Sepia Challenge

I am late! It was a busy week here.  School is out soon and there are lots of goings on that kept me away from  blogging.  I was able however, to squeeze in the challenge from The Diva.  I like using sepia markers for zentangle drawing.  I think that they can be just as zen as a black micron pen and maybe even more so, as the brown is easy on the eyes.  Well, mine anyway.

Since I'm late, I'll just cut right to the chase.

I have a set of sepia pens as well as the lighter brown one that you see here.  I kept it pretty simple using only the three tangles.  The bottom is my first try at the new tangle Pea-nuckle.  That deserves some more attention. I have the basics down but I tried to crowd it here.  I think I'm in need of a new 01 sepia micron too.  The top is Atorm.  I messed up in my initial grid so I had to do a variation instead.  The middle is Ticking.  I was playing with it a bit and trying to make it look like a bit of a stripe.  I don't think it looks like I hoped but I still like it.

I am looking forward to summer break.  Things will settle down a little, and that will be nice.  I will have to fight the kids for the desk top a bit but as Mom, I get to trump their game playing.  :)

Have a great week!

Diva's Challenge #26 - Spiral String

This week the challenge is to use a spiral as a string.  Another great challenge for me as I really haven't used a spiral before.  I hardly use spiral style tangles and I certainly haven't used a spiral as a string.  Yea for another challenge that makes me do something I haven't done before! 

Yesterday,  Sandra Strait sent out a tweet with a link to Brayd, a new tangle from Shelly Bauch.  I really like it.  It is fun and looks more complex than it is.  Once I saw that the challenge was a spiral, I knew that I was going to give Brayd a try.

I used the sepia micron for this challenge.  I wanted to experiment with trying to shade the sepia and a challenge is a great place to stretch myself.  I used Derwent drawing pencils and Lyra Rembrant Polycolor colored pencil in Van Dyke brown for shading.  To shade with the Derwent pencils, I rubbed the color on a tortillion and then used the colored tortillion to shade.  In shading that way, I'm able to get the color smudged on the way I want.  I can also go back and layer on more color if I want it darker.  For the white, I used a gellyroll pen.

So, without further explanation, here is my tile.

I was planning on combining buttercup with the knightsbridge for the entire background but once I started, I decided that I didn't like it as much as I thought I would.  I think that it's the gellyroll pen.  I kept pressing down too hard I think.  I need to get a better white pen.  The gellyroll is great for many things, but I dislike the way the ink flows.

I like how the Brayd came out.  I will certainly be using it again.  I think that it will be a new favorite.

Brayd before I added background and shading.

Before shading and buttercup. I think I should have stopped here.