"There are no rules to creativity." Laura Jaworski
Adele Bruno, CZT, hosts a weekly Zentangle challenge called "It's a String Thing." I've contributed a tile a couple of times, but mostly I just lurk around in the background admiring everyone else's work. As I was lurking about this week, I noticed that her challenge features Cruze, one of my tangle patterns, as one of the three patterns for this week. How could I NOT participate?
This is the string for the tile:
I tangled using two of the three patterns suggested, Cruze and Lukiline. I couldn't figure out how to incorporate the third tangle, Lucky, so I decided to leave it out. I liked my tile better after I turned it upside-down from the way I show it above.
Once I did that tile, it got me in the mood to do something else with Cruze. So pulled out a tile I had colored green and yellow, to keep in the spirit of St. Patrick's Day. Using Cruze, Beelight off the grid, and Flowtus, here is what I drew.
On both tiles I used pastel pencils for coloring/shading, and on the second tile I added some white highlighting with my white pastel pencil.
Happy St. Paddy's Day everyone!
"Enthusiasm just creates bubbles; it doesn't keep them from popping." Adora Svitak
Another challenge! Sometimes it's hard to keep up with them all. Well actually I don't. I choose the ones that appeal to me most, usually because of the tangle(s) involved, and then hope that I have time to do them. This week's It's a String Thing challenge (hosted by Adele Bruno, CZT, of Tickled to Tangle) was to use her own pattern Uncorked, in her own string (#62 from Tangle Patterns). Here's a picture of the string.
And here's a link to the pattern Uncorked.
I had not used Uncorked before, but it looked like it would be fun, and boy was it ever! It really began to flow and take on a life of its own, and started to burst out of the bubbles. So much so that you can't see the string at all. But I did start with the string...I promise.
Next I tried it on a black Zendala tile. This time I didn't even try to use a string. I started with four enclosed bubbles in the middle and let it burst forth from there. I drew this with my Sakura metallic gelly roll pens in copper and silver. Then I added some pink tipple, also a metallic gelly roll. Those metallic pens are beautiful on black. I thought that the pink might have been a drop too bright with the other colors, so I toned it down just a bit by using some white charcoal pencil right on top of the pink. I also used the white pencil to shade the rest of the Zendala.
Uncorked does seem like a fitting name for this tangle pattern, at least for the way I interpreted it. It's as if a bottle was uncorked and out flowed the design.
"Some of the most creative ideas emerge from a swirl of chaos" Unknown
So many ideas of what I want to tangle. New things I want to try. Challenges I want to face. Unfortunately...there aren't enough hours in the day to do it all. At least not if I want to get any sleep. And if I don't get any sleep I won't be any good at what I do. So the only solution is to pick and choose.
CZT Adele Bruno puts out a weekly challenge called "It's a String Thing." Because of that picking and choosing that I was just talking about, I have actually only participated in the challenge one time. If you missed it you can see the tile I entered here. Although I did not participate in the challenge from a couple of weeks ago, I did peruse all the tiles sent to Adele, as I usually do each week. There was something about the swirly string, #54, that really called out to me.
Actually, it wasn't the string that called out to me, but what I saw
that everyone had done with the string. So I decided to give it a whirl. Here's what I ended up with.
Some Knightsbridge, Cubine, Moving Day (by CZT Margaret Bremner), and the latest official tangle called Ing (my first time using it). Taking a grid and making it curvy can add such movement to a piece. I hope you like this one as much as I do!
"Creativity itself doesn't care at all about results - the only thing it craves is the process. Learn to love the process and let whatever happens next happen, without fussing too much about it."
Elizabeth Gilbert
This past week's "It's a String Thing" posed the challenge to use string #044 from tanglepatterns.com, along with any or all of four tangle patterns beginning with the letter N. Those tangles are N'zeppel, Nipa, Neuron, and ... Navaho. That's my pattern! How could I not participate?
I chose to use another one of my hand-colored tiles like the ones I was playing around with in my last post. I intended to take a picture of the tile before tangling on it, but, as is par for the course, I forgot to take the picture. Not too far into the tangling I remembered that I had forgotten (if that makes sense), so here's the picture.
Continuing with my tangling, I decided to keep it to two patterns. I have recently come to the realization that often, when I am not happy with my completed work, it's because it looks too busy. So, I'm trying to simplify my pieces by cutting down on the number of patterns I include. For this tile I stuck to only two, my pattern Navaho (in three variations), along with one of my all time favorites, N'Zeppel.
I like the empty space in the center (another thing I often forget to include), and I'm happy with the not too cluttered look. And of course I love the colors.
