Everybody Wins!

Sandy Bartholomew Steen has had a contest running for the past seven or eight weeks. Enter your drawings of her tangles to win one of her new Tangle Card Packs.  I entered all but one.  This last one was to use Gewgle, a funny play on google eyes, this is what it looks like:

You can see all the entries HERE.  Sandy is so generous she deemed all entries winners!  Thank you for all the "likes" on my silly picture, you are all very kind.

This tangle comes from her Tangle Card Pack for Kidz. "This pack of cards has tons of great, non-juvenile, patterns in it", says Sandra. "The "Kidz" just means that there are some Lilah Beans integrated into the pack." 

Speaking of Kidz, she also has a sister blog for Kids HERE!  Go check it out as there is a contest running there for all ages "Tag your I-T-T-T!."  I may have to go find some tags. I think I have some hanging around here some place.

Have fun this holiday weekend with your kids or grandkids or the neighbors kids!

Weekly Challenge #133: Tipple

"Tipple" is a grouping of different sized orbs with spaces between filled in with black or left open. It can be monotonous to draw a lot of but, it is really satisfying to look at once done. I love orbs/circles in general and this was really fun to use the pattern of a rubber cement resist colored with a turmeric stain. I found the process pleasing as well as the end result.

Tipple

Weekly Challenge #132: "Non-Domonotangle"

I have had a busy week on land and sea and it has been so much fun.  From Maine on Musgongus Bay then onto Newport RI and a cruise on Naragannsett Bay with friends, back to Boston MA and onto Gloucester MA, for a trip deep sea fishing on the Yankee Fleet.  I landed three "keephas" and met some really nice people on the boat.  I am back in Maine and trying to catch up on daily drawings and challenges.

This weeks challenge is drawing with your non dominate hand which I would have gladly skipped but as the Diva says, "Not only does it increase your creativity, but using your non-dominant hand makes your brain fire in ways it's not used to, and that's a good brain workout". I am going with that.

Here is my brain firing in new increased creativity tile.  I must say it is fun when you let yourself go and see what happens.

Thank you for the challenge!

 Bales

Framing Practice

These are envelopes that contain theater tickets for my friends. This is a great way to get in some framing practice!

Yincut, Knase, Verve, Tripoli, Dex

Weekly Challenge #131: "Monotangle - Dex-teria"

Mono-tangles are usually a favorite prompt of mine and I do love the Dex tangle but, I just didn't find my groove on this one.

I used one of my "stained" papers from the recent tutorial I did and my alphabet stencils and tried my best.

I have found that sometimes those things I don't particularly love, others may actually like. So going with the convictions of the Diva and post whether you like it or not, I will do!

My favorite thing about this piece is the tangleation in the X in which I drew the line from the corners of the inner black squares to a different corner of the outer square.

Dex, black micron, white gelly roll, Fabrico cool gray

"Stained" Tutorial

After posting my coffee stained piece I was asked to do a tutorial on rubber cement resist.  I really love that people love learning new things and this one is so much fun and rewarding.

First off, let me say I am staining with left over coffee. You can color your piece with just about anything as long as the paper you are using will stand up to a bit of water.  So you can you use watercolors of any type, paint, tea, wine, even turmeric made into a paste and brushed on.

I have two pieces here. One is a Zentangle® Tile and the other larger on is a piece of Canson watercolor cold press 140 lb paper.

*First step is to get the rubber cement onto the paper.  This can be accomplished by dripping the rubber cement from the brush onto the paper.  I have found if you remove the brush from the tin and immediately turn the brush upside down to sort of collect the cement onto the brush you will have a good amount to drip or *trail* onto your paper. You can also brush it on for larger negative spaces or use other appliances like a chopstick, fork, smaller painting brush etc. Once it is on the paper, let it dry completely.

*Now you are ready to color or stain your paper. I have used a little left over coffee and a paint brush to apply.  Brush evenly over paper. The paper may tend to curl.  Manipulate the paper, bend side to side or end to end or simply rotate the paper to get the stain where you want it. Some areas will have a heavier stain than others.

You can even go back once it has dried a bit and add some more color to areas you would like darker.

