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 #73: UMT v.V: Bridgen

I think this might be another challenge I have to do more than once, 'cause I. LOVE. BRIDGEN. And I sure do love those danglies. Technically, I don't think they'd qualify as a tangle pattern, but they're so... happy. I may never do another tile without them. :oD

Update: I know I'm breaking some serious Zentangle rules here, but I lean pretty hard toward whimsical/cutesy ALL THE TIME and I've been dying to ignore the rules (no up or down, no representational art) and really have some fun with this pattern. So I threw in a few of my favorite things, and threw the rules out the window.

Just this once.

Weekly Challenge #72: "Tanglation Nation - Crescent Moon"

I had buckets o' fun with this weekly challenge. 

I learned how to draw Crescent Moon early on, and I didn't realize until recently that I was drawing it wrong. Yes, yes, I know there are no mistakes in Zentangle... but I can tell you that my crescent moon looks much better now than it used to. 

Because it was WRONG. ;o)

I could do this challenge every day until the next one surfaces. Thanks to Laura, as always, for the adventure!

 I was inspired by the little dangly things I've been seeing in Tangleville, so I test drove a few... gotta say, they're reeeally fun to draw.

Very soon I'll be kicking off a two-week contest for a free tangle jar, and once I get that under way we can get going on a bookmark swap. Keep an eye on facebook for info. Can't wait! I hope whoever gets mine likes those little dangly things, 'cause I am ALL OVER THAT. 

:oD

5.31.12 Adding a few more... I don't normally color my tangles, but I thought I'd give it a whirl. 

Size 08 Micron pen and Inktense watercolor pencils. And a waterbrush.

Copic colored pens and Gelly Roll clear stardust pen

pink Micron Pigma pen and Inktense watercolor pencil in fuchsia