Walk this Shway

I must be the first to admit that when I say Shway arrive in my inbox the other day, I did not think that I would ever use it.  Not because I don't like the tangle, but because it looked hard.  I felt like too much spacing and even-ness would be required.  (Confession: mismatched spaces when I want them to be matched makes my eye twitch.)  All that being said, I decided that I was going to figure this out and do the challenge on time this week.

First things first, I played a little with Shway.  I had not tried it out yet.  Once I did a little, and figured out how to get it like I wanted it to be, I pulled out some paper and got to work.  I did a little tic-tac-toe board for a string.  I wanted Schway to take center stage on this one, but I didn't want it to be a monotangle either. I put Shway in five of the spaces so that I would have several chances to vary/experiment with the patterns.   When looking at Shway unvaried and unshaded, I was afraid that the pattern would be quite flat so for the other four spots, I tried to choose tangles that would have dimension. I wanted the other spaces to pop up a little against the flat.

In the end, I'm not sure my other tangles pop up as much as I thought they might, and not all of Shway is as flat as I feared it would.  There is so much possibility for variation here and I really enjoyed experimenting.  I also like the graphic quality of Shway.  It has a pop art feel to me. I am happy with my tile this week.  Not only is it finished in time, but was done in record time for me.

I am also posting last week's Blind String Challenge.  I finished it late Saturday and was too tired to get it shaded, scanned and blogged in time to make the deadline.This was my first go at Phicops and while I certainly have more experimenting with it to feel that I have "mastered" it, I am really glad that I gave it a go and tried it.  I also experimented with Laura's tangle Versa.  I was going for another look that I have done with Versa but, I got distracted and goofed it up.  That being said, I do like the end result.  The other grid pattern is one that I did combining Z-Trick and Flwr Box.  I still need to try those two on their own, but I am pleased with how my combination came out as well.  I was just playing around with ideas when I started this one, so I wasn't sure what the end result would look like.

Thanks for stopping by and taking a look.  Have a great week!

Hollins Butterfly

This year is my 20th college reunion!  Where did the time go?  I swear that I still feel 21 on the inside!

I attended Hollins College (now University) in Roanoke, VA.  It is a small, liberal arts college for women. The campus sits near the base of Tinker Mountain (where Tinker Tangles takes it's name.) and I am so grateful for my time there.  There are many activities during reunion weekend.  Mini classes, dinners, cocktails, tours of campus and enjoying the great Visual Arts center. The official kickoff is on the Saturday of reunion, when there is a parade of classes.  One of my former classmates asked me to help with a theme for our class.  The first thing that popped into my head was butterfly wings.  Why?  Who knows. But I figured that we could wear wings in the colors of the school and they could symbolize the wings that we have used to carry us these 20 years we have been away.  Plus, everyone loves Butterflies.  I hope so anyway.

Another dear friend asked me if I could make a tshirt for us to wear and if I would create a zentangle to put on it.  Well, I said that I would give it the "old college try" (heh, heh). This is the image I came up with.

 Using the school colors of green and gold (or yellow here), I created this. I drew with a green micron and colored in with a yellow tombow marker.  I also did a few highlights with a yellow sakura gel pen.

Now that I had the drawing done, the real test was to see if I could set up a place on zazzle to make them available to my classmates to buy.  You can even get one here if you'd like.  There are some that say reunion on them and some that are just the butterfly.

I have to say that I am pleased with how they came out.  The design looks best on a white shirt, but I also got it on yellow and I think it looks great.

Happy 20th Reunion to my fellow alumnae!

Earth Day!

Guess what?!  I finally finished one of the Diva's challenges in time to post it!  Shocking I know, as it has been a long time.  I've been checking in every week, and I've even started some, but I've either not finished them or not finished in time.  So, I tried really hard to get mine completed this week.

Following The Diva's example, I too chose to do a zendala.  I don't have any of the nifty tiles though, so I made my own.  I used my circle cutter and cut out a 4" circle on watercolor paper.  I then traveled over the Erin's site The Bright Owl, and pulled my template from Challenge #52.  Being Earth Day, I wanted a template with circles in it and this one jumped out at me.

