Challenge: Diva's Dance

 

 
Last night, when I posted, I was too tired to write.  It was quite late and I just wanted to get to bed.  After a good sleep, I am now returning to say a few words. :-)  I have noticed that I am doing this pattern incorrectly.  Yes, I know, there are no mistakes in Zentangle but I am glad I noticed Laura Harm's tip near the bottom of her examples.  Diva Dance Waltz tangleation should be line, line, weight.  Foxtrot should be line, line, line, weight and Rock 'n Roll is "let 'er rip, anything goes!"  Well, I got that one right!  Over the coming days, I will play with this pattern lots more...and will have lots more fun with it.   And now...I'm off to see what other tanglers did with this pattern.  You can too at the Diva's page.

Zendala Dare: Snowflake

The Zendala Dare this week is a snowflake we have created ourselves...so I am creating snowflakes to tangle.  Above is my first, below my second.  I will add the tangled snowflakes tomorrow.

And now I have found a place where I can cut snowflakes with sissors online.  We can save them too.  Here is the site:  Create a Snowflake  And here are a couple of tries I made:

Photo Cube

Another page

 
Another page in my Tangle Patterns book.  I thought it might be a chore doing these but it turns out to be relaxing.  There is something about those repetitive lines . . .

Mandalas, Zendalas

I have been playing with mandalas or zendalas recently.  I found a free program online where you can design your own mandalas and save them to your computer.  I am not sure this link will work; if it doesn't, I will find a way to fix it. Mandala Design Here are a few I designed.  You can colour or tangle them.

Tangle Pattern Book

Since I began to tangle, I printed and collected my favourite patterns in a binder.  That binder has become 3 large binders that are too cumbersome when I want to do some tangling so I recently began to collect some of my favourites in a notebook with faint dotted squares.  Now, I can flip through the book and pick out what inspires me.  So far, for most of the tangles in this book, I won't need step outs as I can figure them out easily.  My favourite tangles are simple ones.

          
The Chrysanthemum above was fun to do...I am looking forward to using this one in a tangle soon.

Zinger Challenge

 

























The Diva has asked us to use Zentangle's new tangle pattern "Zinger."  I have used it with SandSwirl in the first tile and with Paradox, a variation of Clouds, and Hilly in the second.  This new Zinger pattern reminds me of one of Cindy Angiel's "Stem Toppers"

At Judy West's blog last week, I saw she was using a corner clipper on her bookmarks.  Loved the look and since I cut my own tiles from cold-pressed watercolor paper,  I thought a corner cutter would be useful instead of cutting rounded corners by hand.  She sent me to a website but I found the shipping on one little corner punch was as expensive as the cost of the item so I went searching at a local craft supply store and found and assortment of corner punches in the scrapbooking section, at a good price . . . with no shipping charges.  Hence, the fancy corners on the tiles I have posted today.  I will be using the simple rounded corners on most of my tiles, but I thought these were fun!

Razor Blades Zendala Dare

 
Tangling this template was like decorating razor blades!  Nothing seemed to soften the sharpness.  So, be careful; don't touch!  ;-)

Zendala Dare 31

Above I reversed the colours with Photoshop.  Below is the original zendala.  I am not so happy with the version below; I was sick of it by the time I finished...but I like it a little better reversed.  I will start a new one tomorrow and hopefully I will like it!

Zendala Dare: Thanksgiving

Updated Post:  I did this challenge wrong the first time--see the second one below--but now I have done it as the directions stated.  My original one reminds me more of a pie although it does not have the requested tangles, the second one reminds me less of a pie...no wait a minute--it does remind me of a lemon meringue pie...good!  

It certainly was fun and a real challenge for me because I didn't find many tangle patterns I could figure how to fit into a zendala and that also begin with the letters requested.  This being a Thanksgiving challenge and pie (I think of pumpkin when you say pie) being a big part of Thanksgiving meal, we were asked to use only tangles beginning with the letters P, I and E.  I settled on Ixorus, Paradox, a wee bit of Puff in the center, and Efflys in the larger center...well, one Effly to be exact.  While drawing all those parallel lines I began to feel drowsy, just as I do after the Thanksgiving meal!  Shading the zendala helped reduce the hypnotic effect.  Parts of the template began to disappear as I worked.  I am not sure of zendala rules; maybe that is ok.

