Somnee

"A picture is worth ten thousand words."   
Fred R. Barnard

I'm back! I haven't been tangling much in the last few weeks as I've been preoccupied with another passion of mine. Photography. My husband and I decided to open an Etsy shop to sell prints of our photographs. It took quite a bit of work and time setting it all up, but we finally did it. If any of you would like to take a peek, you can see the shop, Seen Thru The Lens, here. And if you're interested in following us on FB, please "like" our page here. 

So, now that that's done I can get back to tangling, and I sure have missed it! I shouldn't let myself go so long without picking up my pens. I'm diving back into it with an entry for the Diva's challenge, using her own tangle Somnee. The name comes from a night of insomnia, and I can sure relate to that! I haven't had a good night's sleep in a very l-o-n-g time. 

Here's the zendala tile I used to draw on... one of the tiles I make using alcohol inks. 

The swirl gets a little lost in the tangling, but here is what I did. I drew Somnee in blue, and then added some Crescent Moon, Fassett, and a drop of Tipple in black pen. 

Then I added some shading used an indigo pastel pencil, along with some graphite.

Somnee is one of those tangles where it's hard to know when to stop. I could have just gone on and on with it (I love lines), but made myself stop so I could include some other patterns. 

Well now that I've gotten back into the swing of tangling, I hope to start sharing more often again. Thanks for stopping by, and hope to see you back here soon.

 

Knightsbridge Drama

"Black and white creates a strange dreamscape that color never can."      
Jack Antonoff

I love the drama that Knightsbridge brings to any piece of Zentangle art work. Recently I completed some tiles using Knightsbridge as a monotangle (just one pattern), and I decided to do some more. This time I'm using pre-strung tiles from zentangle.com. 

Here is the first one. I like the string and most of the tile, but I'm not too happy with the way that bottom loop came out, the one where it looks like diamonds.

The next one is fairly simple, nothing fancy, but I do like the way it turned out.

The string on the next one was squares within squares.

I thought since I was working on pre-strung tiles, I might as well go ahead and tangle one of my own pre-strung tiles. The colored ones I make with alcohol inks and sell in my etsy shop. Here's the way the zendala tile looked before tangling.

And here it is after adding Knightsbridge to all the pathways.

Then I decided to try adding little white dots as embellishments. I'm not sure that I like it, but I'm sharing it with you anyway.

Knightsbridge is such a simple but fun tangle. If you haven't used it in a while, try some to add a little drama to your day!

Paradox

"Take away paradox from the thinker and you have a professor."    
Soren Kiergegaard
 
The Diva's challenge this week is to do a monotangle (only one pattern) with the tangle pattern Paradox. One of my favorite tangles. First I took a tile that I had colored with Dylusion paints a long time ago. I drew random triangles to form my string and filled them with Paradox. I LOVE lines!

Then I randomly filled in some of the spaces to add contrast. This tile was all about randomness.

Next, I decided to do something more symmetrical.

Again, I filled a few spaces with black, and added some graphite shading.

Paradox... I love the mesmerizing effect it has. At least for me.

 

Colored Tiles Are Back!

"Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment."       Claude Monet

I am so happy to announce that my Etsy shop is fully open once again after a long time of intermittent closures. And except for the week of Thanksgiving, it should stay open consistently. I hope. To celebrate the re-opening, I am offering a discount on all purchases for a short time, but you'll have to read, or at least scroll down, to the end of my post to get the coupon code for your discount.

I'm sharing lots of photos here of work that I've completed on my hand-colored tiles, showing them both before and after tangling. I love the colors in this first one and love doing lots of line work.

The next one has lots more line work, on a totally different type of background.

I also have a collection of what I call geometric tiles, and this one is part of that collection.

Another series I call pathway tiles. These are created with alcohol inks, just like all the tiles are, but using a special method that creates what looks like paths to me. I have them in both gray and colored. This one is an example of one of the grays.

Here's an example of one of the colored Zendala tiles.

This one has some of my favorite colors in a little bit of a swirl.

And another Zendala, this one with a rippled effect.

I completed this last tile a while ago, but it's one of my favorites, both in the colors and the tangling, so here it is again. It's an example of one of the colored pathway tiles, similar to the gray one above.

In addition to colored tiles, gray tiles, Zendalas, and geometric tiles, I've created a line of digital papers using alcohol ink backgrounds. They're available with lines for writing or unlined for an unlimited number of different uses. Please take a look at them while you're over in my Etsy shop perusing the various tiles. Here are just a few examples of the papers that you'll find.

