Zentangle Fun with Metallic Gell Pens

This week the Diva’s challenge is to tangle something colorful and buggy, based on this super fun video from Sakura.  I just got this super GellyRoll Metallic collection and hadn’t had time to play with it yet, so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity.  (Anything to procrastinate on the book. <sigh>)
Well, these pens are absolutely luscious.  They are a bit thicker than I usually like to write with and the ink color does not match the cap color, but otherwise I have nothing to complain about.  The ink flows beautifully and the colors appear to glow.  I just love them.
So, since I am not a huge “bug” fan, I decided to stick with lady bugs.  After all, you can’t draw a crescent moon without a lady bug!  And I found an adorable lady bug pin who wanted to sit in the center of the flower with his little metallic friends.
And here are the stars from this morning’s Zentangle for the holidays class.  We had so much fun making them that we decided to do it again next week.

I hope you all have as much fun with your art as I did today.

More Challenging Than Usual

This week’s Diva challenge is to use Caren Mlot’s beautiful tangle Cruze. She makes this tangle look so easy that I didn’t bother writing down the steps when I went out to tangle. I ended up with some interesting tangleations, but nothing that looked as elegant as the original.  I'd show you those, but they are hiding in shame.

So, I got out my iPhone and checked the steps again. The same thing happened.  I thought I had it, but I still didn’t get it. This time,  the results are closer:

At this point, I resorted to drawing guidelines, something I’ve never had to do before.  I teach and believe that there are no mistakes in Zentangle, just opportunities to go off in an unexpected direction and see what happens.  Some of the most interesting tangleations  are the result of this.  So, usually I am just happy to see what happens, but this tangle is so interesting that I wanted to “get it right.”  I also thought it would be really interesting to do in a circle. This  is probably part of the reason it was confounding me.

I’m still not sure I succeeded 100%, but I really like the overall result.

Despite the frustration, I really appreciated this challenge as I have students who face these same sorts of challenges regularly and I new feel more able to empathize with their need to “get it right.”

I haven’t had this much trouble since I first tried Mooka.  

Did anyone else find this one more challenging than usual?

More Color

Went to Urgent Care yesterday because I suspected that my 'flu' was really bronchitis.  I was right.  And I am happy to report that the 7 prescriptions (!) are beginning to work.  I still cannot think clearly, but I am able to at least sit up which is an improvement, since I've been mostly lying on the couch since Saturday.

I'm also happy to report that I can still tangle, even with my brain fog.  Here is today's project.  Mostly Zig markers over a watercolor wash.  With accents of Marvy white Reminisce pen, Prismacolor purple marker, Green perm opaque, and chalk.  I was also heavily influenced by a piece of Sonya Yencer's are that is sitting here waiting for our new book.

 

Color Challenge

This week, Laura, aka "the Diva" challenged us to use color.

I had already started tangling these
marbled soapstone coasters.

so I thought I would challenge myself to used colored ink
in addition to a colored background.

But when I inverted the colors using Photoshop,
I liked it even better.

More Challenges

Hello! We are back from a wonderful trip out west.  It felt like we were in a different world and time rather than just different states and timezones. We went from intermittent, spotty internet availability to no internet, no cell phone, and no TV.  Wow! 

As you might imagine, the unspoiled beauty was inspiring. My art skills were not up to the task of capturing it in paint, but I got some beautiful photography.  Aperture statistics say I took 2449 pictures in 2 countries, 7 states, and 33 cities.  It will take me some time to sort through them all.  

In the meantime, here are my entries for the last two Diva challenges. Last week we were to use a stencil or something on hand to trace for our string.  I had my minimal Zentangle kit with me on the road, so the only thing I could find to trace that I haven't already used was my Square reader.  (Note the beautiful Nooksack River in the background.)

This week's challenge was to create a duo-tangle using Cirquital and Opus.  As usual, I just grabbed what was handy, which happened to be a Zendala tile, sepia brush pen, and some metallic pens.  This was a fun one.  

 

Hope you enjoy them.  Now, I'm off to the challenge of laundry and mail… Have a good week.

Cris

 

Birds on a Wire

This week's challenge is to use Mary Kissel's Bird on a Wire tangle.  When I first saw this one, I thought it looked very similar to my own tangle, esses. At the very least, I thought they would play well together.  Whenever I use a lacy tangle like this, I want to put it in a Zendala, so here is my first attempt, paired with esses and colored with Prismacolor pencils.

Birdie has gotten me hooked on Dr. Who and has been trying to get me "caught up." We're in the middle of David Tennant and as much as I love watching that guy, it is hard for me to just sit and watch TV without doing something else. So, here are some "wibbly, wobbly, timey, wimey tangles."  

