diva challenge no. 195: 'turning old into new: jailbreaking tangles'

The Diva's weekly Zentangle challenge this week: take a freeform/flowy/scatter pattern and stuff it into a grid, or use a grid-based tangle and break it out. If I hadn't been so tired when I wrote that challenge (late-night, last-minute as usual... 'cause that's how I roll), I would have realized that nearly all of my examples were stuffing tangles into grids and only one tangle pattern got liberated in that post. So I've got a few more examples to show you.

Just a few things to ponder (because I did a terrible job of explaining this in my original post):

• Putting a pattern into a grid is usually easier than taking one out. If you don't know where to start, try a grid first. Lines, dots... start with whatever you like to draw the most.

• Don't be afraid to only use a piece of a pattern you like; it doesn't have to be the whole thing. Picking a pattern in the first place is just so there is a place to start, a jumping-off point to get inspired.

• No grid doesn't necessarily mean no structure, unless you want it to. It just means you don't start with dots or lines in military formation.

Rick's paradox (Zentangle):

Starbarz (Jane Dickinson):

Sunflower (Anne Marks):

I loved this one so much it got its own Bijou tile. 

Drip-drop (Debbie Perdue):

Bronx cheer (Zentangle):

Assunta is the focus tangle on one of my favorite facebook tangle groups this week, so I'm giving it a little legroom too.

and Veezley, which is one of mine. Helloooo, Christmas trees! Very Seussy.

I know this is a tricky challenge and there isn't much zen to it... but it's fun to shake things up and I've already seen some really inspiring tangles out there. Thank you, brave souls...it makes me so happy that you're taking this challenge and running with it. 

Happy jailbreaking. :oD

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Thanks for stopping by! 

Feel free to join me here, 

where I frequently share artsy things that inspire me, 

invite tanglers to share art,

crack silly jokes, 

and offer up the 

occasional 

tangle 

prompt. 

:oD

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Tangle Remix, Vol. I + PUFFLE

I work best when I'm (properly caffeinated and) avoiding something else I should be doing. Yesterday, this room was a disaster. Major upheaval going on in here. I've got at least a couple of hours of work left to do in it, so naturally, I'm diving into something I would rather be doing, and avoiding the mess altogether. There's just something about procrastination that gets my creativity crankin'. 

This is a really rewarding artistic exercise for me, taking tangle patterns I already know and kneading/squishing them into something new. The mission: pick two patterns, adopt at least one element from each, and make a new pattern out of the pieces. Like a lot of things I post on my blog, these tangle patterns were more of an exercise in creativity than relaxation. As far as true Zentangle patterns go, these variations are probably not repetitive enough to get fully submerged in the zen. I dunno... maybe I could still lose myself in them for a while. Or if all else fails, I'm pretty sure I could just lose myself in this room. God knows I haven't seen my desk in weeks. 

Pardon the randomness of the pattern layouts; this post has been in the making for a looong time. 

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Tangle remix no. 1:

Eylet & Ribbon (Lori Howe) & 

Crescent Moon (Zentangle)

Tangle remix no. 2:

Assunta (Zentangle) &

Paizel (Angie Vangalis, CZT)

Tangle remix no. 3:

Huggins (Zentangle) &

Hypnotic (Elena Hadzijaneva)

Tangle remix no. 4:

Afterglo (Carole Ohl, CZT) & 

Cadent (Zentangle)

Tangle remix no. 5:

Assunta (Zentangle) & 

Paradox (Zentangle)

Tangle remix no. 6:

W2 (Zentangle) & 

Dansk (Margaret Bremner)

Author's note: As much as I love the above remix, it's not technically correct. 

You can go here to see what Dansk is *supposed* to look like. 

Tangle remix no. 7:

Fleuri (Genevieve Crabe) & 

Veezley (mine)

Tangle remix no. 8: 

Indy-Rella (Zentangle) &

Joy (Joyce Block, CZT)

Tangle remix no. 9:

Sanibelle (Tricia Faraone) & 

Mumsy (Sandy Steen Bartholomew)

And last but not least...Tangle remix no. 10, my FAVE: 

The basic shape/flow of Prestwood, aura'ed to the nth degree like Cruffle. I love this pattern because it's curvy and flowy, and has natural shading even before the pencil comes along. All of those converging lines naturally darken the parts that would be shaded anyway. Wiiin.

The official how-to:

Some tips for a perfect Puffle:

• Begin and end every inner aura at the same point within each section, down in the 'valley' where all the lines converge.

• Sometimes closing the shapes all the way makes that first outline skew a little bit too far in one direction or another. A couple of 'lobes' can always be added to the next section to compensate, as you can see in the examples above.

• When you draw that first continuous outline, close the loops as much as possible. The more open that space is, the harder it is to add in the auras so they look right:

• As with Cruffle, the step that most determines whether your pattern will look right is the FIRST loop inside the initial outline (shown below in pink). If there is an evenly-spaced gap between the first outline and that first loop all the way around the curve, the rest of the pattern will look fine. Getting that first aura right is like using auto-tune for this tangle (only with less cheating!). Notice that the middles (the last stroke) are not even or perfect, but it doesn't matter because that gap in between the initial outline and the first aura within it are evenly spaced.

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Here are my responses to the challenges you left me in the comments:

Virginia's was a tough one...

...so I faked it. :oD

And here we have Mooka on a stick.

This is me reporting live from my couch... sorry this isn't scanned in like it should be. Been sick the last few days, and my camera phone was just so much closer than my scanner. 

(I'm on antibiotics, and they make me lazy.)

Thanks for posting these challenges for me... they were really fun!

Here's an updated version of Purk vs. Squid WITH pencil guides... Purk looks infinitely better when you're working within a shape and not just drawing it freeform (like the one above).

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come visit me here!

Weekly Challenge #83: DuoTangle v. V: Assunta/Mooka

Hey, tanglers! Weekly challenge time. I'm on it early this week because I'm recovering from a long weekend of frolic and fun... and tangling for a couple of hours sounded so much more inviting than laundry. Who knew?

I don't mind Assunta. Mooka, however, is a problem child. It could just be me (and by the looks of Maria's work, it is) but Mooka always seems to look a little too flat and low-contrast to be really satisfying to use. The variation I ended up with is a pattern I really like, though. The pods and curls are nested more loosely, and the stems are 'skinnified' so there is no confusion with what parts to shade and avoid. If you've never used it, here's your heads-up: when drawn 'correctly', Mooka is a little bit of an optical illusion and has to be shaded carefully so as not to muck it up.

Thanks to the Diva as always, for encouraging me to spend time with something I don't like so I could pinch/poke/squeeze/pound it into something I want to use again. :oD

Short post this week, 'cause I'm working on something FUN. I'll share soon.

Thanks for reading... I hope you find a $20 bill in the dryer. Or the dishwasher... I don't discriminate.

PS... one more.