Knightsbridge, Knightsbridge, and More Knightsbridge

"There are people looking for exactly what you have to offer, and you are being brought together on the checkerboard of life."    Louise Hay

Last week in the Square One FB group, the focus tangle was Knightsbridge. Chris Titus, founder/administrator of the group, had asked people to suggest tangle patterns for the focus and to send her a tile using that pattern. Knightsbridge was my suggestion - I love the pattern, its boldness and its versatility. I did several tiles during the week and posted them on FB. They will be shown later in this blog post. But... even after doing several tiles I could not get enough of Knightsbridge. So I continued to do a few more.

This first one was done on one of my hand-colored tiles, and used a circle stencil from Jenny Perruzzi at Acadia Laser Creations.

Next, I used another stencil from Jenny and added some auras and a little embellishing. I like this one way more than I expected to when I started it.

Then I used another hand-colored tile, but this time a zendala tile. Maryhill became the center and Wavz was added between the layers of Knightsbridge.
 

The rest of the tiles here were created to post on Square One. This was my first, and I love the way it turned out.

Patterns used: Knightsbridge and Florz

Patterns used: Knightsbridge and Huggins

Patterns used: Knightsbridge and Printemps

This one is all Knightsbridge and nothing else. 
 

More circles with Knightsbridge and some lines.

There are so many ways to use Knightsbridge, so many variations just by changing the size of the spaces, the direction of the grid lines, the spacing between the lines. Endless ways to make this simple checkerboard pattern interesting! And it's so easy to do!

 

Circles, Circles and More Circles

"Life is a circle of happiness, sadness, hard times and good times."   Unknown

This week's Diva challenge is to use the pattern Tipple as a monotangle, meaning you use Tipple and ONLY Tipple. The pattern is just circles. They could all be the same size if you want, but I think it's much more interesting to vary the size. Circles are not my favorite thing to draw... I find straight lines much more relaxing. So up until now I've only used Tipple in small areas, sometimes as a filler. 

I decided to use the words zen and tangle, put together into one word, which I got from Jenny Perruzzi (Acadia Laser Creations) when I was at Tangle U in 2014. I traced around the words to use as my string and then started filling with Tipple. That was quite a LOT of Tipple. Not as meditative as I would have liked, but once I started I had to finish. Luckily, when you look at the finished piece you don't notice how "not great" the circles are!

I thought this would look pretty colored in rainbow colors. I used my Tombow brush markers to color them using the indirect method. That means I didn't use the markers directly on my work, but instead scribbled with the markers on a non-porous surface, then used a special blender marker to pick up that color and put it onto my letters. I like doing that when I want the color to be a little less intense than when I use the markers directly. After I finished coloring them, I added a little shading around the edges of each letter using a coordinating Prismacolor colored pencil. I could have used the Tombows to add shading, but my experience in doing that is that it doesn't blend smoothly for me. 

I love the way this looks. I may use it as a sign at my classes... or in other places where a sign is called for. However, I don't think I will attempt using that much Tipple at one time again. Think I need to go draw some straight lines now! 

Stacking the Deck

"Creativity is intelligence having fun."   Albert Einstein

A few weeks ago the prompt for the journal group I belong to was to create a stacked Zentangle. A stack is "rows of tangles that go in the same direction and touch or are close enough to appear as one solid cohesive piece rather than an assemblage whose pieces could float away. These rows in the stack may be vertical, diagonal, horizontal, circular, or semi-circular." Below is the piece that I tangled for that prompt. It isn't shaded because I knew I was going to take it one step further by adding color.

Patterns Used: Baton. Emingle, Knightsbridge, Hollibaugh, Printemps, Sand Swirl, Dex, Purk, Betweed

Here it is after adding color and shading with Tombow markers. I think some sections came out better than others.

Shortly after this, two CZTs, Alice Hendon and Jane Eileen, started a Facebook group called Zentangle: Stacked and Tangled. A place to share only art work that follows the above definition (as stated in the guidelines for the FB group.) Since I had really enjoyed doing the stacks in my journal, I decided to join the group.

Here is a stack I completed on a Zentangle tile (3 1/2 inches square). I used a stencil from Acadia Laser Creations and filled the open sections between stacks with Tipple (the little circles.)

Patterns Used: Knightsbridge, Z-trik, lines, Gerwutz, Static, Shattuck, Copada

Then I used another stencil from Acadia Laser that is similar, but meant for a Zendala tile. This time I chose a Renaissance tile and used brown and black microns with graphite pencil, brown pencil, and white pencil for the shading and highlighting. The knightsbridge (checkerboard) filled the spaces in between.

Patterns Used: Footlites, Beelight, N'zeppel, Diva Dance

 
It never fails to amaze me how the tan tiles come to life with the different color pens and pencils. Stacking is fun and simple to do. Check out the Facebook group linked above and see what it's all about.