Knocking out two challenges with one project. Yay! Here is my project for today's suggestion and my "bling" project for this week's Diva's challenge. I love my metallic gelly roll pens to add bling to my projects all the time. To take something nice and turn it into not so nice? Yep, I can do that. This isn't my first go around at this. I have a very vivid imagination. Not too long ago I pondered a card line of pretty cards but with messages that were a little different. Imagine a heart with a nice and sweet message from the sender...
Tangles: Prestwood, 'Nzeppel, Tipple, Cyme
Looks okay, right? Fill it in with something nice and sweet OR
White on white was the suggestion today. Luckily I had accidentally discovered that white gelly roll pen will show up on something white when light is shines through it so I used this clear plastic cube to create a light box. I used my iPhone light to shine under the paper as I drew on white paper I had cut into squares to fit inside the box. I couldn't use tiles because the printing on the back of them would show through when the light was shining. It was VERY subtle and it is not my greatest or favorite work but it was a challenge I was happy to try. I do think the effect on a lamp shade is a pretty cool idea.
Tangles (starting from upper left corner): Buttercup, Ving, Yew-Dee, Snag, Cubine, MoonPie, Ole, On Target, Hypnotic, Zonked, Da'Deal, Hako, Bales, Flourish. 'Nzeppel, Slainte
How about a whole bunch of grid tangles? I imagined it first and saw it sort of like a quilt on a tile and I think it is a pretty good sample of some of the tangles folks have come up with that fit into a grid. So many great tangles from so many awesome tanglers across the world. And that concludes week 9!
Trying to use tiles to make something tall that stands on its own takes some engineering. At first I tried to build a house of cards out of tiles I had already tangled. That was a quick fail of frustration and lack of patience. I decided that setting a regular tile as the bottom and then using ATC tiles glued back to back with the corners bent out and stacked (and glued) would give me a fair shot at creating a self-standing structure. And it worked! It is a bit wobbly but can be righted and will stand on its own. I don't think I could have gone taller than 2 sets of tiles. I like this front side the best, but in the interest of sharing this project, here's the back too.
How fun to get to use the bunches of flowerish tangles out there. I first did a multi colored watercolor wash. Then I just started tangling. No string for this one, I just started adding flowers here and there and filled it in with printemps in the background.
This was a challenge for me. Not the tangling - that I can do but the face. I don't really draw people so I kept it pretty simple and then used tangles for the hair. Quite a few different patterns - and ones I rarely ever get to use. Hair is a great way to try out border type patterns! Give it a try!
The suggestion to use tape in some way today brought me back to my grade school days. I remember making decorative vases for my mom for Mother's Day or something similar by putting small ripped pieces of masking tape on an old juice container and then varnishing it with brown shoe polish to create that genuine antique look. Very classy. I decided to give a try on a tile. I covered a tile with ripped up pieces of masking tape and then tried to add some distress ink. It wasn't drying very quickly so I wiped it off but it did seem to leave a little bit of color. I then used the different sections as the string and tangled within each section and then added some white for detail. I do have to say that white gelly roll pens work MARVELOUSLY on masking tape. It is almost like the pen was made to draw on masking tape. It's pretty busy but was fun!
I just happened to have a stained lampshade that I have been wanting to tangle for years (yup, years).
Before - Ewwww!!!
Can you even believe I lived with this gross lamp shade for so long. Well the suggestion for today freed me from this eyesore and I now have a lovely new lampshade.
The cool thing about it is that I used a white gelly roll pen for the background that you don't really see till you turn the light on. Pretty cool, huh?
String:175 by Audrie Wisenfelder Tangles: Charmzy - Kelly Barone, CZT, Subline - Diane Tai, Calix, Judy Murphy, Pinbawl - David Hunter
One thing that defines the community of zentangle is how mucg we learn from each other. It isn't any one person telling you how to do it, but a community constantly discovering new ways to break out the world into patterns. Of course Rick and Maria started it all.... but it was not something they could contain! So.... What a perfect suggestion for the day. I belong to tanglepatterns.com and I get the emails each week. I end up saving A LOT of them in folders in my email. So today I decided to delve into that treasure chest and pull out (NEVER BEFORE TRIED) a string and tangles to create my work for the day. Fresh and new - stuff I had never done before. I kind of messed up on the subline, but overall i think it is a pretty fun piece and want to thank all the tanglers out there who share their new patterns every day. Zentangle rules!
