Adventures in Monotangles #4: Indy-rella

Roy's Monotangle prompt of the week: Indy-rella.

I don't use this one much, but it has a lot of potential:
• the clusters of ((((s can take any shape.
• good for focus- requires very deliberate pen strokes or it looks messy.
• generous shading keeps it from looking flat.
And like a lot of tangle patterns, a simple wash of color can give it a little oomph without being overwhelming.

I don't really know why I just wrote that as a bulleted list. I'm so tired right now.

oh, and happy Easter!

Weekly Challenge #111: "Mooka"

Well... the Diva doesn't call it a challenge 'cause it's cake. 

If there's one tangle pattern I struggle with, it's Mooka. On the rare occasion when I use it, I get better results making it a mishmash of Mooka and Flux. Tried it a couple times... here are 1.0 and 2.0:

Is it still a monotangle if I made it a hybrid of two tangle patterns and threw in a third (Puffle) as a string? I vote yes. 'Cause WE are the music-makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.' 

...and am I the only one that sees Odie ears when they look at Mooka??

Don't forget to water the markers.

Much like the discussion of warm, gooey fudge brownies, spirited talk of art supplies can inspire some pretty intense cravings around here. Maybe it's just me... but after encountering several discussions and blog posts about Tombow's dual brush markers a while back (not to mention the incredible colors in this Youtube video), I just had to get my twitchy fingers on some. The stack of vibrant colors in the photo below all started with simple scribbles of all the colors and a slightly over-enthusiastic flood of water from my waterbrush. The ink tangles came later, after the first layer dried. Most of it is Micron ink; a couple of the colors are Le Pen.

The cool thing about these water-based markers is the watercolor effect that happens when they get wet. A waterbrush is a mighty convenient way to blend colors without a lot of effort or mess. I use both Pentel and Niji.

Two things to remember when using Tombows: 1) don't let the marker dry for too long before adding water, and 2) they're not lightfast. The Tombow USA FAQ page says that some artists have had success preserving their work with Lascaux and Mod Podge. Haven't tried either so I can't recommend, but I'm definitely ok with learning from other people's mistakes instead of making my own. And FYI, they're pressurized, so they can be stored horizontally or vertically.

 

I don't normally cross-post between here and facebook because I try for original content in both places, but since this photo was supposed to be vertical and I had to flip it to use it as a cover photo, I figure it's not *technically* the same piece of art. Plus I like it, and if it's gonna be hanging out there in the cyber-breeze, I want people to see what it's really supposed to look like.

 

I have to go play with my markers now.

 

 

Weekly Challenge #110: "Get rid of the box"

This week's Diva challenge was to 'get rid of the box', and do something outside the realm of what we normally do when we tangle. So I traced the nearest box-shaped item (my parents' garage door opener) with the intention of tangling outside of it, 'cause I thought a literal interpretation of the challenge would be fun. It wasn't until I was finished with it that I realized I mistook 'get rid of the box' for 'thinking outside the box'. And it kinda ruined the effect I was going for anyway when I kept going and filled it in, but I really couldn't help myself. There are still a couple of things that make this unusual for me... I haven't done very many mandalas, and there are a couple of new tangle patterns in the mix. 

The recurring theme here in my blog seems to be 'Embrace plan B!' and I LOVE that. Mistakes are nothing but opportunities to travel down new paths. So I leave you with a few relevant quotes:

"There can be no progress without deviation from the norm." -Frank Zappa

"Never apologize." -Julia Child

"If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you." -Unknown

Adventures in Monotangles: Leaning tower of Paradox.

Roy's single-tangle challenge of the week: Rick's Paradox.

I combined Paradox with Assunta and an accidental variation of Cadent for this challenge (I'm pretty sure it has a name, though I can't remember what it is). It's not the greatest picture but my mom had surgery last week and I'm looking after her at her house.... and since my scanner (surprisingly) doesn't fit in my monstrous purse, my camera phone'll do for now. :oD

SNORR

Once upon a time (yesterday) there was a girl (me) who had a morning appointment at the dentist.

Like every teenager in the waiting room (what better way to spend spring break, eh?) I updated my status on facebook: 'Waiting room at the dentist. Ho hum.' One of my fellow CZTs, Sharon Payne, suggested that I tangle to pass the time until my appointment. I joked that I was too sleepy to tangle, and she told me I should create a new tangle pattern and call it 'snore'. Woohoo, challenge accepted!

So I began dreaming up ways to construct a pattern entirely out of Zs... got out my pen and my little tin of Zentangle tiles. Naturally, that was the moment the dental hygienist opened the door and called my name. Rude.

The bare-bones version:

The how-to:

Start with a plus sign. Each 'branch' of the plus sign will be the TOP of a Z when you turn your tile:

Notice 1) the gap between each plus sign and 2) the gap on the bottom where 3) each Z is slightly rounded and 4) does not touch the one beside it... those are the tiny little details that will keep your pattern from looking like this: 

Not that it's not lovely too... but if you want to end up with that one, there are much easier/less messy ways to draw it.

It's faster (and involves less tile-turning) to draw a row of plus signs and draw several at once. I have yet to do it that way without messing up, but I do have a head cold, so I'm gonna go ahead and blame it on that.

A few variations:

I like this one the most, because darkening every other one makes the 'nested' effect within the pattern more obvious.

with circles instead of gaps...

with two lines instead of one in the plus sign:

with some scrolly stuff thrown in:

...and with a ribbony effect.

Here's a happy little ZIA (Zentangle-inspired art) with snorr, cat-kin, sanibelle, antidots, cruffle, pokeroot, and tipple...

Thanks for visiting... if you're on facebook, you can click here to join the tanglebucket studio page for tangle prompts and other tangle-related things that are less involved than my normal blog posts. 

Have a _____ week!

I'll let you fill in the blank... I'm not feeling that bossy today.

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Adventures in Monotangles #1: new challenge

Woohoo... there's a new kid in the Zentangle challenge pool! I'm jumping in on the very first one... no pun intended. Since this is the first challenge Roy Stauffer has posted, I'm not sure if his challenges will all be monotangles (variations of one tangle pattern per tile) or if he will branch out and add different themes.

I chose Huggins for my pattern. I realize I may have overdone it, but once I started, I didn't really want to stop. And as the Diva says... Zentangle is about the process, not the product! Since I am ill-equipped to show you the former, I present to you the latter:

Looking forward to seeing what Roy throws out next. And now it's onto the Diva's weekly challenge. It's pouring outside- great tanglin' weather!