"Grid (un)Locked"

Tangles used = The grid unlocked and Abuzz

Here is my entry for the Diva's Challenge this week. If you have not already read her post you can find it here. She is inspiring and giving in so many ways. Thank you Laura for all that you do.

Of course none of us would be entering these challenges without the beautiful gift of Zentangle. Rick and Maria continue to surprise us with wonderful newsletters and share their beautiful artform. Laura's challenge is based on one of their newsletters wich you can find here.

I would love to have the time to cruise the challenge and post comments on every blog. There is so much to see and be inspired by with every entry. I hope that once July gets here I will have more time for that. Right now I just don't have that time and so the slide shows are great to get caught up with all the submissions. 

Thanks for having a peek. 

Oh yeah, Abuzz is a grid based tangle, but not your typical grid. I will get to that post, but first a visit with my beautiful and precious Mom is in order. 

Birds on a Wire By Mary Kissel

Tangles used = Birds on a Wire, Abuzz, and a few tripoli

How exciting to see Mary's tangle used this week for The Diva's challenge. Mary and I sat beside each other at our CZT training last September. She is a gentle, kind and very thoughtful woman. I really enjoyed meeting her. I still carry in my wallet a little piece of origami that she folded for me. She is very talented in many ways and also recently retired. I am sure she was excited to see this post from the Diva. She has just returned from a wonderful trip to Hawaii to celebrate her retirement. Congratulations Mary! The post from the Diva can be found here and Mary's instructions can be found on her blog here.

   It is not an easy thing to create a tangle. At least not for me, but I did it and have used it in this tile next to Mary's. It seems a fitting to use it beside Mary's tangle.   I call it Abuzz because it reminds me of a bee hive in some ways. I will post the step outs soon and send it off to tangle patterns and see what happens with it. Not today though. I have girly friends coming over this afternoon to play croquet on my freshly mowed lawn ( that is mostly weeds). It is finally above 12 degrees celsius. It has been a cold, wet and rainy spring, so today is a great day at 15 degrees, with time to enjoy the outdoors with friends. 

Thanks Laura and Mary for a fun new challenge and tangle. 

Tangleation Nation; Bales

Tangles used = Variations of Bales

The Diva set an interesting challenge this week. It appears to me that last weeks challenge crept into my tile, or maybe I just like a lot of contrast. We were to takes bales for a spin. Explore tangelations of this original pattern. I did just that on a scrap of paper and came up with at least 7 variations and then used 4 of them in my tile. Laura's challenge is here. Did you see the side walk chalk art she did with her son's. It's awesome. 

I went to tangle patterns to look for a string to use. I chose to use one I found while surfing the third anniversary challenge. There is a link to Zentangle and one of Maria's blog posts here. I used her post as inspiration for my string. 

I slipped inside today while the rain came down, again. 

I got lost in this tile and found that special place this afternoon. The one you go to when you are totally mindful of the present moment. It's very relaxing for me. So is the garden and the rain has stopped, so I'll head back out there now. 

Ebony and Ivory

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Tangles used = Lanie, Puf, Fyfe, Palrevo, Camelia, Sindoo

This weeks Challenge from The Diva was to use equal parts white and black on your tile. Laura mentions in her post that she does not have any luck with any of the white pens. I am not pleased with them either. I chose to use high contrast tangles. After browsing the tangle patterns website for way too long, I discovered that there is a section in the site that categorizes grid based patterns. It is on the left hand side, in the tags. That was helpful. 

Laura's challenge can be found here. The Zentangle post that inspired her challenge can be found here. 

I tried one with glue resist, but that just turned out grey. I have not shaded this tile as then it would include grey.  I think I will go back and do that, later though, as I am off to the plant sale at the Hospital this morning. There are so many wonderful plants from other peoples gardens. Nice big plants with lots of history. My favourite kind. 

Kuke

Tangles used + Kuke, Jemz, Black Pearls

Katy Abbott created a lovely tangle inspired by a a slice of cucumber she found on her kitchen floor. Patterns are all around us. You can read about her discovery here. The Diva's challenge this week was to use that tangle in a tile which you can read about here. 

I have been nicely busy the past couple of weeks week with outdoor chores. The weather has improved and so these tasks are more pleasant to do. I love gardening. It has been my passion ever since I had a piece of land to plant. I finally started to weed my three large flower gardens. I am about 3/4 of the way through them. I have removed over 15 large garden bags of yard waste. That is just junk that comes down off the trees and accumulates everywhere. The shore has been cleaned up, the lawn is mowed and the yard sale starts in about 10 minutes. 

