #25 Zendala Magic

Oh yeah!  I love Zendala's (Mandala's made with Zentangle patterns)!  Laura Harm's (our one and only Diva) is spending some much needed time off with her mother, but in true Laura style she didn't delay the weekly challenges that we have all come to love and look forward to each week. Instead, she arranged for a guest challenger, Geneviève Crabe/CZT from Canada came up with this week's challenge for us.  I had the pleasure of meeting Geneviève at our CZT certification class 4.  She is a very talented artist and you can view some of her wonderful Zendala's here. Thanks Laura, and thanks for the great challenge, Geneviève! 

I have never made a Zendala the size of a tile before, so that was a lot of fun!  I am looking forward to doing the large Zendala template when time permits.   

New Tangle- FANFEATHER

My sister-in-law, Karen, who is a wonderful quilter has once again given me inspiration for another tangle pattern.  She does this without even knowing it.  In an earlier post from last week, SEE HERE, I talked about it being her and her husband, Pete's 50th wedding anniversary for which I made a Zentangle Inspired Art piece.  At that party she gave everyone a hot-pad that she made from her various scraps of material.  She has been making hot pads for years, and I am lucky enough to get some every Christmas, so I haven't bought a hot pad in years.  Well, looking at the hot pad my daughter Lindsay picked out for her new apartment this year, I noticed this fan pattern and thought it would make a cool tangle.  Karen doesn't know that her work was also the inspiration for one of my earlier tangles, ECHO, SHOWN HERE.  I will be letting her know today and I will be looking through my other hot pads....who knows there may be more tangle patterns there.

Fanfeather is a really basic, simple pattern, but it can be used in so many ways and variations (different directions, as a border, etc.)  It kind of looks like a branch when the stems are wider, and a feather when the stems are thinner. In the directions, I made them wider to see them better.  It definitely looks very organic.  Hope you enjoy it!

Here's my inspiration, the directions, and a tile with it included.  (Click on instructions to enlarge.  Also note:  1-3 are the steps and 4-6 are different ways to use it)

Drawing Day 2011

This was my contribution to Drawing Day 2011.  Zentangle Inspired Art, size 7x7 done on scrapbook paper.

Mandala/Zendala's

Every now and then I get in the mood to do a Zendala. When I don't want to take the time to start from scratch and do all the math, (rulers, compass, protractor, etc.) I go in search of some Mandala templates.  There are a lot of them posted on the web and blogs where people are kind enough to share-Yeah!  I used a couple of Joni Feddersen's again.  Thanks Joni for sharing these on your blog!