Yup - junk mail was the suggestion. I ripped off the flap on an envelope we received and tangled it during my day walking with a friend around the city. It was 65 degrees here in February!!! A fun piece for a busy Saturday afternoon.
I used the suggestion for day 41 to finally try my hand at the tangle enhancer dewdrop. I've known about it ever since I did my CZT training in 2009 but I have never really given it a try. I just thought it looked too hard. Well I finally got the courage with the suggestion today and am pretty happy with the results. I think you can see it better when its been photographed. Pretty proud of myself with today's results. I think part of the key was making the tangles outside the dewdrop smaller than I normally would to be able to get more detail in the dewdrop itself. Don't forget the shading around the dewdrop to make it stand out.
Today's suggestion was to use yarn and it had me remembering a tangle I had seen a long time ago that one of my former students created called Itsy Bitsy. I first drew a string to follow for the steps of the pattern. It got more and more complicated as I went along and so I think they all match up but as they say in zentangle, there are no mistakes. See if you can follow the string from one end to the next. Good luck!
Tangling each day with a new suggestion is a challenge I can handle, adding in poetry is pretty mean. I have never fancied myself a poet, but haiku - counting out the syllables (while clapping my hands to make sure I have the count right), I can do that! So I figured out my poem, and put it onto the tile, tangled it, photographed it, uploaded it...and, um, something is missing. A whole syllable is missing! So some quick addition of an ing and there you have it. I thought it was pretty awesome till I saw the missing letters. No idea how that happened. One thing this project is teaching me is to just roll with it and be kind to ourselves. Happy day! Happy tangling!
I decided to revisit my first tile for this challenge. That is going way back! I started tangling on August 25th 2004. Rick and Maria presented as the ice breaker for a meeting I was attending and I got hooked instantly. I numbered my first 5 tiles I created and still have them all today. I had never tried to recreate my first tile to see how different it would look. I think my skill has improved a little bit. :-) This was fun!
Today's suggestion to create under water was a bit tricky. I remembered seeing instructions on how to create marbled paper with nail polish. So after a few You Tube videos I was dunking a tile in water with nail polish and I got a lovely marbled tile. I used some Gelly Roll metallic pens to tangle around a bit and this is what I ended up with. A bit messy and busy if you ask me but it was an experiment worth trying.
So I just happened to have this super awesome red stapler in my office (remember the movie Office Space?) and it was decorated with some stickers but was definitely in the running for a makeover. So out pops the Sharpie pen and wouldn't you know it runs out right in the middle. Of course the craft store doesn't have the right size so it is a trial and error of all my white paint pens to try to pull together. The white on the base with the scratched in Printemps is 'Nzeppel gone horribly wrong with a pen that was WAY too thick. My favorite section is the top (when the good pen still worked). Kind of diggin' the white with the red scratched into it too.
Today's suggestion was to take something old and make it new. I thought about the bunches and bunches of tiles I have in boxes. I have over 10 years of tiles and I knew there were some that I wasn't too thrilled with so I decided to take one of my old tiles and make it new and fresh. I am really happy with this new tile which I think was really kind of boring before. What do you think?
Today's suggestion is to create instructions for others to follow. What better than to share a new tangle with you. This comes fresh from my recent trip to northern Indiana and the wallpaper in my hotel room. I love hotels because there are always interesting carpets or wallpaper with interesting patterns to be explored and broken down. Anyway - I saw this wallpaper and it reminded me of Hollibaugh but had its own feel with the branching of well, the branches and then the cute little leaves to add. It also is oriented in a vertical framework where in the true Hollibaugh it goes in all directions. The other part of today's suggestion is to ask people to try it out - so please feel free to try your own take at Hollibranch. I have included a linking widget below if you want to share your Hollibranch! Below are a couple of my tiles with Hollibranch and the wallpaper inspiration.
Loved how the red and black looked for the breakout so thought I would try it on a tile. Love this one!
With perpendicular branches - not quite as cool as a vertical orientation
I work with wire a lot - to make jewelry but have not incorporated it into a zentangle (paper) project. Thinking about what to create I thought it might be fun to make my own stand for a tile so I decided to give it a shot - and what you see is what I came up with. I got it to stand up with a Bijou tile without falling over so that is what I tangled on to create this overall piece. And now I have a new way to create a quick and nifty gift for someone. Give it a try and make a cute Valentine's Day present for someone. Perfect to keep on a desk and you can just create a new tile to refresh it every now and then.