4" watercolor paper, micron pens and pencil

I knew that I wanted some blue and green on the zendala, so I decided that I'd use them in the middle.  I picked Diva's Dance in blue to be my "water".  For my "earth" circles, I just kind of made it up.  I wanted to have something that looked like fields from above.  I started with squares and then just filled them with rotating patterns or filled the space with just green.  I'm not sure how I feel about the design as a tangle pattern, but it works here for what I was aiming for.  Now, I needed to do the outer sections.  Again, I wanted to have patterns that felt organic or earthy to me.  I used Beeline because, bees!  The other sections are Zin, mostly because I messed up my Beeline set up.  But hey! There are no mistakes in Zentangle.  I had these lovely triangles and Zin fit in perfectly.  The outer edges I used Verve and Tipple.  I thought that Tipple looked like gravel or a rock pile.  After that, I added a little shading and BOOM! I was done.

I really wasn't sure how it would turn out when I got started, but I am pleased with the final result.  As is often the case, shading helped a lot.  The blue and green felt really flat as I opted to not shade the patterns in the circles.  Just the little shade on the edges where they overlap really popped them out and away from each other.

While I have your attention - if you've made it this far- I wanted to share the tile I did for last week's star theme.  I did get it finished in time, but I did not blog it in time.  So without chatter and more words, here are stars!

Well, a little more.  I used watercolor for the blue, micron pen to draw and a little silver sakura gel pen for the lines.  I wanted to give the impression that the stars are shooting stars.  Not sure it works as zooming but I tried!

Thanks for stopping by!

A New Challenge, A New Tangle

As it is the beginning of the month, it is time for a Use My Tangle challenge over at the Diva's page.  This week the tangle is Dansk from Margaret Bremner.  I cannot belive that I have not seen this one before.  Or if I have, I confess that I don't remember it.  Dansk is a fun and wonderfully easy pattern.  Mine look more like tree rings but there's nothing wrong with that.  I'll have to remember this one when I am looking for nature inspired patterns.

I managed to keep this tile really quite simple.  Somthing that I have been trying to keep in mind.  White space is ok and can even be your friend.  I borrowed the string from tanglepatterns.com.  Nothing was coming to me as I stared at the blank tile and then I remembered that Linda is collecting string ideas so I clicked over and found one.  I also used Diva Dance for the first time.  Well, for the first time in a completed drawing anyway.  I wasn't sure about this at first but I have come to like it.  All the patterns I ended up picking out all remind me of tree rings, at least they do here.  Maybe Spring is trying to work its way into my brain.  I know it's ready for some sunshine.

I also wanted to share with you the photo mat that I complete for the swap over on Facebook.  It was quite a challenge to do but once I got going at it, I was able to get some bits that I am really proud of.  I still need to spray it against smudging (not that there is a lot of pencil on it) and pop it into the mail.  Luck for me the deadline is in March.  I am HORRIBLE about getting stuff into the mail.  Well, I should say horrible when I need to go to the post office.  If I can print postage and mail it from home then I am not so bad.  I tried on a few new tangles on this as well and that was a lot of fun.

I hope you have a great day!

Zendala challenge + color

I am behind on the Zendala dare that Erin hosts each week.  I miss some weeks and I jump back in and something happens and I don't get back to post what I have done, if in fact, I have finished what I started. I have another that I finished drawing, but didn't get shaded.  I'll be going back to finish that today but it's been so long since I drew it, I don't remember which dare it was.  I'm working and that is the biggest thing.

So, color.  It is something that I have dabbled with but it isn't easy for me.  I tend to approach it like a coloring book.  Draw the lines and fill them in.  Shading with color doesn't really happen much for me.  I've done a little but I default to using a pencil more often than not.  I have some great pencils and markers reciently, Tombow markers, Inktense pencils and some Aquasitcks.  I didn't really have much of an idea how to use them, or at least use them to get the most out of them.  Thankfully there are some really great YouTube videos out there to see.  Maybe one day, I will be able to actually do some of the tricks that are in the videos.  :)

As I was doing Zendala dare #41, I decided that it needed to have color.  The template looked like a flower to me, so a flower it would be.  I traced out the template on 6"X6" watercolor paper and got to work.  The center is a pattern by Jane Monk but please don't ask me the name.  It isn't in the image that I have, but I think you can find it on tanglepatterns.com.  I'm just too lazy to go and check it out right now.  The rest flowed from there.  I also concentrated on leaving some empty spaces.

