New Floral Tangles

 There are a lot of new floral tangles online right now.

I like tangling gardens - so I thought I'd try a few.

AND

I hadn't done much drawing since my surgeries,

so this turned out as a nice surprise.

It's 5.5" x 8.5".

I drew most of this yesterday and sat down to finish it and shade it this afternoon. Shading just adds so much to your art. I know. I know. It's boring and tedious. Yes. It is. BUT it makes such a difference!
Some of the new tangles I tried are: alcatraz, barbet, orchid, plum lei, biskus,  daidai and anooka. I also added some zinger, beadline, and mooka.
A really fun piece to draw! In case you are new to my blog - anytime you soon pink words, that is a link. Easy to remember. Pink = link. You're welcome.

Drogon, A New Tangle from Lily Moon

Fun tile to draw! The border is gotcha, one i really love tangling. Lower right corner is my very own tangle - airways - and across the frame is Lily Moon's new tangle drogon.  So versatile and easy to draw! Drew this tile in Florida, just getting around to posting it.  Rainy day here in Maine, so tangle time this afternoon -  or a nap - is a given.

Tangling on Scraps

This was a fun project! I took a leftover piece of scrapbook paper and trimmed it down to 5"x 7".

 I trimmed one edge with a bit of washi tape.

At first glance, this section reminded me of an underwater cavern.

Of course, most things remind me of underwater scenes.

Hahaha!

So I started sectioning off what I thought might be 

a big piece of coral.

 I finished tracing it out and used my tangle

coral for the main part,

then started stacking in some tipple at the base.

 That tipple slowly evolved into my signature printemps, 

forming the base in the shape of a hill.

 I really liked the orange band across the center and thought it would be a lovely place for a school of little fishies to be swimming past!

 And underwater you are going to have a little bit of current flowing, 

especially with those swimming fish - so I added some movement with beadlines. 

Perhaps that could be some algae or reeds growing along the bottom, moving in the water.

Then I added more beadlines,  and a few more swimmers. All in all, about 15 minutes time invested in this really simple to make  leftover scrap of paper project!

Tangling in the Round

There is a wonderful tangle artist named Michele Beauchamp. She is also a CZT and I have followed her work online for two years now. Shelly lives in Australia and does the most exquisite linework. (You should go google her right now and look at images.) Recently she tangled a piece in the round and it was so beautiful that I wanted to give it a go myself.

I drew this a couple nights ago while watching reruns of M*A*S*H. (I don't believe I've ever drawn something this big in one night before.) This is the unshaded view. I hate to shade, but I figured this piece deserved a little shading.

So I added some very basic shading in a few areas. What a difference it makes! Can't wait to frame this piece.
Why don't you give tangling in the round a try? You might just fall in love with it. A friend of mine called this piece - stacking on steroids. Yep, pretty much! Hahahaha!
Zentangle has these cool large tiles now. I tangled this circle piece on a 10.5" square official tile called the Opus. I used microns, a Sharpie fine point pen, graphite, and a tort. 

Lucky Cat

 So excited!

This is my first template animal and I really like the way he turned out.

 On Facebook there is a wonderful artist named Ben Kwok. 

Ben administrates a group called Ornation Creation, where he regularly posts templates he has made for us to take and tangle. 

If you are a Facebook aficionado, you should check out Ornation Creation.

Ben gave us the above cat template, which I printed out on cardstock and started tangling.

Next time I will use watercolor paper, I wasn't convinced I could actually 

pull this off this time. Hahahaha!

 Ben also has a Facebook page called BioWorkZ.com where he features his own work.

He is really incredible! Worth taking a look.

I promise!

I just kept filling in tangles. 

The idea I went with was the oriental lucky cat -

typically done in either gold or white with touches of red.

I kept the tangles simple.

The gold was a metallic Pitt Artist Pen,

the reds were a combination of PrismaColor pencil and Uniball Signo pen.

Shading made all the difference.

It usually does. 

And there you go. My first Ben Kwok template tangled and framed in a dark red, wooden 8" x 10" frame. Yay!!!!! Now to decide what to work on next.  He has 94 templates posted on the group page, so there's plenty to pick from!

Trying to Get Back in the Routine

Wow! It's been twelve days since I posted. And, yes, I realize my blog looks weird. Having a bit of an issue with photobucket, hopefully Cindy will be able to figure it out soon.
I had a wonderful trip to Colorado, and the great news is I did not have an issue with the altitude. The medicine the doctor put me on worked! Hallelujah! I was pretty groggy the first several days, but eventually I was able to do a little tangling. This is the biggest project I worked on. A little flux, rock n'roll, rain, beadlines, cruffle, TootsieMoon and blox. A fun piece to draw!
I'm working in the studio - re-organizing - again. One of the CZTs started a facebook group for studios and it has started a desire to re-organize. Stay tuned in a couple weeks for new studio shots.

