Zendala Dare #115 + use tangles that start with (all or some) letters: THANKS

I wasn't too fond of this week's Zendala Challenge from Erin at www.thebrightowl.blogspot.com, because I thought there were too many spaces and awkward ones at that…. But I try to do all of the Dares, and I was frankly quite surprised and pleased with my end result with this one. Goes to reinforce that you never know where Zentangle is going to take you! I initially wanted to use tangles for all the letters in the word "THANKS" (which was part of this week's dare), but I decided to stop without using an H or an N, and I'm happy that I left the open space! I'm not sure why it looks like the paper is blue - it's not - it's off-white water-colour paper; but I kind of like it blue!

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.

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....