I sat down last evening to play with Kuke. It went into my pattern book a few weeks ago. I really like it and plan to play with it more. Here is the tile I created. Margaret Bremner's Jemz is a little bit tricky. I think it requires a very slow and accurate placement of each stroke of the pen. It does remind me of a pattern that was on the kitchen floor in the first apartment I had in Toronto. Since Kuke was discovered on Katy's kitchen floor I chose to use it here. 

I also completed a colour garden from Marie Browning's awesome class. It's very fun and whimsical but not really my own. She showed us how to make these flowers and bugs and helped with composition. Yes,  I drew it and added the colour, and yes I like it. I may even use it as a Birthday card. It's joyful and who doesn't like that in life. The colour is so vibrant, i like these Tombow Markers and the cool stuff Marie is teaching. She is wonderful. 

Which Schway to go?

Tangles used = Schway, 

Here is my tile for the Diva's challenge this week. You can find her challenge here. We were asked to use the new official tangle Schway. I am also taking Marie Browning's on-line class called Time to Tangle with Colour. So I combined the two and came up  with this. I have a little red canoe made of ceramic. I keep a few pens in it. It inspired this tile. 

This is from one of the lessons with Marie. I am really enjoying this class and would highly recommend it to anyone interested learning about adding colour. She is an awesome teacher and artist.

Blind Sighted

Tangles used = finery, n'zeppel, purk, shattuck, featherfall, meer, printemps, flux, tipple

That Laura is an incredible woman. This week in her blog she has a video posted. It is from a performance that she gave. She sings like a broadway star. You can find that video and the challenge for this week here on her blog site. 

She encouraged us to let go and just find our Zen. Don't worry about the outcome. So I played along, because she is good with games. You should see the extreme hopscotch her son is playing this week.

I started out with the dots and the border, placed my pencil on the string and closed my eyes to draw this blind string. You can sort of see where I went out of the border. I went with it and tangled those areas too. 

I am taking a colour class with Marie Browning. We are using the Irojiten colour pencils. Rather than think too much about colour I just grabbed 4 pencils from one volume. They are designed to work together. The first tile was scanned before I added the colourless blender from the Tombow markers. Here is the second tile after the blending. Can you see the difference?

Earth Day/Amanda Day

Tangles used = Agua, Mist, Dansk. and a variation of  Sun Ray

It would be so great if every day was Earth Day. It was sunny but cold here in my part of the world. I made a point of doing something extra for the planet today. I gave my composter a stir to get it ready for another year. There is lots of nice black gold in there, it's ready, but still a little bit frozen.  

The Diva has asked us to do a tile for Earth Day. Her son affectionally calls this Day Amanda Day.

I think it's so cute that he has given the planet a name. Laura is teasing us to say that she may just let us hear her sing. That would be grand. 

You can see the challenge and others work here. Thanks Laura for all that you do to inspire me. 

I have signed up for Marie Brownings class which started last Thursday. I plan to learn to use the Irojiten pencils and the Tombow Markers. I have done a couple of assignments and learned a bunch about what not to do and a little bit of what to do. I learn by doing. You will see some of my learning here in my happy tangling space. The image below was part of the first lesson. It uses the Dual Brush Markers. I'll use it as a greeting card. 

Be inspired by stars, whatever that means to you.

Tangles used = Auraknot, spiteria, ahh

When I look at the night sky I think of those that have left us here on this earth. I imagine that each time we loose someone a new star shines.  Sometimes I just want to gather them all up and hang on tight. 

Tangles used = variation of cadent, printemps, crescent moon

This ones for you Frankie. 

The Diva has inspired me again. Thank you Laura. Have a peek at her blog post here to see the challenge and all of the beautiful tangler's entries that she inspires. Hmm... Tangler's is that what we are?

Tuxedo Challenge #112

Tangles used: Tuxedo, In a pod, Bunzo, Camelia, Palrevo

This weeks challenge from the Diva was to use a tangle called "Tuxedo"created by the very talented Ledenzer. You can find the "steps outs" for her tangle here and the Diva's challenge here.  This is a very detailed tangle that required good concentration. I can see that with some practice it could be very fun to add tangleations. Thank you Laura for the challenge and Lee Ann for the tangle. 

