Random Stacks

 No color today,

just traditional black and white.

Stacking some tangle patterns

and practicing.

I love doing this, and no, they aren't all

perfectly stacked.

But that's ok.

Just practicing anyway.

Book Tangling

This was fun to do and it felt a little wrong to do! I received this beautiful new book in the mail. It has a lot of watercolor pages like this - blank of photos, some pretty color washes, and maybe a little texture here and there. I picked out a nice blank-ish page and stated tangling. I really love that tangle gnarly on the left! It is a free-flowing, fun tangle to draw.
My stash of books to draw in has grown to about 15 now.  Hahahahaha! So I must not have felt too badly about it!
You know what would make a great tangling journal??? Any old math textbook you might still have laying around.  Hahahaha!  Spoken like the homeschool mom I used to be!

Wonky Stacking

There has been a lot of interest in stacking tangles lately, as well as using papers other than zentangle tiles. This little piece of art does both!
This is a small piece of scrapbook paper I had left over, about 5" x 4". I made some wonky, non-straight string lines with my pen, and started laying in tangles.   From top to bottom: diva dance, printemps, merryweather, meer and cootie.
All the color in this tile was part of the scrapbook paper. Super easy to do and what a great way to use up some of that paperI still had in a cabinet!
Do you have leftover scraps you could tangle on?

Confused About Twinchies?

There are still several sets of twinchies I want to share with you. Fifty-four of us are swapping these little two-inch pieces of art and - as you can well imagine - it is hard to make a little two inch piece of paper become spectacular. You don't have a whole lot of room to work with in two inches. (There are a whole world of people who make inchies - I couldn't even imagine. Haha! Good for them, I say!)

So. Where did I start? 
Where do I many times start? 
I can hear Nancy Wigley chiming in here - I start with Dylusions Ink Sprays.   Yes, I do know there is other product on the market but why go there when I get these bright, luscious, beautiful colors with Dylusions? Seriously. 
When I am working on projects I save any scraps of paper in a ziploc bag and add to it as I go. There is always a scrap bag on my work table. (It's usually buried, but it's there.) Twinchies are a great way to use up some of that scrap. Some of the pieces I used already had color on them. (I don't waste scraps with pretty color on them. I horde, uh, save them.) For the ones that didn't - I spritzed water onto the pieces, followed by spritzes of a couple different colors of dylusions. Then you just let it all sit for about 10-15 seconds and watch those colors blend. A paper towel blotted to the paper surface will stop that mixing/blending action. Remember - if your color is too dark when it is dry or almost dry - you can lighten it up with another spritz of water. Dylusions are not color fast. They will start reacting again when you add 'wet' product - be that water or another color. 
You will notice some of the tiles above have designs on them. Take your dry colored tile, lay a stencil over the top, hold it in place, and spritz water over the top of the stencil. Let it sit for 5-10 seconds, then carefully lift the stencil and watch the color lifting start to work. After about 15 more seconds, blot the tile with a paper towel - and continue to watch that color lift leaving behind the design of whatever stencil you used. Remember - dylusions inks are not water fast, they react with wet product. So take advantage of that and make it work to your benefit.

Since I am a tangler - I went back and added various tangle patterns to the tiles. Some are more elaborate than others. This wasn't one of them :). I loved the little fish and how well he turned out. (He came from a stencil.) I went simpler and just added tangle bubbles to his water, leaving the fish to be the focus of this twinchie. There are so many things you can do! So - save your scraps (or hack up a big sheet and have fun!) and get to making some twinchie awesomeness! Cause it's fun!

Accent on the Pink

I love the accents made with the pinks! I could be all about the pink! Or teal, or purple, depending on what day of the week it is.

I am getting ready for another ATC swap. The theme for this one is black with one accent color. Of course, I chose pink to be my accent color.

Once again, I drew this on a sheet of 11" x 14" Bristol smooth surface paper from Strathmore. For the pink accents, I used At You Spica Pens (2 shades of pink), a pink copic marker, and some pink watercolor.

I really love the colors! Lower left you see the tangle Sindoo by Sharon Robinson, England. That strip on the lower right is Ragz from CZT Christina Vandervlist. That long skinny one with the openings is Beanpodz from Neil Burley. I love the spiral in the middle - that's my favorite part!