Are there any Whovians reading my blog? 

Beginnings and Endings

 

New Beginnings

This weekend was the grand opening of my new studio, nicknamed The Zen Den. I met some talented ladies and announced my summer workshops and classes. I'm very excited about teaching my first class here this week.  At first, I was worried about working in the basement, but after all of the cleaning, painting, and decorating, I think it is a very nice place to work. It is comfortably cool on hot days and will be cozy warm in the winter with the wood stove down there.

For those who couldn't make it to the open house, here are some photos of what you missed.

 

I had time to start a black Zendala during the open house and spent a few minutes this morning finishing it up. I wanted to try something different on this one, so I used metallic belly roll pens along with glaze pens and metallic colored pencils. (It is much more sparkly in person.)

 

OZAD Wrap-up

Working on the One Zentangle a Day virtual book club was so much more rewarding than I expected it to be. Not only did I love seeing all of the beautiful art, but I really appreciated hearing others' experiences as we shared this journey together. This common bond brought us together even though we were separated by hundreds, maybe thousands of miles.  I hope we can do it again in the fall.  Does anyone have Margaret Bremner's book?

 

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It looks interesting and I was wondering if it might be a good one to explore in the fall.

But for now, here is the last of the One Zentangle a Day goodies I've received.

From Ellen Gozling:

Uw bericht kan nu met het volgende bijlagen of koppelingen worden verzonden:
day 40

day 41

day 42

 

From Marty Deckel:

Thanks so much to you and ellen for hosting!!!  It was a long haul, but it was worth it for all the work and lesson's learned, not only from the book but from each other...so THANKS to ALL who contributed!!!!

 

Here is my Day 40 tile:  Letters as Strings, as well as 2 that I didn't ever send.  Day 16 Achromatic Scale on Midtoned paper, and Day 32 Borders and Frames, which I redid, because I had misunderstood the lesson...so there are 3 tiles attached.

 

I found todays lesson #40 fun to do, as I really love calligraphy and just love the W2 that Angie did behind her letter "a", so I used that tangle and adapted it.  I shaded with my pencil and then used the gray Fabrico marker around the letter and some areas of the background tangle...loved it!!

Well, here is Day #41:  Folk Patterns.  I have a tile and then2 jpg's of the Folk Patterns I found...it was an interesting lesson and one I never would have thought about doing.  I included a jpg of my sketchbook with the patterns I found...I planned out the tile so I could be sure to use all the patterns...interesting, but my tile is jam packed!

and the last Lesson for OZAD!!!  It's been great to meet so many new CZT's and lovers of Zentagle, and to have the privalege to work with and learn from everyone!!!  Thanks to Cris and Ellen for hosting...great job!!!

 

Here are my tiles for Day 42:  Simple Line Drawing. 

Tile one has some of my favorites and I added some Sepia, Inktense pencils and water, and a Fabrico marker for shading...I didn't use the Bronx Cheer, although, I have used it several times on my tiles out of necessity :-)

 

Part 2 of this lesson, Line Drawing...I used a Cala Lily as my line drawing string, and shaded with pencil, Fabrico, and a grey Pitt pen...I really like shading with these markers!  When I showed it to my husband, he asked if I was going to color it...so I decided to color it and I'm glad I did.  I used Tombow Markers.  If we hadn't had all the lessons in this book, I may never have used the markers to shade, or added color with the Inktense pencils, markers, Gelly Roll pens, etc., etc.!  Lots of fun!!!

 

 

 

 

What a nice way to finish the book, Marty.  Beautiful, as always. 

 

OZAD - Almost done

Interest seems to be dwindling here, but that is OK. We've had a great time and we're almost done. Spring is in the air and the outdoors is calling.  The garden and bike are calling and the beach is waiting. Does your tangling slow down this time of year? At home, I find myself tangling less.  But then I travel and have marathon sessions.  

I think I am done with the book, but if you are still working, please keep sending me your creations. I would be happy to collect and post them, probably once a week.

So, here are all of the tiles I've gotten in the last week in the order I received them.

First from Sonya Yencer:

OZAD 35

Once again, I am not fond of the string that began the Zendala. However, after decided to give it a whirl, my personal goal became to figure out how to soften the transition between the geometric and organic sections of the string, bringing harmony to the design. I'm happy with the results, especially the BETWEED star as the centerpiece to the "flower".

