Zendala Dare #29

This is my contribution to this week's Zendala Dare by Erin at www.thebrightowl.blogspot.ca. Great template with the opportunity to do curvy, grid and linear tangles... I found that my finished tile was a bit fussy... but then, there is lots to look at! This was particularly fun to color and shade, and I wish I had thought to copy a "before" because it really made a huge difference.

Zentangle Challenge #93 - Bunzo

This week's Zentangle Challenge from Laura at iamthedivaczt.blogspot.ca is to use the new tangle Bunzo. It's a neat tangle using one line - a sort of smile. Hummm, looked easier than I found it, but I'm sure I'll be more adventurous once I look at others' interpretations. I found some pretty linen textured, soft colored cardstock and so this is my first try on it. Pencil smudges differently on it, but I don't think it shows unless one looks really closely at the original. Scrolled Feather is one of my all time favorite tangles, but I need to play around with it some more - this one didn't turn out at all the way I had intended, though I'm not totally displeased with it since it's such a flexible tangle. I love these challenges because they really do take me out of my comfort zone, make me stretch my imagination, and as important, give me the opportunity to use "new to me" tangles. In this case it's the first time I've used Bunzo, Hurry, Allium, and Raindotty. I appreciate that so many people take the time to look at contributions and give feedback!

Zentangle Challenge #92 - String Theory - Stripes

This week's Zentangle Challenge from the Diva (www.iamthedivaczt.blogspot.ca) is to use stripes as the string. I also tried to use some tangles that used stripes or were based on stripes. This time I just let my hand and heart go and fill in the string of 10 horizontal,irregularly spaced lines across the page. No preconceived design or ideas, and that was fun and relaxing. I did two "new to me" tangles of planateen and sugarcane.

Zendala Dare #28

My entry for this weeks Zendala Dare by Erin at www.thebrightowl.blogspot.ca - I'm very happy with the center (pepper), but the rest... well, not so much but only because I had anticipated a different look. I spent way too much time searching for "the perfect" tangles instead of just letting my hand and heart go with the zen flow and so got frustrated. I keep doing this - does anyone else?

Zentangle Celtic Challenge #10

This is my first time doing the Celtic Challenge (www.creativedoodlingwithjudy.blogspot.ca). I loved this template and so I added another copy of the template and one more ring to make a ZIA... The original template is the two squares and one circle in the lower right hand corner. You can see her original template, and the 9 other celtic templates she has done so far by visiting her blog.

Zentangle Challenge #91 - Beads of Courage

This week's Zentangle Challenge (from www.iamthedivaczt.blogspot.ca) is for the charity Beads for Courage. Children collect beads that they get for getting through things like doctor's appointments, needles, tests, achievements... What a wonderful visual way of seeing how much they've been through. This challenge reminded that at one time (actually, 3-4 decades ago) I had wanted to create a wall - hanging that was made with macrame and would be a sort of a diary. I had envisioned that each string would be a day, each knot would represent something like weather or how I was feeling, and I would also add beads to represent events such as a date or an outing with friends. The wall hanging never got done, and I had forgotten all about it until I read Diva's post. That was the inspiration for my design using "Beads of Courage".

Zendala Dare #27 - 2nd try

This is my second try, and I'm much happier with this one. I had to make another attempt and now I can move on to the Zentangle Challenge! (Yep, the housework and cleaning up the garden can wait a bit longer :)...)

Zendala Dare #27

Well I'm definitely going to be doing another for this weeks Zendala Dare (www.thebrightowl.blogspot.ca) because this was fun, but I am not happy with the way it turned out. First of all, the intention was that Daggerly was supposed to make the cubine diamonds look like they had been cut away from the squares... didn't work, and I should have made the Daggerly with wider bands so it was more obvious. Wish I hadn't put Footlights in.... but worst of all was that I tried Vortex in the outermost squares but they didn't look anything like a Vortex so I tried to make them into something else.... yuck. I don't mind the Pearlz, but I think they would have been better if there was something else in this zendala to balance their roundness. That's the challenge though. And while I thought about not posting this, I did put quite a bit of time into it, and it's all a learning experience... right?

Zentangle Challenge #90 - String 001

This is my "quickie" done for the weekly Zentangle Challenge from iamthedivaczt.blogspot.ca . I wasn't going to do it this week because it's been a very busy week and I wasn't inspired by the challenge.... saying that, I just can't not do it, as I'm sure is the case with others. :) So today I found an hour and decided I'd start with a couple of tangles I hadn't ever used, Diamond Drops and Aura-Leah. I was ok with it until that point, then got stuck. The next two tangles I used are Msst and Hollibaugh. Not happy with my Hollibaugh - I don't think it fits in, and the "ribbon" effect I was looking for, didn't work. I'm looking forward to tomorrow's challenge.... (My apologies for not commenting on others contributions this week - as I said, I've been a bit short of time, and though I will look at them all, I just won't be able to share the joy I get when I look at them.)

Zendala Dare #26 - Halloween Theme

My last post didn't take into consideration this week's Zendala Dare theme (www.thebrightowl.blogspot.ca) - either fall or Halloween - so last night I did one more of this fabulous template with a halloween theme. I love cats so this was my inspiration. Scanning doesn't do justice to color or shading sometimes, so in this one you miss the green outlining the cat's eyeballs on the outer circle. When I finally went to bed it occurred to me that I should have used lava juice (more "witchy") instead of afterglow... oh well, it worked. Themes are fun, but require more artistic abilities I think. I found a similar cat on google images so sort of copied it as I couldn't do this on my own.

Zentangle Dare #26

Ooops, - when I started looking at others contributions, I realized that I had missed the whole point of the fall or halloween theme... so my contributions aren't theme related (I may need to do another in this case.) Hope you take the time to look at them anyway. I love the template for this week's Zendala Dare from Erin at (www.thebrightowl.blogspot.ca) because it incorporates a grid, triangles, and more flowing lines. This first effort includes a few of my favorite tangles that I'm fairly comfortable with: Inapod, Paradox, Hi-C's, and Cadent. I did it on a white tile, but felt I needed to blacken the outside to balance the dark areas within.

My second tile is the larger size template, and I used a couple of tangles I wasn't as comfortable with, but have come to really enjoy ('Nzeppel and Verve). The other tangles I used are Arcles, Flourish, and Florez. Thank you for taking the time to look - your comments encourage and motivate me!

Zentangle Challenge #89 - UMT - Sankegg

I spent a lot of time yesterday and this a.m. trying to get this tangle and had all but given up when I had an inspiration. Basically I deconstructed the pattern in my own way (read: cheating) and I think I may have got it. I quickly did a tile then roughed out how I drew this tangle (see below).

I don't know how well you can see this, but basically I've penciled in a smaller triangle above the first V and worked out from there, penciling in triangles at the tips of the points to carry it forward. I have erased the pencil in this tile, but I think it could be actually drawn in and used as a tangleation. Hope this helps anyone else who might be having trouble ...

Zentangle Dare #25

This week's template from Erin at www.thebrightowl.blogspot.ca reminded me of something industrial so that is what I intended, though I'm not comfortable with steampunk. However, after putting in Girdy, some other tangles called and now it has sort of a native/industrial feel. At any rate, one of my goals was to use all "new to me" tangles, so this is how it turned out. There was a lot of intricate line work and coloring in which took way more time than I should have spent on it (oh well, house cleaning can be done tomorrow). I drew out another copy of one of the smaller templates so if I have time, I'll work on that later in the week. I can't wait to see what others have done with this template.