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! 

 

Putting my Paper to Good Use

"I go wherever my creativity takes me."     Lil Wayne

A couple of months ago I pulled out a piece of scrapbooking paper to tangle on. I have a box full of these papers which I rarely use. This is what I created with a white gelly roll pen.

Patterns used: Flux and Henna Drum

I was leaving shortly after that for my cruise and decided to take a bunch of squares of various papers to work on... they are very thin and lightweight and take up virtually no space in my suitcase. Here are the before and afters of the ones I tangled on vacation. The before pictures don't match exactly because those photos were taken of a different section from the larger piece of paper.

 Pattern used: Baton

 Patterns used: Knightsbridge, elements of Crescent Moon, Static, Up n Down, Tipple, Fassett, Printemps, and Cubine tangleation

 Patterns used: Inapod and Uncorked tangleation

If you're like me and have a stack of papers just waiting for... something... someday... you might want to pull them out and see what you can tangle up! 

Pre-strung Pathway Tiles

"The imagination is the golden pathway to everywhere."     Terence McKenna

I'm very excited to share with you my latest creations. Another passion of mine, in addition to Zentangle and photography (as I mentioned in my last blog post, here), is working with alcohol inks. They come in bright, beautiful colors and flow smoothly across your paper as they blend and form new colors. The process of painting with the inks is nearly as relaxing as the Zentangle process is for me. And you can create great backgrounds for tangling!

Recently I began playing with plastic wrap on the inks. You spread ink on yupo paper (a synthetic paper with a smooth finish), lay plastic wrap on top, scrunch it all up with your hands, and leave it alone until it dries completely. When you peel it off, gorgeous and interesting "pathways" have been created on your paper. Some of you may be familiar with the plastic wrap method on other media, such as watercolors. When I saw these pathways, I knew immediately what had to be done! The inks had created a string on my paper to be tangled within.

Maybe a photo (or two...or many...) will help you to see what I'm talking about. Here is the first one I chose to tangle. You can see the pathways that I'm talking about.

Here's how it looked after I tangled it with Baton.

I absolutely LOVED this, and went on to do more... and more... and more! The next one I did, before and after tangling with Cadent... (I remembered before I got too far that I wanted to take a picture)

 And the next one...

By this time, I started thinking that these would make great tiles printed on paper that I could tangle with my Microns. What I had done so far were approximately 5x7 inches each, and because they were on shiny yupo, they needed to be tangled with different pens. So I tested printing them on various papers and found that I liked the Bristol vellum best, as it is similar to the regular zentangle tiles in weight. 

I cut the tiles into 4 inch squares, to allow for a little more tangling space than the standard 3 1/2 inch tiles. Here is a sample of some that I made...

Next is one of my favorite tiles, before tangling and after adding Baton (obviously one of my favorite tangles!)

Here are some more of my tangled tiles. Sorry, but I don't have the "before" pictures of these. The first one uses the pattern Static.

For the next one I decided to use 2 patterns, Cadent and Huggins. You will notice that on most of them I chose to do a monotangle, meaning I used just one pattern. I also shaded this one with graphite, whereas on most of them I have not shaded, instead allowing the colors on the tile to form the shading.
 

One using Knightsbridge...
 

A white gelly roll pen was used on this one to draw Printemps...
 

Then I wanted to complete some tiles by tangling behind the pathways instead of on the pathways. Personally I don't like them as much as the others, but several people have told me they do like them.The first one is Crescent Moon and the second is Munchin.

I have had such a blast designing and tangling these tiles and am happy to share that I am now selling the untangled tiles in my Etsy shop here for you to add your creative tangling. If you decide to try some, I'd love to see what you do!

Paradox

"The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change."    Carl Rogers


A couple of weeks ago, the Square One Facebook group had the tangle pattern Paradox as the focus for the week. I don't always have the time (or the desire, depending what the focus tangle is) to create and post anything, but Paradox is one of my favorite patterns so I knew I'd be participating that week. I'll save the two tiles I did for that group until later. But first I wanted to show you a couple of pieces I created that didn't follow the guidelines for the group (3 1/2 inch square tiles in black and white.)

For this one I chose one of my hand-colored zendala tiles, even though I wouldn't really call this a zendala. Sometimes I just love working on the round tiles. I drew some lines to form a string, and where you see black I had expected to leave blank so it would be pink. But sometimes I can't leave well enough alone, and in one spot I brought the Paradox out into the pink space....and was not at all happy with it. I tried a couple of things to make it better, but in the end all I could think to do was fill in all those spaces with black. Well... a happy accident... I really like the way this looks! Just Paradox and black (filled in with the fat end of an Identi Pen.)

The next one was drawn on a pre-strung Rennaisance zendala tile. I'm really happy with this one also. I always love bringing the tan tiles to life with white highlights. A brown pastel pencil and a graphite pencil were used for shading.

Patterns used: Paradox, Static, Munchin, and Maryhill

The following two tiles were the ones I posted on the Square One Facebook page, so if you're a member of that group you may have already seen these.

Patterns used: Paradox, Petales de Fleurs inspired Munchin

Patterns used: Paradox and Tipple

I just want to leave you with this last piece of pure Paradox, laid out totally randomly, and then colored digitally with some green.

I love, love, love Paradox!

Tangling Tempting Templates

"A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament."    Oscar Wilde

It was time for tangling some more templates from Ben
Kwok. If you're not familiar with him, check out his Facebook group "Ornation Creation." Each week he posts a different template for your tangling enjoyment.

This first one is, obviously, a jellyfish. I decided to use some new Stonehenge paper that I bought, and this is the color they call Fawn. I knew it would be great for drawing with my brown micron pens and adding highlights. Of course my intention was to show you a photo before I did any shading, but in my excitement to get started (because the shading is what brings it to life), I forgot to get a picture. Luckily I caught myself before I got very far, so here you see just the very beginnings of the shading.

 Patterns used: Papyrus, Printemps, Betweed

As you can tell in the following photo, the shading and highlighting, which I did with my pastel pencils, makes such a huge difference in the look. I think the shading in this one took longer than the tangling did, but it was well worth it!

Here's another one of Ben's templates... one of my favorite foods!

Patterns used: Navaho, Emingle, Static, N'zeppel, Crescent Moon, Heartstrings, Prestwood, Munchin, Paizel, Printemps, and some line work

And again with shading...

Next time I'm in the mood for template tangling (try saying that 5X fast!) I know there are LOTS more templates waiting for me over on Ben's Facebook group.

 

Butterfly Kisses

"Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."     Nathaniel Hawthorne

This week's Diva challenge comes from guest blogger, CZT Sandy Hunter, while the Diva takes some well deserved time off. Sandy's challenge is to "Shift your focus to the negative space, so the white part of your tile is the focus of your tangle." So I chose to use a stencil of a butterfly for my white, or negative, space. I tangled a border around the butterfly and then filled the background with tangles using lines, lines, and more lines. My favorite kind of patterns. I added a couple with curves, but they are still lines. Here is the way it looked before shading.

I used Fassett, Static, Sand Swirl, Printemps,Paradox, and Baton. Very relaxing tangles for me. It was completed on a 6 1/4 inch square piece of Strathmore drawing paper. It comes out looking very white here, but it actually is a pale cream color. Here's how it looked after shading.

I enjoyed the process and like the outcome, so I will call it a success!