Straight Lines and Other Things

Diva Challenge #368 is to draw a tile with straight lines only. Cool idea! For my tile I decided to focus on Frost Flower by Karry Huen. Stepouts are available here.

As my string I drew five squares, with one on top of the others in the center.  Then I filled each of the squares with Frost Flower and added shading. The result is straight lines going every which way! There isn’t a single curvy line in this tile.

Straight Lines
Frost Flower

It’s been a busy several days in tangling. This week Adele Bruno is celebrating her It’s A String Thing challenge’s 5th Birthday! To mark the occasion I submitted the following tile:

IAST Happy 5th Birthday
Knightsbridge, Kitl, O, Prestwood

My intention was to add color to this tile. Things didn’t work out according to my vision though. The watercolors caused some of the ink to run, and the gel pens I used were simply too dark. Anyway, luckily I scanned the tile before applying watercolors and was able to send in the black and white version.

One more tile to share in this post. I love rose patterns and had seen Helen Williams’ video on how to draw her pattern Spiral Rose. So of course I wanted to try it out.

Spiral Rose
Spiral Rose

I will add color later, but I do think it is very striking in black and white!

 

 

Nzeppel

Another week brings another Diva challenge. This time the challenge is to create a tile using ‘Nzeppel, one of my favorite patterns. Stepouts for ‘Nzeppel and Crazy ‘Nzeppel can be found here.

For months I planned on preparing some of my zentangle tiles with watercolor washes, and I finally got around to it! For this challenge I chose to tangle on a tile with a blue, green, and yellow wash. The wash was done with watercolor crayons and a Pentel Aquash brush. It’s really easy to do and I like the effects.

Carrying over last week’s Back to Basics theme, I decided to stick with official Zentangle patterns again. My tile features Crazy ‘Nzeppel, Crescent Moon, and Tripoli.

Diva challenge #367
Nzeppel

As long as I have you here, I’d like to call attention to two new tangles/tangleations which I have worked out. They are called Zazzle and Palmetta. The stepouts can be found on my Patterns page. Also, I made a blog post announcing Zazzle here, and there is an older post about Palmetta here (later revised to include stepouts). They haven’t gotten many views so I thought I’d mention them again here.  I would greatly love some feedback, especially since these are my first attempts at introducing new patterns.

Thank you for visiting!

 

Back To Basics

The Diva has returned! This week the challenge (#366) is to go Back to Basics by revisiting several official tangles: Hollibaugh, Meeko, Printemps, and Crescent Moon. It is nice to have the opportunity to return to these very familiar tangle patterns with a fresh eye.

Here is my tile:

Diva Challenge #365
Printemps, Hollibaugh, Crescent Moon, Meeko

I had fun with this tile, and like the effect of filling in the quadrants of the rough diamond shape with the patterns.

Following a similar theme (at least as far as Hollibaugh is concerned) is this week’s “It’s A String Thing” challenge.  In this case, the challenge tangles include Hollibaugh, 7Keys, Sling-Slang, and Diamonte. The goal is to practice layers and fills, utilizing IAST string #259 by Adele Bruno.

My tile appears below.

It's A String Thing #259
Hollibaugh, 7Keys, Sling-Slang, Diamonte

The surrounding three bands of Sling-Slang, 7Keys, and Diamonte made a nice frame around the Hollibaugh. It was fun to learn the three less familiar patterns.

Thank you for visiting!

Hexonu

Hexonu
Hexonu

The focus tangle this week for the Facebook Square One group is Hexonu by Cherryl Moote, CZT. The stepouts are available here.

This was my first attempt at drawing Hexonu, and I found it to be fun experience. It’s an excellent pattern to fill up space, and there are lots of possibilities with different fills for the triangles within the hexagons.

My “default” is to keep things simple, so that’s what I chose to do with this tile. Basically, I filled in random triangles on one diagonal, and then drew in stripes along the cross-diagonal. I like the sense of movement that was created! On a side note, this pattern reminds me a lot of the overlay for the Puppet Warp tool in Photoshop Creative Cloud.

Thank you for visiting!

 

 

 

Zazzle – New Tangle

Pastel Zazzle Zendala

For a while now I had been playing with a pattern that I think is an original. Finally it’s ready for the unveiling…  and thus I give you Zazzle. I think that Zazzle allows for a lot of versatility. It  works well as a starter for a zendala, or however you might like to use it in your tiles.