* * * 

Well, this will teach me to read the instructions twice!  I read them once and it was a while before I did my zendala so, naturally, I forgot I had to use tangles beginning with the letters P, I and E.  Paradox works but the other two, Hilly and Crescent Moon don't belong with this challenge; I need an I and an E.  Back to the drawing board!  I will post again tomorrow. :-)

I am familiar with Zentangle, tangling and ZIA but zendalas are new to me and I am enjoying them very much!  If you would like to join the challenge or see what others have done, visit The Bright Owl's Zendala Dare.

My First Zendala

I have been looking at Zendalas, wanting to have a go at one but I guess I was waiting for the right time with my hand tremors.  I found this template at The Bright Owl's blog, where she puts out a weekly challenge.  Looking through past templates this one struck me as do-able for my first try.  To me, it seemed to call for lots of Paradox and there were a couple of new tangles I wanted to try also--Judy West's Teardrops and Coral which I left incomplete on the zendala because it seemed to work here.  My pen ran dry in those lighter paradox squares.  I was going to go over them with the new pen but decided to leave it.  It was a fun little project so I will definitely try more zendalas.  :-)

Still playing with flowers

Today's tangle uses ribbon flower, skein and I don't know the name of the one at the bottom.  I'm still stuck on the flowers for now.  Ribbon flower was fun to draw, skein was fun to shade. I had a little trouble continuing skein behind ribbon flower.

Pinwheels for Peace

The Diva's Challenge this week is to tangle a pinwheel for world peace.  I have used only 2 tangles here in my pinwheel...striping on the fold of the blade and hypnotic on the background since watching pinwheels makes me feel as if I am falling into a trance.  

Bark with Aura

I didn't know from one minute to the next what my plan was for this tile...I just meandered and let it happen.  Tangles used are Bark (inspired by the dogwood flower) and Ojo (Spanish for eye)  I have been playing with flowers in the last few tangles...was afraid of them for some reason.  Before I added the aura I thought it was ugly, now I am ok with it--it will go in the box-- a Birks box; it is perfect for tangles.

Yesterday's Tangle

Stag, Topper, Verdigogh, Olive leaf, Tipple

Monotangle N'zeppel

The Diva's Challenge - Break Free!

Hello!  This is my first post to the Diva's Challenge since I have been tangling again.  Happy Anniversary to Laura and Brad Harms!  I was sorry to learn Artoo has been in hospital again but at least he is doing well now.

Hand tremors still bother me but I am learning what kind of lines I can do and what just won't work for me.  Tangles learned here are Afterglow, O'Bob (well, my version of it) and Mi2, which I don't quite have my head around but got enough to be mostly passable.  I will continue to play with this one.  What a pleasant time I had tangling this.  Lollipop, my Shih Poo, snoozed beside me on the patio table...the breeze blowing gently, wind chimes tinkling slightly in the lilac tree.

Apparition

I tangled this while waiting for my bedsheets to dry this morning.  From the top, (L-R) the tangle patterns are Ennies, Keeko, Bula Flower, Copola and I forget the one at the bottom.  I will come back with its name.

Optical Design

This is a new pattern I saw in Margaret Bremner's post and I had to try it.  Tangling with MS is a challenge, my hands and fingers don't always do what I tell them to, but this pattern with so many repetitive short lines was pleasant to do.  I could feel the zen!  You can see instructions for this pattern here. http://juliannakunstler.com/art1_opt_des.html  I will add shading and show it later.  The pattern can be used as a monotangle or as a fill in other tangles.

Finished tangle below--a little shading to make the squishy things pop.  I tried to add JJ Barbera's Verve to the middle but my brain refused!  We tried though!  Will have to work on that one.

This IS a fun pattern and I am definitely going to play with it some more.