Sliding across from lower left to upper right is Liberty 100 from ~ once again ~ Neil Burley. Mix in a little Kuke from Katy Abbott, some zander, some bunzo,  a variation of tagh, and something I totally made up - those circle thingies. 

I love finery! It is one of the 'official' zentangle® patterns. 

At the top right is Stella, I don't think the step-outs of that one's been released yet. Then I tried a little Undling (yes! it worked), which is Susie Achter's new tangle. In the middle are those cute little circles I made up, along with Sandy Hunter's Cruffle. I think the two work pretty well together!

Yes, I really do like these two together! Anyway, these are some closeups of the detail work! I cut this sheet down into 16 ATCs that I will mail out to sixteen different people in the new swap that starts on the 1st!

I am really having a ball drawing large scale this way! Next up? A 53-deck of card ATCs for a swap amongst the CZTs. I can not wait!

Merely Meer

It's been a couple days since my last post. I got a message from a friend asking for some artwork, so I've been working on that. Diligently. This afternoon, though, I took a little time out to work on some ATCs that I still owe people in the fall ATC swap.

I may have mentioned that I was having trouble drawing fall-ish ATCs. It's been in the 90's where I am and fall is about the last thing on our mind. So, I decided to just drop the fall theme and go with fall-ish colors. One of the tangles I've been enjoying lately is meer. That's the big flow-y one in the middle. It just kind of takes on a life of its own. I ribboned out the sides and curved the inside spines a bit. I like it better this way! Two more ATCs to go. You will probably get to/have to look at those tomorrow :).

A Little More Color

Last night I posted a sneak peek of a project I was working on. Here is the finished art. As a reminder, the colors were washed on first - using a simple watercolor pans kit from the toy aisle at Wal-Mart. You can get some really pretty colors. Then I used a Pitt Artist Pen for the linework. I hadn't used girdy or hibred in awhile. I also used two of my patterns - pipez and crete. You can find the step outs for those two in "My Patterns" at the top of this page. I love Margaret Bremner's copada tangle and use it frequently. 
After I posted last night, someone asked me about crete. That pattern was based on cinder blocks/concrete blocks. There was a time when my children were breaking concrete blocks with a hammer fist in karate, so we have several of them sitting around the yard. Crete looks a lot like those blocks. Why don't you give it a try and see what you come up with?

Fractal Trees Completed

I started work on this project a little over a week ago while I was at Kali's.

This was the first picture I posted. Those trees are a design by Marie Browning, they are called fractal trees. She talks about them in her book Time to Tangle With Colors.

A couple days ago I posted this picture. I took my layout and filled in the layers with various tangles. 

Next I started laying in some color with my Tombow markers. They are a fairly new product for me. Mark gave me a complete set for Christmas,  but I am just now getting around to learning how to use them.

A little more color. Leaning towards a sunset of colors behind those fractal trees.

There you go, there's a closer view.

This will give you a little better idea of what I was working with. This is on Canson, 98 lb, mixed media paper. And, yes, I used every single one of those tombow markers you see laying on the desktop.

Getting close to being finished. Just a little more detail work.

Can you see what I added? Marie calls it haloing. I added a halo around the trees, and around several of the sections down below. At this point I believe this to be complete. Easy enough to do, why don't you give it a try and send me a picture? I'll post it here on my blog :). And if you get a chance, try out Marie Browning's book Time to Tangle With Colors. I carry it in my Etsy store, or you can pick it up online. 
I am linking this post to Jenn's Artist's Play Room over at Just Add Water, Silly. The challenge this week was to do whatever type of art project we wanted to. What perfect timing :). Here you go, Jenn, fractal trees.

Fractal Trees

A couple weeks ago while I was out of town, I posted the beginning of this homework assignment. Pretty much all I had then was the row of reflective trees across the top and some dividing lines drawn down the length of the page. It didn't take me long to fill in the rest of the page with tangles. Now that I am back home, I  need to fill this with color. Once that's done, I will come back and post the finished project for you to see. I'm taking Marie Browning's online class Time To Tangle in Color. I'm learning a lot and loving it! Thanks, Marie!

Practicing

I am trying to work on some homework assignments for an online class I'm taking - getting further and further behind. (And it's only week two.) BUT - I want to post something every day - if I can. I started this last night. It's in my CZT field journal. I am trying to have a go at every official pattern. Some of the new patterns I tried here are meer, orlique, and cyme. Aura-leah and springkle are not official zentangle patterns, but I like them a lot!