More of Those Cute Little Twinchies

At least I think they are cute little twinchies! Two inch squares of awesomeness. Oh! And some beautiful color also!
My eyes are doing better today. We think I was having problems with allergies. Who knew there was pollen when half the country is getting ready to face snow? Yep! Pine pollen in sunny Florida. Yet another reason not to live in Florida. That and the killer hot summers! Did I mention I love snow?

Bronx Cheer and APR 120

Today's post is going to be short. And to the point. My left wrist is killing me. Lots of pain around the bottom joint of the thumb. I have my hand in a brace and from experience I know the pain should subside by tomorrow. Starting to think I need this looked at by a doctor. 
Anyway, on the facebook group Square One: Purely Zentangle® where we are challenged to get back to the basics in zentangle, the prompt this week was bronx cheer. That would be all those little blackberry looking bits above. Maria Thomas came up with this tangle as a way to cover up mistake areas, blotched areas in our drawings. Our prompt here was simply to make the bronx cheer part of the drawing. I left the stems off and buried them within the printemps. Added a little waving flux and some beadlines and am calling it done. 

Linking up to the Artist's Play Room for the week. There is a whole week's worth of time for you to add some art of your own!

Under the Sea

I love drawing underwater pictures! Underwater tangles! Underwater gardens you might call some of them. This one is only partially done. I have been trying different art styles and techniques in my Stillman & Birn Zeta Series Sketchbook. I will be curious to see how this 9" x 12" drawing turns out with color. I think I'll work with copics and twinkling H2Os. I'm curious to try those two together, on this paper. When I get back home where my pens are, I'll get to work on it and let you know. 

Mi2 - The Diva's Challenge #80

I Am the Diva - I love this lady's blog! She is a wife, and a mom of two very active little guys. She is a certified trainer for Zentangle, and she gives and gives from her heart to the Zentangle community. Laura, you are an inspiration to me! Thank you for all the work you do for us!


This week's challenge was to use the pattern Mi2 - that's the one you see waving across the bottom half of my tile above. Gotta say I wasn't excited about this challenge. I've tried Mi2 before - those tiles are long since visiting the county dump. But, I stuck with it this time - I mean, Laura asked us so nicely - and the above pic is what I came up with. I am satisfied with the way Mi2 turned out, although I won't be rushing myself to check it out again any time soon. Hahaha! Also included in the tile are pokeleaf, pokeroot, fescu, and beadlines. You can see everyone's Mi2 offerings at Laura's page here. You could even draw one yourself and show it us :). I would love to see it!

Under the Sea

I got some new stencils in the mail yesterday - from Dream Weaver. I figured I'd play around with them for awhile. I took a watercolor notebook and slapped around some paint in greens, purples, and blues. They had a bit of metallic in them - cause I like shiny!

Then I took four of the stencils and traced them on top of the dry paint. Totally sacrificed a pen doing this.

Next, I tangled a few patterns into the stenciled areas. Then I added some seaweed, flowing plants, and amoeba-stuff. So "sea" like :). When I uploaded this above picture onto the computer, I noticed what looks like a shark in the upper left corner. Totally unplanned. The only thing I intentionally added was the small black line to designate a mouth.

So much fun! I tried out some new patterns. I always think featherfall looks sloppy, but that's pretty much the way it is detailed out in the drawing steps. I also used: finery, hybrid, heron, fescu, shattuck, tearse, waves, squid, and beadlines. 


I may come back to this tomorrow and add some bubbles - something I meant to do. I've been following the national championship speech and debate breaks today - in the NCFCA, a Christian homeschool league that my daughter competed in for several years. I got so tied up with breaks to semi-finals. I worked on this in between checking the computer for the hundredth time!!! and forgot the bubbles. Tomorrow!

Tangle Patterns' String #3

At Linda Farmer's Tangle Patterns we are doing a weekly challenge :). She provides a string and asks us to tangle them as we wish. The string this week (above) was provided by Anne Marks.

I had this watercolored tile left over from our trip last week and decided to use it. I found that it was really hard to transfer a pattern over to a painted tile - I used the pencil technique that The Bright Owl taught me. Didn't work well. I guess the tile was too squishy from the paint, so I free-handed it.


Patterns I used are: crescent moon, chard, caviar, hybrid, shattuck, waves, organza, warped eggs, up and across, zedbra, vache, baton, betweed, and beadlines. Yes, it is a busy tile, but I think it works and flows well together - and I learned some new patterns. Thanks, Linda and Anne, for a fun string!