"If you're not being challenged, you're not getting any better." Bart Brooks
As promised, I'm back with another segment of my Zenduo adventure. For #7 I grabbed a colored tile that has been sitting in my pile for a LONG time. It was colored using Dylusions paints, some pink and some purple. The next two tangles in my collection were Atorm (by Mate Mavromat... sp?) and Auraknot from Zentangle.com. They are two very different tangles, so I chose to focus on Auraknot and make a border for it with Atorm. I like the off-center Auraknot and was very happy with my tile.
Here it is with some shading on Auraknot. I used my purple pastel pencil to help pull out some more of the purple in the background.
I also completed Zenduo #8. Talk about two very different tangles... here's a grid, B'Twined (by Pegi Schargel), and a very organic pattern, B'Dylan (by Mary Beth Schoonover). It was tough figuring out how to put these two together, but I managed to come up with something...
One thing I am loving about my Zenduo adventure (besides it forcing me to use a lot of my seldom used tangles), is that it makes me come up with creative combinations. Many of the pairings I will be doing are not tangles that I would normally put together. The challenge is good for me!
In case you are new to my blog and have no idea what my Zenduo adventure is all about, you can get informed here.
"The way to stay inspired and motivated is by doing what you like, doing what you love." Raphael Saadiq
Happy August everyone! I don't know how the weather is by you, but it's broiling hot and humid here in Charleston, SC. No surprise there, but I'm ready for fall. So it was nice to take a vacation and get a break from the weather here. First stop was Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, for CanTangle, a 3 day retreat for CZTs. Temps there were in the 80s at their peak, but that felt comfortable compared to what I'm used to. Then for our drive down the Oregon coast the average high was 70 degrees (55 at Crater Lake!), and I loved every second of it. In my opinion, that is perfect weather for vacationing.
But let's go back to Canada and a very fun, educational, and inspiring 3 days of tangling. I got to meet and take classes from the famous Laura Harms, better known as the Diva of the weekly Diva challenges, Margaret Bremner, whose work I've admired for so long, and Lisa Heron, the wonderful and very energetic host of the event. I also took some great classes from people I had previously met - Cris Letourneau, author of Made in the Shade and co-author of Pattern Play, as well as Bette Abdu, Brenda Shaver, and Molly Hollibaugh. In addition, I met and re-met about 40 additional CZTs. So much talent and knowledge was shared. In case you're wondering about the title of my blog today, that's words from the song "Happy" by Pharrell Williams, which sort of became the theme song for the weekend.
Today I'm going to share just a little of what I created in Canada... a few of the small things. Once I complete (or should I say IF I ever complete) the larger projects, I will share them here also. First is a monotangle (one pattern) tile using the pattern Diva Dance (maybe you can figure out in whose class this was done?)
Next is a tile using Hollibaugh (maybe you can figure out whose class this was from also?) filled with N'zeppel. The tile was completed as a meditative activity, being guided only by the soothing voice of Molly (did you guess?), without any visuals.
This one is from Cris' class on pattern play, creating tangleations, or variations, of existing patterns. Auraknot with rounded points, and filled with some Tipple.
The last one is a tile I created one evening, in my hotel room, all alone. I had wanted to try out the new pattern Frost Flower since it's made from all straight lines and I love straight lines (or at least fairly straight lines). I added shading with a blue pastel pencil, and I love the way this turned out, even though I made a couple of "mistakes."
One more thing - there were TONS of door prizes given out. Among other things, I won a set of Zentangle coasters donated by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. I was going to put them out in a pile on the end table in my family room, but I had a better idea. The table has a glass top with a wood shelf underneath it. So here's what I did...
Now they're on display for everyone to see. Sorry about the quality of the photo... it's hard to take a picture of a glass table without reflections.
Now that I'm home from vacation I need to get back into the swing of things - I went a whole week without any tangling!
"We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths."
Walt Disney
A new month, a new season, and some new supplies. Today was a day for trying out new things. For my blog post last week I used Auraknot as a string for my Zentangle. Today I used a tangleation of Auraknot as the centerpiece of my tile.
In addition to using a new tangleation, I created this Zentangle on an apprentice tile rather than a regular Zentangle tile or a page of my journal. It was my first time using the larger 4 1/2 inch tile which is made from Canson XL Bristol paper, rather than the "100% cotton, heavy-weight fine artists' paper with a beautiful vellum surface finish" (words taken from Zentangle.com) that the regular 3 1/2 inch tiles are made from. Also using the Pigma Pen 05 (that comes with the Apprentice kit) for the first time, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked the pen and tile. The tile is a little brighter white, and the pen moved effortlessly across the tile's surface which is smoother than the regular Zentangle tile. It's sometimes nice to have a little bigger area to tangle on.
One more new toy I played with today was a gold Wink of Stella brush. You can see a little bit of the glittery shimmer in this picture, but it's much more obvious in person.
I also have a clear Wink of Stella brush which applies
the glittery look on top of any color you paint it on. I love the
effect of these brushes, especially the fact that they are so glittery without the mess of glitter, so I just placed my order for several more colors. They should be great for making holiday cards. I'll let you know how that goes.
"The most exciting attractions are between two opposites that never meet."
Andy Warhol
This week's Diva challenge
was to do a duotangle (a Zentangle using two tangle patterns), with
Knightsbridge (checkerboard) and Tipple (circles). A study in opposites,
squares and circles.
My first
try was a traditional Zentangle with some variations of Knightsbridge
along with Tipple interspersed between the squares. But it was much too
busy looking and just didn't live up to my expectations.
So I decided to give it another try using a totally
different approach. I began with the Auraknot pattern as my string and
filled the bands with alternating rows of Knightsbridge and Tipple.
After adding a little extra Tipple and some shading I was finished, and
much more satisfied with this tile.