"More-Mooka-Madness Monotangle-Mania" from The Diva

Mooka is such a fun tangle to draw. It doesn't always look the way you would like it to, but it sure feels good to draw. That's what I love about it. You can get so un-intentionally mindful while drawing this pattern. I focused on the spaces in the V shaped area to try to get them consistent and parallel. The curvy parts just flow.  The shading, well that's a wonder with Mooka. I just gave the v area a little shade and then added my chop. I used Margaret Bremner's technique with a looped border which you can find here. My loops don't overlap, but rather touch in the centre. Thanks again and again to The Diva for her weekly challenges. You can find this one here.
In her post she mentions a Facebook conversation in our CZT (Certified Zentangle Teacher) page, where someone wondered which tangles we don't do because we have trouble with them.
I decided this was a good time to work on tripoli. Argh, It does give me trouble. I have figured out that if I really concentrate on keeping the lines parallell between the triangles it helps to improve the outcome. I like the bottom left part of this monotangled tile. The process was as it should be, a wonderful adventure. :)) Happy Easter.

Ode to Jazzy

A sad thing happened on the weekend. My neighbours had to put down their beautiful dog Jasmine. She really was a great dog.
Margaret Bremner posted a wonderful set of templates to use on a  Zentangle® zendala tile. You can find that post here on her beautiful blog. Thank you Margaret for sharing that super cool idea.  I really wanted to try this technique, and got to thinking about what to put in the template. With Jazzy on my mind I created this tile. I wrote on the back of the tile "Ode to Jazzy, It's a dog bone world" It's not technically and ode but it felt right at the time. I gave the tile to my neighbours. She will be missed by many. Pets are such a wonderful part of our lives and when they leave us our hearts are touched by the joy that they gave us. She loved to come to my place for a visit. It always included a dog treat. That was my way of ensuring I would get visits and it worked. She came to see me regularly and I got to pet her and tell her how pretty she was. Such a joy for me and for her.

Out Of The Box Challenge #110

Out of the box and the attic......

.....came my fathers very old watercolours. I have been meaning to go in there and get some things for a very long time.  Thanks to Laura for getting me there today. It's Friday so I almost missed the deadline for her submissions. You can find her challenge here.

She asked us to do something we have never done before. I have not done a Zendala or used watercolours on my tiles. In fact I have not used watercolours in over 25 years. I started with a pre-strung tile and thought I would change the centre a little, so I got out my pencil and drew some lines to split up the centre. I immediately saw a box. What? Where did that come from. I went with it. It was meant to be. Out of this box came some new found creativity. It looks very green in this scan, but in reality it is lime green, which is one of my favourite colours, and perfect for spring. Will it ever get here. I am still skiing. 

Patterns used. Lotus Pods (or a variation because there are no mistakes), Croon, Meer and Shattuck.

A banner day :)

A banner or a header as some would call it. That's what I made today. I plan to change that image over time, so this post will show todays image for future reference to me. Maria Thomas did the lettering in this image. She sent it to me along with the beautiful tile that I won, which I wrote about here :))

Weekly Challenge #109: Zentangle Quest

I really enjoy the challenges that Laura puts out at I am the Diva.  Each week she comes up with some wonderful ideas that get so many people to put pen to paper. It is a pleasure to learn a little bit about Laura and see what others come up with. She has asked us to use the very cool technique that Maria Thomas posted on the Zentangle blog a couple of weeks ago. You will find that post here. I did the two tiles above in response to The Diva's challenge today. The process is what I am after with this method of drawing. I really do get to a place of relaxation when I tangle. 

Rick and Maria are looking for a name for this technique. I think a fitting name for this technique might be "blip". We all have them and refer to them as "blips in the road". Sometimes they are small and sometimes they are huge. We just continue to try to conquer them, "one stroke at a time".

I did a tile earlier this month in response to Maria's post. You can see that tile here. 

