Zentangle Challenge #268 - A bit-o-black

Love this week's challenge from Laura at www.iamthedivaczt.blogspot.ca! I'm trying to use more black in rounding, or thickening lines or parts of lines, or as a fill in many of my tiles. This was fun play!

Zentangle Challenge #220 - UMT (Use My Tangle): All Boxed Up

This week's challenge from Laura at www.iamthedivaczt.blogspot.ca is to "use my tangle" (UMT), and the tangle chosen is from Alice Hendon called All Boxed Up. I didn't love this tangle at first glance, but once I started playing with it, I had lots of fun - hence the three tiles (smile). My scanner is not great, so I apologize for the quality… really, they all look better in person, I think. I'm looking for good tangles to do on black tiles because I really think I need to start investigating those a bit more, and get more experience with them (and Renaissance too). I think All Boxed Up has potential - and while I like the black tile I did here, I think it could be better if I knew how to bring out the white a bit better. I'd love to take a course just on the black tiles… anyone? (in or near Toronto) Thank you for looking and I know it's very time consuming, but I appreciate it when people take the time to leave comments.

Zentangle Challenge #122 - Grid (Un) Locked

I went through a lot of conflict with this week's Zentangle Challenge from Laura at www.iamthedivaczt.blogspot.ca. And I'm still not so sure I "get" it. The challenge was based on the newsletter from Rick and Maria where they used grid "seeds" to create grid patterns. Maybe it's the way I think, but I thought that's in essence what we were doing all along? The other conflict I've been mulling over is: when does a tangelation become a new tangle? Sigh.... maybe you can answer, or maybe I'll find out more when I go to the CZT seminars in the fall... What I did in the end was just let the pen go to paper and see where it went (which often works out in surprising ways). I started by using a scrap of watercolor paper that I've been saving for bookmarks. I used I1 from the grid Rick and Maria posted and when I had drawn the main stream, didn't like it at all! I had also tried their neat "trick" of doing a line of grids on the outer edge 1/2 width to emphasize curves... so I started to fill in alternate lines, shaded it, and wow, what a change! Then I added a stream of Hi-C's (because I love what this tangle does when it's flipped). The bookmark was too empty, so I added another stream of the original I1 pattern, but alternated thicker and thinner lines in each grid and filled in the triangles (diamonds) instead. Totally different look. I loved this exercise which really showed me how grid patterns can change with fills, direction etc. I'm quite happy with it. My second tile was done with a lot less worry and planning - I divided it up into 4 sections and chose 4 tangles. Crescent Moon and Ving look really neat when they are flipped from grid to grid. I've loved Moving Day since I first saw it and though I tried on scrap to flip it around, it wasn't nearly so effective, so I just did it as it's "supposed" to be. Verve wasn't quite the effect I expected either, but... So, here they are, and now I can go look at what others have done, and maybe I'll find I wasn't the only one having a bit of difficulty with this one. (But in the end, when I push myself, I always learn and am astounded by the results, so thank you Laura! and Rick and Maria!)

Zentangle Challenge #101 - Phicops

This week's Zentangle Challenge (#101), from Laura at www.iamthedivaczt.blogspot.ca, is a UMT (use my tangle). Her husband B-rad has developed the tangle we are to use - Phicops (pronounced f-eye-cops). I had already started a small ZIA using a string made from the beginning of my name "S" (turn the page), and a "U". I still had several sections to fill in, so I put Phicops in two of them - shaded with green but that doesn't show up very well with the scan. I've used 4 "new to me" tangles in this ZIA. I haven't looked at any other entries but I'm guessing there will be lots of very interesting and beautiful variations... I learn so much from looking at all the other entries, and being pushed to try something new and often out of my comfort zone with each challenge (and dare). Thank you Laura for these challenges each week, and thank you everyone who takes the time to comment and/or look.

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!

ZIA - ovals, squares, circles - Zentangle challenge #65

The string for this ZIA was created using three things from the kitchen - a coaster, a martini shaker, and an olive dish - I thought about calling it "wasted martini's", but will save that catchy title for another ZIA. I had barely started when Zentangle Weekly Challenge #65 from "I am the Diva" came out asking us to use the tangle "Huggy Bear". I'd never used it before. I did a traditional tile and submitted that, but though it made me try some variations of Huggy Bear, I wasn't too happy with it. So I added it into this ZIA, and I'm much happier with how it turned out. I didn't try to be too original in variations - I'm working on learning and practicing tangles, rather than stretching creativity. Sometimes when I see how creative others are, I think "why didn't I think of that?". Hopefully that will come after I get better at technique. Love to hear any comments....