I am really pleased with how it turned out.  Applying color evenly is a struggle for me, so I worked on that a lot as well as using darker shades and/or layering the color to get some suggestion of shade.  I resisted the temptation to go in with a pencil and shade.  I always want to pop the layers out but this is so sweet as it is, I was afraid that pencil would muddy it up.

Another color experiment that I did came along when I got stuck.  The drawing was progressing well and then I got stuck.  Unsure as to what to put in my empty spaces, I looked to a friend for a little help, her suggestion? Color.  So with great hesitation, I went for it.  Armed with Tombow markers, some water and a small paint brush, I went in.   For this drawing, I did go back and add pencil for shade.  I worked very deliberatly and carefully with the shading though.  This was just an experiment to see what I could do with the color and shade.  I learned a bit about me and shading as well as leaving some open space.   

Another Duo: Auraknot and Bunzo

It is time for another duo tangle over at The Diva's.  I like duo tangle challenges for several reasons.  One, it is nice not having to think about what patterns to use and two, it usually makes me use tangles that I don't know very well.  This challenge uses Auraknot and Bunzo, two official Zentangle patterns.  I use Auraknot quite a bit.  I really love it.  I confess that I usually use a cookie cutter as a starting place for this pattern.  Maybe one day I'll work up to starting with a freehand design.  Bunzo I enjoy as well, but haven't used very much.  Exploring it this week has been fun.

6X6" cold press watercolor paper, Micron pen and pencil.

When I started this challenge I had no plan at all.  I first marked off the frame.  I wanted a heavier boarder than usual so I pulled out a micron brush pen to make that.  I then drew my auraknot.  There is a little mistake in there.  I almost started over but I just kept at it.  I was hoping that the lines would mask it a bit as I went along, but no such luck.  Oh well, no big deal.

Bunzo just sort of took on a life of its own after that.  For Bunzo, I just went with exploring the process of creating the tangle.  To keep the Auraknot from looking just slapped down, I surrounded it with Bunzo.  After each part seemed to "grow" where it wanted to, I stopped and took a look wondering if I should keep going.  It seemed finished to me so I stopped.  I like the off center-ness of this one.  I hope that you do too.

Have a great week!

Big Tangles Zendala

Wow!  I just looked at when I last posted, it has been too long.  I have to do better.  I will try to get myself back in the groove of blogging.  I have been working away, but I haven't been sharing with you readers. I am sorry.

I am back to share with you my Zendala that I finally got finished this week.  It took me all week to get it done. Not because it was very detailed, but I haven't been sitting down to work like I should.  When I first saw the template from Erin in this week's challenge, I thought "Oh, a flower! This will be easy."  Then as typical for zentangle, where I thought I would go, was not where I ended.  My tangles are all large, they use the whole section.  I really like that about this zendala.  It isn't very floral either.  And, this one is spare.  I decided to leave some white space and I'm glad that I did.  It looks great.

I'm calling this one Biggen Zendala as the tangles are all so big.  I used Gryst by Frances Banks for the first time.  It's the one there in the middle.  I used a variation.  I have to say that I first thought Gryst was going to be simple, and it isn't complicated, but I did have to sit and work out which way my lines were going to go.  The first way or two I tried did not come out right at all.  I don't have the name of the second tangle noted so if you know, please leave it in the comments.  I could go look it up but as it is after midnight, I'll skip it for now.  I then did Paradox around the outer edge.  I love the depth that it brings to the spaces and how it really sets off the "petals".  I liked it so much that I opted to leave them white.  

This zendala is done on an 8" circle.  A friend of mine introduced me to a circle cutter from Martha Stewart's craft line that I really like.  It will cut a 4" circle up to 12".  It is really easy to use but you definitely want a cutting board underneath.  Just ask my card table with a nice circle shape carved in it.  OOPS!  Anyway, it's available everywhere.  I used one of my Michaels coupons to get mine.  This is the first zendala that I have done in a circle and it was fun.  I was tempted to further cut it into a octagon but I was able to stop myself.

Well, I have a long day ahead of me and it starts early in the morning so I better go.  I'll work on getting updates here more often.  I hope you are having a great day!