Whyz

Tangles used = Whyz, Shattuck, Finery, IndyRella

This tile was done for the amazing Diva's inspiring challenge, which you can find here. This week we were challenged to use Jan MacKugler's very cool tangle Whys. Have a peek here to see her actual pattern. The shading needs some work. I think I need to get out my shading workbook from Chris Letourneau and do some work. Have you seen it yet? She has done a wonderful job of shedding some light on the subject. You can find her book here.
I am finally caught up with my challenges from Laura. I have had a couple of very full weeks with Family. All good times and lots of great memories.
Have a look the post before this one. I won a tile from Maria Thomas. It's so awesome :))

Quandry, Tea Time and Tangle Heart

Tangles used = Quandry, Keeko, Flux, Tripoli, Moocha, Betweed, 

I plan to add to this post in the near future. I am excitedly waiting for a piece of mail to arrive before I finnish this post........ 

...... and it arrived today. It felt like Christmas or my Birthday when I opened the mailbox and found this beautiful envelope from Maria Thomas. 

I won a tile from the Zentangle® blog. I posted a comment and won, which is unheard of for me. I don't usually win things. Now I need to find a very special way to frame this beautiful piece of artwork which you can see here on Maria and Rick's blog. The post is about using tea to add colour and shading to your tile.  The next post tittled Tangle Heart was about using a relief technique when you tangle. I was behind on the Diva's Challenge in which Laura asked us to use Quandry in a tile. I do struggle with that pattern. I have been trying it off and on since CZT™10 without the success that I would like. I still need to practice it some more. I bundled up all my thoughts on those two posts and Laura's challenge and came up with the tile above. I was visiting with my Mother and we shared tea each afternoon last week. I used the bottom of my cup and found a brush in my fathers old studio downstairs to add the tea.  It reminds me of an architectural detail, which was the inspiration for Maria's post.  I know.... you just want to see the tile that I received in the mail, so here it is. 

I have sent Maria a thank you message and asked for her permission to use it here. She said "Of Course. The spirit of generosity in the Community of Zentangle continues to inspire, amaze and comfort me. 

Year of the Snake

Tangles used =  Fungees,  Lanie, Mi2, Warped Eggs

The Diva set a challenge in February to be inspired by the Chinese Year of The Snake. February 10th was the Chinese New Year. You will find the challenge here. I am completely and utterly late with this but went ahead and did it anyway. I am glad that I did because I sure had fun with this ZIA. I actually spent some time drawing this which I have not done in years. I drew the numbers first and then wrapped the 0 with the snake. I took it from there and then went looking for line drawings of snakes in the net. I found this guy, who is really a dragon. I'm okay with that as I really, really don't like snakes. I tried to choose tangles with the same value. The 3 doesn't work, warped eggs is a little light.

Dansk with the Diva's 105th Challenge

The Storm continues and it's not letting up.

What a day! It has been an unbelievably stormy day. I am getting ready to go out and start shovel  some of this awesome snow. I am a skier so I am very happy to have it. My car is completely blanketed with about 8 inches. 

It was a perfect day to tangle. I started the Diva's Challenge earlier this week, but something was amiss with my mood. I had so much energy, I just wasn't able to sit, so I have been skiing and cleaning and went to yoga and a bunch of other things. Then the storm arrived, ahh bliss. I put on the fire and some nice relaxing music and entered the zone. I had arrived at the wonderful place that the practice of Zentangle® can take you too.  

The challenge was to use Margaret Bremner's tangle Dansk. You can find her pattern here.  Margaret is a very talented artist. Have a peek at her blog if you have not done so already. 

Below are two tiles that I completed today.

The Diva is giving away Carol Ohl's calendar, One Zentnagle a Day.  It is lovely. I have seen it all over the internet. I think it would inspire me to focus on the daily practice of Zentangle. It would be a pleasure to win this. 

You can find Carol's incredible work here on her blog.

Second Try with Diva's 104th

Here is my second attempt with The Diva's 104th Challenge. Thanks to Carole Ohl at Open Seed Arts for sharing her tangles on her blog site found here.  I was able to find my way to a more relaxed approach to this challenge. I wanted to practice what I was thinking and leave some negative space. I also tried to find a better balance of black and white.

The Diva's 104th challenge

String Challenge 104

This is my tile for The Diva's String Challenge this week. You can find the challenge here.

She and her family are ill this week. I hope they find all the healing wishes being sent from all who participate in her challenge. 

I found this particularly challenging (as it was meant to be).  There were 14 spaces in the string to fill. It was definitely a learning experience. I used 7 patterns that I have not used before. In the future I woud look for ways to utilize a busy string to incorporate some negative space and maybe ignore some of those lines. 

