Coral Step Out, New Tangle

 Not long ago, the Tangle It! Journal was released

and along with it came some new tangles.

Coral was a tangle of mine that we shared 

in the new journal.

Coral is easy to tangle and it has so many applications.

The lines do not have to be straight, they can be wavy. Fat or thin, heavy lines or thin lines. Rings or no rings, holes or no holes. It is up to you.

 This one was fun.

Coral can be more abstract and just flow

with whatever you are drawing.

 It can be asymmetrical. 

 Or really asymmetrical. 

Here coral just kind of takes on a life of its own.

 I really love using coral in underwater scenes. 

As you can see, the coral don't need to all move in the same direction. 

They work very well in a random placement.

Probably my favorite piece using coral of all time. Twinkling H2Os really brought this piece to life and those swaying bits of coral add the movement this piece needed.

Coral.  Why don't you give it a whirl today and see how you can use coral in your own art.

New Tangle: Dropz

This new tangle just came together as I was circle stacking. Dropz. So easy to do and it looks really cool!

 See that band across the middle?

That is dropz.

Someone asked for the step outs, 

so here they are!

 Those are the steps.

Just below this sentence you see what dropz looks like when it is completed.

Below that are two tangleations.

 Really versatile and you can make it look different

by adding highlights, or changing up the dark sections.

Dropz. Across the bottom.

Why don't you try it out today and see what you can do with dropz?

Sunz, New Step Outs

Sunz is a tangle I started drawing a couple years ago. I have some step-outs on my pinterest board and buried here in my blog, but figured now that I know how to draw better step-outs, I would give it another go.

This is the actual piece of art I designed sunz for three years ago.

It was one of the very first zentangle inspired

pieces I drew. 

That wall behind the sunz, is another tangle of mine called crete.

My drawing skills have developed a bit in three years, too.  Hahahaha! Here is a piece I tangled this afternoon, featuring sunz!
Please feel free to pin these newer step-outs. They look so much better!

Another Dutch Diamond Tangle

A short time ago, I posted about a tangle I designed called Dutch Diamonds. Well, I pulled it out again and drew this recently. This is in my square Stillman & Birns sketchbook. I love that book so much I recently bought three more of them! What are you working on today? or this week?

TootsieMoon Step Out

Some of these photos are going to look a little strange. The angle is going to be different than you expect and there are going to be a few shadows. I drew these tiles as I sat on my chaise with my foot propped up and iced. 
I want to introduce you to a tangle I've been working on - and I'm calling it TootsieMoon for a couple reasons. Not totally new, but a twist on an old one. Lots of photos to show, so I will try to keep the talking to a minimum. Whew! (As if.)

I posted this picture last week. This is TootsieMoon.

This is also TootsieMoon. I will post step-outs at the bottom, but first let me walk you through the making of this tile.

Drawn in my Stillman & Birn 7" square Zeta Series sketchbook. I made a big X and drew a wavy line over each leg. If you mess your lines up a little, no big deal. Fill those waves in with color.

Aura one side - I started with the underside and turned my tile as I went. (Remember, to aura something means to outline, or mimic it.)

Then aura the other side, in my case the top side of the bars. You should have auras on both sides of the wavy lines when you are done.

TootsieMoon really starts looking pretty cool at this point! You have your wavy lines, and auras on both sides of the bars.

Start along one side and make half-moon shapes in each of the flat auraed spots. 

Do this on both sides of each bar. TootsieMoon is a very forgiving tangle. Don't worry if the half-moon shapes aren't all the same size, or if your wavy line gets a little wonky. When it's all completed - all those little imperfections just kind of work their way right and it all looks good. 

Then you are going to add color (or blacken in) each of those new half-moons you drew. This gives you the original wavy line, the auras on each side, and new rows of half-moons.

Finish this part of TootsieMoon by auraing the whole thing. 

Now let's learn how to draw a negative TootsieMoon. (Sorry for those shadows, taking iPad pictures while I was freezing my ankle on an ice pack.) For the negative version, I drew a straight line in the shape of a box. 

Followed with a curvy line that I blackened in. Nothing new so far.

Then I drew a big plus sign and added wavy lines to those as well. Do NOT blacken these curves in.

Go straight to the next step and add an aura along one side of each bar, being careful not to cross over any lines.

Now go back and fill that aura in with color.

Aura the opposite side of the bars and darken that aura in.

Then add the outer aura along both sides of each bar of the plus sign.  And that gives you a negative version - or variation - of TootiseMoon.

To complete TootsieMoon, I added auras in a couple sections, just like you do with crescent moon - hence, the 'moon' part of TootsieMoon.

Shade and call it done.

I named it TootsieMoon because it reminds me of yummy tootsie rolls and the crescent moon tangle. Have fun with it! Let me know what you think. I am working on another piece that I hope to post tomorrow with some more TootsieMoon in it!

Dutch Diamonds, New Tangle

Ready for a new tangle pattern? My husband said it looked like those little pointy hats the dutch girls wore in the old days. (Does anyone know if they actually did wear those cute little hats?) And thus the name came about - Dutch Diamonds.

The step-outs for Dutch Diamonds.

The first project I used dutch diamonds on was a postcard for a facebook swap I was involved in. I have no idea now where this postcard ended up. And I've learned a lot about shading and highlighting since I drew this. 

And believe it or not - both of those long strips are dutch diamonds. The back one is a variation - or tangleation - of the original. There are many ways to draw dutch diamonds - you are only limited by your ideas. (And if you need another cup of coffee. Or chocolate. Or coffee and chocolate. Oh, wait! Jelly Bellies!!!)

Here are a few tangleations I came up with. I'm inviting you to try Dutch Diamonds out for yourself. I know you can do it. And I think you have some more tangleations just waiting to slip out of your hand, through your pen, and onto the paper! And I would love to see them!

Dutch Diamonds! (Now, where did I stash that extra bag of jelly bellies???)))