And for those of you who stuck with me all the way to the end of this long post, you can get 10% off any order between now and November 15th. Just enter the coupon code FALL17 when you check out. 

Diva Duo

"Color in a picture is like enthusiasm in life."
Vincent Van Gogh

I haven't participated in the Diva's challenge for a while. But I had to jump in this week after seeing the challenge - to draw a duotangle (uses only two patterns) with Paradox and Diva Dance, two of my favorite tangles. 

Since I'm up to my ears in colored tiles getting ready for the launch of my new tiles on Etsy, I decided to go ahead and use one of those tiles. So here is the tile before I put my pen to it.

 I started with a triangle and filled it with Paradox. Then I decided to have a little Diva Dance line up next to it, and from there it all fell into place... triangle, fill with Paradox, Diva Dance, repeat. 

I added some shading with graphite and I was finished.

I love the colors in this and am so happy with the way it turned out. My end result is not always as nice as my vision of it, but this one didn't disappoint.

 

Tile Preview

"Boldly dare to be a pop of color in a black and white world."    Unknown

I've been spending tons of time making new colored tiles for tangling. I recently introduced some of the new tiles, and while I'm preparing the rest of them to be ready for my Etsy shop, I'm sharing some of the new ones along the way. These are tiles I created with alcohol inks, and then twisted, swirled, waved, and otherwise played with in Photoshop to create some very cool and unique effects.

This one is a blue and green swirl.

I decided to follow the swirl, using just Cubine, and added shading with green pastel pencil. But instead of just blending it with a tortillion, I dipped the tortillion in mineral spirits first, and then blended. I think that this helps set the pastel pencil so that it doesn't rub off at all. 
 

I love the waves in this next tile.

I ignored the waves when tangling, so that they form the random coloring behind the tangles (using Static, Sand Swirl, Jobowtie and some orbs.)

Purple and pink pastel pencils were used to shade.

Here's one more tile that I've already shared on Facebook, but in case you haven't seen it there...

Just lots of pretty colors, tangled with Organic and Pokeleaf. And a touch of graphite shading.

It's so much fun tangling on the very varied backgrounds of the tiles. Stay tuned for more samples, including Zendalas.
And I'll be sure to let you know when I actually launch them on Etsy.

And to let you in on a secret, for you paper crafters out there, I am also making these into digital papers for scrapbooking and other crafts, as well as lined writing papers. I'm so excited about this! 

 

Keeko Challenge

"Accept the challenges so that you can feel the exhilaration of victory."    
 George S. Patton

Just here to share my tile for the Diva's challenge this week, which was to use the pattern Keeko. I chose one of my pre-strung colored tiles, which you can see here in my Etsy shop (the shop will be closed until after Thanksgiving). This is not the exact same tile, but close to it, that I started with.

I tangled the pathways using Keeko, and then shaded with graphite. I stopped shading halfway so I could scan it and show the difference shading can make.

Then I finished the shading.
 

 

That's it for this time. Hope to see you back here soon!

 

Study of a Tile

"It's easy to make good decisions when there are no bad options."    Robert Half

I've been having so much fun with my pre-strung colored tiles! Here is one of them that I wasn't so sure that I liked at the beginning, but it has grown to be one of my favorites.

Since there are so many different options for tangling these tiles, I decided to take this tile and tangle on it using three different methods/styles. In the first one I show here, I tangled mostly on the "pathways", using one pattern. This is the way I tangled them when I first designed the tiles. I love how relaxing it is to follow the paths without any thinking about where to go next, especially when I just draw with one pattern (I've also tangled them like this using two patterns.) I didn't add any shading to this one, and opted to leave a chunk of pathway untangled.

Pattern used: Diva Dance

Another way to use the tiles is to tangle behind/in between the paths. Although this is not my favorite way to tangle them, I've learned that I like them better when I leave some of the behind spaces open instead of tangling them all. On this tile I added some color using stardust gelly roll pens and some shading with pastel pencils.

Patterns used: Purk, Fassett, Falls, Tipple, and Crescent Moon

For my last one, I chose to just tangle, kind of ignoring the pathways. Not necessarily tangling on them or behind them... just wherever my pen decided to go. By the way, all of these were tangled using a Micron 01 pen. When I first started on this one, I wasn't too sure about it. But I have to say that this is now one of my all time favorite tiles that I have ever made! What really brought this one to life for me was the shading, which I did a little differently than ever before. I shaded using pastel pencils, which is nothing new, as I use them a lot. But after that shading, I went back with graphite and added darker edges, which, I think, added more depth to the tangles. I've never combined pastel pencil and graphite shading together in the same pieces/shapes/elements.