Today is the first day I really felt the strain of trying to get my project into my day along with all the other stuff that had to happen. It was rushed, it wasn't great and I am really feeling embarrassed by showing it in a blown up form, but also feel compelled to share the reality of "life" and trying to make this happen every day. It was a super long day of teaching all day, driving home, returning the rental, driving home, getting dinner and FINALLY then coming home to do my project. The suggestion for the day was to use a pen. Doing a zentangle a day always includes a pen so that was sort of a given. I decided to pull out my kit and use the icosehedron to do the tangle choosing for me. and Tipple (#14), Purk (#19) and Flukes (#20) were the 3 tangles that came up and using a Bijou tile. So off to bed and see you tomorrow.
I am so excited with today's project. I knew immediately upon reading the suggestion that I wanted to use water colors in the background. But, oh no! I forgot a brush, so I decided to try finger painting. And you know what, I actually think I am a better with water colors finger painting than with a brush. I will definitely have to try some more finger painting with the water colors.
Choosing tangles that represented something ephemeral was the next step. Pop Cloud immediately "popped" up as a choice when I saw it. Then when I saw Diva Dance it reminded me of the ripples in water when a rain drop falls. Totally Ephemeral! Right? Totally digging this one today. See you tomorrow back in Indy!
Writing today from the road. I'm up in Northern Indiana, near Chicago to do some training for work. Nice and quiet in the hotel room and a great place to tangle and wind down for the night. The suggestion today was to create a path. There are a couple things that came to mind when I think of a path. First I thought of a labyrinth, and then I thought of the Eight Fold Path of Buddhism. I really liked that idea. I often read from TheDhammapada: The Sayings of the Buddha and thought this was a nice way to represent the idea of a path. I am not so thrilled with the Buddha representation I drew but I do like the choice of the tangle Namaste for the background - I think it works well on a Renaissance tile. Thanks for stopping by and see you back here tomorrow.
You are only as old as you feel, right? I have some toys hanging around that keep my work spaces fun. One of my favorites is my finger puppet monster collection. I decided to use this guy who lives on top of a lamp in my office. I water colored him onto the Apprentice tile first ( I am a COMPLETE watercolor novice - and open to any instruction) then knew I needed a sci-fi background. I initially started with Mysteria but made the lines branched out like Hollibaugh instead of pointed at the tips. Pretty fun in the end! See you tomorrow!
I have always wanted to try out Sand Swirl and it was perfect for today's suggestion to create a disguise. Nothing is more perfect for hiding in plain sight than a beard on a stick, right? So now that its been a month of daily projects I had to take a moment and think about what I've learned. I think I am becoming more confident in my tangling. Even though I have been practicing zentangle for over 10 years, it has not been a daily thing for me in a long time. It has really given me more confidence that I see in every line I draw. I am also so grateful for all the encouragement and understanding from friends and family. It really does take planning to commit to an hour or two a day to complete a daily project and still have a life. The other thing I am learning is being okay with not being perfect. There is no careful planning out of blog posts in advance - this is all in the moment stuff. Posting a project every day, and sometimes work that I am not too thrilled about can be hard to share in a public forum. But it has really helped me to just have fun with it and leave the (self) criticism behind. Well I think those are the main things I have learned so far. See you tomorrow.
I grabbed some supplies off my desk and laid them out and traced around them to create my string. Not thrilled with this but was a good chance to play with a Renaissance tile. That concludes week 4! See you tomorrow!
Do you remember your dreams? I do sometimes, but not this week. So I was really relieved when I met a friend after work and she said I could use her dream as inspiration. She said she recently had a dream where she was kissing Phil from the show Modern Family. Pretty funny! I instantly thought of lips and decided to use that as my string for the tile. Then I had to decide what tangles to use and I thought of x's and o's and decided to go with tangles that represented those. So I have Vega for my x's and Tipple for my o's. Pretty cool. See you tomorrow to wrap up week 4!!
I was perplexed about the suggestion of portable today. Zentangle is designed to be portable so I wanted to do something other than just a zentangle. I thought about throughout the day with no clue of what I was going to do. I started digging around in my plethora of art supplies and found these key tags I have and thought what a perfect way to carry zentangle around with me - add it to my keys. I chose a tab that is about 1 1/2 inches and tangled both sides with some simple patterns that I thought would be fun and stand out. Covered both sides in a couple layers of Mod Podge and it is ready to go. I think it is a cool way to have a zentangle on hand if someone asks about it too. See you for another fun project tomorrow.
