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.