"Made In The Shade" Ensemble

9 Piece Ensemble
From "Made in the Shade: A Zentangle® Workbook"
By Cris Letourneau

Here are my nine tiles from the shading playground in Cris Letourneau's book entitled "Made In The Shade: A Zentangle® Workbook". It's so exciting for me to be included in a book. When Cris first put out her request for unshaded tiles to CZT's I was working on this ensemble. I was a newly minted CZT and had recently returned from Providence Rhode Island. I had agreed to do this ensemble as a swap with fellow classmates. I thought that it might make an interesting subject matter for Cris and so I offered them to her unshaded. . She was quick to accept and keen to use them. I was thrilled. We agreed that I would put up a post of the tiles assembled and shaded. I did not have a blog at that point, nor did I know anything about blogs. It is now a few months later and since then I have learned a few things about blogs, but not much, just enough to get it together for this post. I chose to work at blogging like a zentangle tile, without any real intent of the outcome, but rather to enjoy the process. That was mostly what happened, although Cris was very generous with her knowledge about blogs and some of the techy stuff you need to learn.  I am very grateful to Cris for her acceptance, encouragement and guidance.

At the time that I was working on these tiles, there was a major storm brewing in the east, named Hurricane Sandy. I live on the shore near a large body of water. We were having a wind storm here a couple of days before hurricane Sandy hit the east coast of the US. I get a little nervous when these storms approach. Doing these tiles really helped me to relax while the weather was brewing.

I imagined these two storms colliding, one from the north and one from the south. The storm from the north stirred up the atmosphere (top right) and the storm from the south came in from the ocean. They met and exploded (in the centre of the ensemble) and then calm and order started to resume (left side of ensemble).

When I shaded the tiles I used a couple of different techniques. Sometimes I shaded the space within the string and sometimes I used a light source for direction.

I have sent these tiles off to my fellow CZT, Lisa. You can see her ensemble here. She will gather them all from 9 CZT's and then redistribute them to each of us. Thank you Lisa for all of your hard work with the swap. I look forward to receiving the work of my fellow colleagues.  It will be a memorable ensemble to have, share and show.
I welcome any questions or comments you may have regarding my little piece of Cris's book.
Happy Tangling :))

This is the cover of Cris Letourneau's Book

and below is a link on where you can buy her book.

https://www.createspace.com/4056625

The illustrations below are from Cris's book. She was generous in sharing this image with me to post here. I think it may help if you are looking for my version of the completed tiles. This is the reference from Cris's book.

Moebius Syndrome Awareness

Challenge #103

This post is because of the Diva's Challenge #103 to help create awareness to Moebius Syndrome. Her son Artoo has this disorder. Laurah is going to share a link to the slideshow from this challenge to show people in her support group. This will let them know that others are aware of this rare disorder that only occurs in one in a million. Artoo and his family are also one in a million.
 Most of her family was ill this week. It was my intention with each stroke of the pen to send this family get well wishes. I used several tangles that are from The Diva's personal tangles. I think she will recognize them.
 A true Zentangle tile is presented here. It was definitely not about the outcome of the finished tile but it was done with definite intention. I hope their week has improved since Monday and that this tile helps bring awareness.  

   

Auraknot and Bunzo

The Divas Challenge

#102

I have tried my hand with these two tangles. It really was a challenge to get them to play together.

What an adventure. I went back and looked at the video on the Zentangle® website (which is always a joy) and I was inspired to move towards a more celtic looking pattern. I played with that for a while. Then I wondered how bunzo could hang out in that environment. I decided to morph bunzo into a clover as it floats through the knot. If you look closely there is one four leaf bunzo clover, can you find it?

Thank you for stopping by to have a peek.  I really enjoy seeing what others come up with as well. I am looking forward to having a look at the others tonight after my yoga class. 

B-Rad's Phicops and the Diva's Challenge

Happy New Year

Phicops

This is such a fun new tangle from the Diva and her husband B-Rad. They must have had a lot of fun over the holiday's creating this beautiful tangle. Thank you for sharing it and for the challenge to use it. 

When I first looked at it, I immediately saw the Sydney Opera House. I had a look at my own photo's from my trip there a couple of years ago. Yup, that's the opera house alright. 

It also reminded me of the tangle angel fish, so I added that to my tile. Then I added some organic tangles to go with the flow of the others. Phicops is a pleasure to tangle.  

I looked at this photo and used it as inspiration for my string.

This show's a similarity to Phicops.