Here are the step-outs:

Stepouts for my new tangle, Zazzle
Stepouts for my tangle, Zazzle

Please note that I added a new Patterns page to the blog, where you will also find these step-outs. In addition, there are step-outs for my other pattern, Palmetta. I hope to add new ones in the future.

Below is an example of Zazzle on a zendala tile. In this case I drew concentric circles to provide a string, so it is more structured than the more free-form examples seen in the step-outs.

Zazzle Zendala
Zazzle Zendala

Although I like it in black and white, I thought it would look pretty with some added color. Using blue, purple, and aqua watercolor crayons I colored in specific patterns, and repeated them in an alternating fashion from the center outwards. For contrast I left some areas white.

Feedback about Zazzle is welcome and encouraged! If you try out Zazzle I would love to see what you come up with. Please leave a link in the comments below or send me an email via the Contact page.

 

Diva Challenge #364 – Puf

Diva Challenge #364 Entry
Tile for Diva Challenge #364

It’s been a while since I last posted here on the blog. I’m happy to be back and have another Diva challenge tile to share. This week the Diva’s challenge (#364) is to draw a monotangle featuring Puf by Carole Ohl, CZT. The step outs are available on her blog here.

Puf is a lot of fun to draw and is very aptly named! In her post about the pattern Carole Ohl mentions that it can also be done with different shapes  other than squares. I liked the idea of having most of my tile consist of a boxy square grid, but I also thought it would be interesting to place Puf in triangles at the corners.  Fairly heavy shading really gives the tile some depth I think.

Thanks to the Diva for another great challenge!

It’s A Paradox

Paradox Twist Pattern
Paradox Twist Pattern
Paradox Fan Pattern
Paradox Fan Pattern

This week’s Diva challenge is to draw a Paradox monotangle. Above are two Paradox tiles which I drew some time ago. It’s so late in the week that I’m just posting them here for fun. The first presents the “twist” pattern, and the second features the “fan” pattern. I love how the looks are so different! Paradox is an official tangle and the step outs are available here.

Here’s an admission: when I first learned how to draw Paradox I found it very difficult. The problem was that I kept losing my place in terms of where the last stroke ended and the next stroke would begin. With a fair degree of determination and a lot of practice I got much better at it. Turning the tile helps a lot. Now Paradox is one of my favorite tangles.

Tip: This post by Margaret Bremner, CZT was very helpful to me in mastering this tangle.

Diva Challenge #350 – Heart Strings: Rimana (UMT)

Rimana with Hearty
Rimana with Hearty

It’s a little late in the week to be posting, but here is my tile for Diva Challenge #350  Heart Strings: Rimana (UMT) by Nadine Roller, CZT. You can find the stepouts here.

So, I had a little bit of difficulty with this challenge. I think my main problem had to do with placement and spacing. Rimana is a very pretty and versatile tangle, and I hope that with more practice I’ll get technically better at it.

Anyway, I decided to combine Rimana with Hearty, by Margarete Gilge. Stepouts for Hearty are available here. Hearty and Rimana are both quite similar to Rixty, and also I think they are comparable to Pokeleaf and Pokeroot. Given the appropriateness of Valentine’s Day related themes, Hearty seemed a great match to  use with Rimana for this challenge. Of course part of the string is a heart shape and I outlined it with Hearty. Then I surrounded (framed) the heart with Rimana.

After drawing the basic tile I felt it needed more contrast and detail. Thus I sought a way,  or ways, to make the tile more intricate and interesting. After thinking about it I realized that the answers were: color (Derwent ink pencils), auras, and shading!

The Diva’s video reminded me of the usefulness and beauty of auras, so I outlined the heart shape with auras, and also “aura’d” the areas of Rimana. Another valuable tip in the video was to scribble on a scrap piece of paper with a soft pencil, and then to pick up the graphite for use in shading the tile. Blend with a tortillion. Great idea!

Comments are loved, and many thanks for visiting!

 

Diva Challenge #349 – Rumpus

Tile for Diva Challenge #349
Rumpus

This week’s Diva challenge is to draw Rumpus. Rumpus is a new official pattern which was introduced as part of the Twelve Days of Zentangle program. Rick and Maria demonstrate how to draw Rumpus in a video on their official YouTube channel.

Rumpus produces a complex pattern which can be embellished in all sorts of ways. Following the Diva’s example, I added Tipple (or orbs?) to the unfilled areas. Highlights are in white pencil and shadows were done in pencil. I drew this tangle on a Renaissance zendala tile using a sienna Micron pen.

Comments are welcome. Thank you for visiting!

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