New Tangle "Fiore"

A new tangle was introduced by Tanglepatterns.com from Jana Rogers and she calls it Fiore. You can look at her step outs here on the tangle patterns web site.

The fun thing about new tangles is you can then play with them and give them your own twist.  These "twists" are called tanglations.  I had some fun playing with Fiore and here are the step outs for a tangleation that found it's way out of my pen!

I started Fiore with pointed ends to the four "legs" of the tangle:

 From here I have found two ways to go about getting to the final pattern.  The first one I think is the easiest and more in the Zentangle mindfulness of one stroke at a time. After the first stroke turn your paper to the right to position it for your next stroke, turning again for the third and fourth strokes. This involves a lot of turning, but there is a flow to it.

click to enlarge

The second is a two stroke at a time solution. Opposite sides drawn at same time. First line is from pointed end to larger end and the next is from larger end to pointed one.  

click to enlarge

Here is one thing you want to avoid.  Try to be aware to not draw two lines that are similar next to each other.  You want them to over lap. (number 4 should have come before number 3)

And, of course, a variation:

One more thing that I discovered about myself is I have a difficult time drawing same sized smaller boxes centered in a larger box.  I have an easier time drawing circles the same size in the center and did this in pencil, then in pen, drew a box around the circle.

I hope this helps those who want to know.  Have fun shading and getting your tangleation on!

Challenge #124 "We are Calgary"

There are several natural disasters that I am aware of at this time and I am sure there are many that I am not.  Everyone will, at one time or another, need to lean on someone else for support.  These hearts were drawn with thoughts of Calgary and India, where waters have flooded and Colorado where fires are out of control.  Help where you can.  Every little bit adds to the healing.

Holey, Printemps. Color is colored pencil.

Stress Free

A wonderful friend of mine gave me a "One Sketch A Day" book for my birthday in March.  I only recently started to "sketch" in it because I have a slight fear of journals. Now that I have started and had some bad days along with good days, sketching wise, I feel a little less intimidated about drawing in a book.  This may be the kick starter I was looking for!

I started this rainy morning in bed with Sandy Steen Bartholomew's Totally Tangled book.  I have had this book for several years, but it is one I go back to over and over because it is packed with ideas and I always seem to come away from it with something new.  She also uses color beautifully and I after drawing a couple tangles (I was catching up on days missed in my one-a-day) I decided to bring out my inexpensive colored pencils and see where it lead.  It lead to a stress free morning and thought I would share.

After I was finished coloring I still had three Tripoli left empty.  I opened The Art of Zentangle, a fairly newer purchase, to Margaret Bremner's section on Zentangle Mandalas.  Margaret is a very talented artist and her work is beautiful. I am very fond of the way she uses black Pearlz and the balance of black and white.  You see in the lower drawing I was playing with her ideas.

Challenge #123 Can you Zentangle without using existing patterns?

I think the answer is YES!

I laid down my frame and string and with inspiration from a scrap drawing my son had left behind I had a go at it.  Thank you Dylan!

I was relaxed, not thinking to much about where the line was  going and totally enjoyed myself.  Is that not Zentangle?

Challenge #122 Grid (un)-Locked

I am remembering back to Certification, close to the last day and a tangle was introduced based on a grid and I thought to my self "OMG, not another grid tangle"!

Well, I will tell you this exercise has totally changed my way of thinking.  As soon as it was mentioned on the Zentangle blog I started a grid on scratch paper and had a go.  The grid keeps getting larger as I think of things.  I wish I had started it in my journal.

When I finally sat down to do a tile I still had the grid on my mind.  An uninteresting string, but I do like the way it came out.

And another one.  So much fun!

Challenge #121 Birds on a Wire

I am entering this challenge "under the wire".  Sorry, could not resist.  Here it is Saturday afternoon and the deadline for entrees is Saturday night. I heave spent this week attending functions, seeing friends, raising a glass or two and splitting my time between Boston and Maine.  I found time this morning to create a tile for this weeks challenge tangle brought to us by Mary Kissel, CZT - and you can see her step outs on her blog here.

At first sight this tangle was not pleasing to my eye, but I think I just did not like being restricted to using it as a repeating pattern on a line, just not right now.  Lately I have been experimenting with stacking and thought I would try birds in a stack instead.

The tile has a lot going on, stacking, organic garden, birds in various forms, but I had fun creating it and I hope you enjoy a bit of unconventionality! 

Bumper, Chainlea, Cat-kin, Birds on a Wire, Henna Drum, Vigne