*When this has dried completely you are ready to remove the rubber cement. You should be slow and deliberate with this step as paper is fragile and can rip. Although, it can add a "distressed" look to your piece if you desire. Two ways of going about this. One is to rub the cement off, although I have experienced more tears this way. The other is to start and edge and slowly pull the rubber cement off the tile.

Here the dried papers and then the papers minus the rubber cement.

You can choose to use the negative space as a string or the space where you tangle or, as I did earlier, just tangle over the top.

I will be back to post what I have done with these in a couple of days or so. Tangle on!

Inspiration

I was inspired to try some new techniques out this week and the inspiration came from some left over iced coffee in the bottom of a jug.

My husband and I invited some friends to visit us in Maine for a weekend to celebrate birthdays, catch up with one another and engage in some shenanigans.  All was accomplished!  One of our guests owns the  1369 Coffee House in Inman Square Cambridge MA, awarded the Best of Boston Coffee House 2013 (among other past awards), and he brought his very delicious iced coffee with him!  It comes in this incredible jug:

We imbibed all weekend but there was a bit left in the bottom of the jug so.................

The techniques I wanted to try out were rubber cement resist, coffee staining, tangled numbers, and framing or bordering.  I have managed to get them all into this project which highlights 1369 Coffee House.  I took about 10 hours, off and on, and I find the end result worth it.

I may have to start a "Stained" series. Hmmmm

Framed

So it has been said, by Maria (Thomas) I believe, that if you can tangle you can border.  Well sure, that makes sense except, when I go to "border" something this voice way in the back of my head says, "are you sure you know how to do that?" I thought I had silenced that voice but, no, it is still there.

Today it was again rainy and quiet so I thought I would take borders/frames on.  I am starting simply by drawing just two parallel straight lines and filling them in.  It was a nice exercise and I like how the page looks now that it is full.  I will continue with this on other pages and see if I can't just quite that little voice down a little bit more.

Meer, Purk, Sheenwaz, Vega, Chainlea, Snail, Tripoli

Weekly Challenge #130: Henna Drum

I love this tangle given to us by none other than the very talented Jane Mackugler.  You can find her step outs to this pattern HERE.

I have used this tangle many times before and it is always a pleasure to draw.  Today I went "string free" and just put pen to paper. It was a cool morning and I drew while bread was baking in the oven. There is nothing better then bread in the oven, dog at your feet and a pen in your hand with a blank piece of paper waiting to be transformed. Well, there are some other things but, today this will do just fine.

Henna Drum, Printemps, Copada

Tangle Card Challenge #4 - Kaleido

Sandra Steen Bartholomew has a new tangle this week for her Tangle Card Contest and I think she might have had me in mind when she decided to give us a simpler tangle to work with this week.

This is the Tangle Card with Kaleido stepped out.

  

She suggests that the pattern made after drawing the "grid" can be used as a string and the spaces can be filled with tangles.  Well that intrigued me and off I went.  

I started with a circle to pay homage to a kaleidoscope, although I am not really sure what Sandra named it after but, it reminded me of one. My straight lines I used vertically (just because I could) and my curvy any-which-way lines kind of crossed the straight ones.  I should have taken a before picture, sorry. I filled in the Printemps with sepia .005 Micron and was going to leave the alternate spaces white but, then looking at it, a black pattern was asking to be drawn. The end result reminds me of fine Japanese paper.

I could not find the black pattern named anywhere but I have the same pattern on my soy sauce dishes used for sushi:

If anyone out there has a name for it please let me know!

Weekly Challenge #129: String Theory v. XXV: Tanglel Patterns String#004

This weeks challenge from the Diva is to use a sting that has been contributed to the tangle patterns web site.  The string chosen was #4 by Sue Agnew and it looks like this:

          

For some reason I didn't connect with this string.  It's not the strings fault but, things happen that way sometimes.  My first tile looks like this:

'Nzeppel, Munchin

I did not really like the results but, I do keep every tile.  I wanted to try something organic and did a quick sketch in my daily sketch book.  The string is turned on it's side and does not follow it closely.

I think I am ready for a new week of challenges and contests!

Poke Root, Skein, Leaf, Black Pearlz