Patterns used: Flux and Pokeleaf

So there you have it, an in-depth study of one tile. Depending on your individual tastes and style of tangling, there are so many different ways to use these tiles. No bad options - I love the quote that I began this post with. (I wish that today, on the eve of Election Day here in the U.S., I could say that this was the case.) If you'd like to give my tiles a try (they're also available in Zendalas), please check them out in my Etsy shop.

Off the Beaten Path

"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."    Ralph Waldo Emerson

I'm back... with more Zendala pre-strung colored tiles. I had such a great response to the square pre-strung tiles I made, that I decided to create the same tiles as Zendalas. Just very briefly, in case you haven't seen them yet, these are created with alcohol inks on yupo paper and then printed on Bristol vellum, a great surface for tangling. If you missed it, you can read more about the process in my blog from a few months ago.

I will warn you that this is going to be a long post, with lots of photos. Please stick with me to the end.... I don't think you'll be disappointed. I am so excited today to include art work here by my friend, CZT Sonya Yencer. Her tangled pieces are always beautiful, so I asked if she would tangle some of my new Zendala tiles to give you a different perspective on what can be done with them. And she said yes! But first, take a look at some of the Zendalas that I just completed (all include before and after photos, but the befores may not all be turned in the same direction as the afters.)

The first is a multi-colored tile tangled using black micron, stardust gelly rolls, and white gelly roll pen. The patterns used are Antidots, D'rua, Verdigogh, and Tipple. I chose, for the most part, to ignore the pathways and just go for it. I love the coloring in this tile.

The next tile was created in a more monochromatic color scheme. I tangled the pathways using Cadent, but didn't fill in all the paths. Less is very often more, and I have to keep telling myself that. Then I filled in some of the background spaces with Printemps using a white gelly roll pen and a touch of stardust gelly rolls. I kept telling myself, "Don't do it all...don't do it all!"

 

 

Next up is a tile with more earthy tones. So I decided to use a brown micron on this one, with touches of stardust and white gelly roll pens again. At first I wasn't sure that I liked the combination of Munchin and Sand Swirl that I used, but by the time I was done I had changed my mind.

Jumping from earth tones to much brighter pink, purple and blue... on this one I filled some of the background areas with the light and airy patterns N'zeppel and Frost Flower. I added a touch of white highlights using a white pastel pencil, and I ended up liking this one more than I thought I would when I began it.

The last one of my tiles that I have to share with you... for now... is one of the tiles from my gray collection. Just shades of gray in these, no color. That is, until I started tangling. I tangled all the pathways in this one (with variations of the pattern Emingle), using black and red microns, adding shading with graphite and a red pastel pencil. I have grown to love this bristol vellum paper for shading because the pencil smudges so easily with a tortillion.

I've saved the best for last, so please DON'T GO ANYWHERE YET!!!!  Here are three tiles that the very talented Sonya completed, along with a brief description of each, in her own words.

"I was immediately drawn to this one because warm
analogous colors make me so happy! In this instance, I chose to ignore the background shapes and create my image on top. The fall weather appears to have revealed a sunflower-y shape! Materials: black .01 Micron, white Gellyroll, Silver Slicci, and InkTense watercolor pencils."

 

"Love the blend of warm and cool tones on one Zendala! On this one, I wanted to do something bold so I chose a mix of Striping and Pepper to fill a handful of the larger shapes. Sometimes it's hard to know when to stop to achieve the "right" balance of tangled/untangled space. Materials: black .01 Micron, white Gellyroll, InkTense watercolor pencils."

And for Sonya's last Zendala:
 
"This Zendala's bold colors intimidated me at first because I didn't want to "ruin" the background - it was so striking on its own! So I chose a more classic way to approach it, allowing the shapes to be the strings and working inside. I added in tangles breaking free of the strings to add visual interest. The background is filled with Tipple and Printemps. Materials: white Gellyroll, clear Glaze Gellyroll, InkTense watercolor pencils."

Sonya mentioned the Tipple/Printemps background in this one. It's so subtle that you can barely see it in the photo, so here's a closeup. 

I hope that you've been inspired by some of Sonya's and my tiles. Thank you Sonya for allowing me to share your amazing work in my blog! The good news is that these tiles are now available in my Etsy shop here, just in case you'd like to try some for yourself. If you do, I'd love to see what you create with them, so feel free to send me pictures of your art work.... or post them in a Facebook group.... or post them in your own blog... or just keep them to yourself, if you'd rather. Thanks for taking a peek!