OZAD 36

Used ZANDER  for most of my string and love it! However, STICKERS is for the birds. It was an epic fail—thus my Bronx Cheer on top to salvage the tile. Love the background tangle with the dotted lines, stripes and "flowery" shapes, but have no idea what it is called. Does anyone know the name of this tangle? I will definitely be using it again!

 

 

OZAD 37

I'm not sure I see much of a difference between WARMTH and KEEKO (except that one uses straight lines while the other uses curved), but maybe I just need to practice each more. I used WARMTH as my string instead of a filler on this tile. While interesting, I'm not in love with it. Next time I will choose pens that provide more contrast - you can barely tell I used 2 different sized nibs. I'm even less thrilled with my orbs. Overall, don't care much for this tile but, as usual, the exercise was entertaining and kept me busy during my 1.5 hours of waiting time for my daughter's sports practice!

 

From Ellen Gozeling Day 38:

As I don't have a bleach pen, I was thinking of skipping this day.

Then I decided I just do a tile and send that in. And THEN I realized I have bought 2 white handkerchiefs, ages ago, and maybe I could tangle on them. But then there was the "problem" of holding the fabric. So I gave it some thought, and then I came up with an embroidery-ring. I like it! And I will go on with it, but not today. So here is my photo of my finished tile and my just started fabric work.

From Marty Deckel:

 

I didn't do the second lessons on day 38 and 39 (fabric and mica)...but did do a tile for each day.  Day 38 I tried doing just a few tangles, Floo, Paizel, some Perfs and a bit of Fescu...tried to keep it more open.  Day 39, Drawing Texture; is not open and very tight...but it does appear to have some texture  :-)  I used Printemps, Shattuck, Black perfs (Perlz, or Buckeyes), and Tipple.  I also used a white Gelly Roll pen in some areas.

Wow!  Only 3 more lessons to go...

Finally, from Maria Vennekens:

Attached day 39. I used Maria Thomas’string #50 (tangle patterns) and went back to my calendar again. I wish I knew where to buy mica. The work shown in the book is beautiful. I only know mica from my childhood . I used to watch the fire trough  “windows” of mica. They always were a bit dirty because of the smoke of the fire. The combination of the dirt and the flames had the same look as the artworks show on page 111.

As I have holidays this week I decided to finish the book today and send my contributions to you. I enjoyed the first part of the book much more than the last. But once said that I would participate I find I have to contribute till the end. So here are the last three.

40 (m, h and M)

This was fun to do. I used a twin pencil to draw the letters. I depends on the patterns used how the letters show up . The more contrast between letter and background pattern, the better you can see the letter. It also can help to leave a millimeter space around the letter (see h). I think my capital M came out the best.

 

41

I used some of the folk patterns suggested in the book. I like the result but don’t think it is different from using tangle patterns. Again I regret not having the opportunity to use the material suggested on the right page. I looks interesting and it is a material/technique that will create even more dimension in a zentangle.

42

As one tile would not be big enough to give space to my favorite patterns I decided to do the line drawing suggested on the right page. I had better not.

 

Thanks for all the efforts you did to put our works on your blog. It was fun to see what others did with the 42 (or must we say 84) challenges.

 

Lots of great eye candy today.  I hope you enjoyed it.

 

 

 

One Zentangle a Day - Day 36

We've made it to the final chapter of the books!  Is it time to start thinking of another book to do or should we take a break.  Our numbers seem to be dwindling.  I don't know if it is because the outdoors beckons with beautiful weather (and yard work) or if people are just getting tired of the book.  I'm not even sure what it is for me!

The daily tangles were Zander and stickers.  I love zander, but have never tried it using her steps.  I decided against stickers.  I don't like poke root and that one does not appeal at all.

To me, Zander looks like hair pulled into elastic and I guess I got carried away with that in my tile.  Very carried away. I even connected it with the Za that was going to be the border to a super long pony tail.  Of course, it needed a feather for our baby chicks that died.  This is not my favorite tile, but the "tangle fairy" came while it was in the bag and it looks better than it did last night.

 

From Ellen Gozeling:

In the book there is an example of a tile that is overworked. And what did I do? I started with making my Zander really small. Using it like Hollibaugh and filling the blank spaces with pearls. Overworked! Then I did the same with the pearls in the corner. Not one of my favorites. But again a good exercise and a nice and quiet hour.

I don't think it is overworked.  I think there is a nice balance of lights and darks.  But a good hour tangling is always a good thing, even when we aren't thrilled with the results.

From Marty Deckel:

Here are my 2 tiles for Day 36-OZAD: Creating Ensembles. The first tile tangles are Zander and Stickers.  The second is a 4-tile Ensemble.  Only OK, not too happy with the string...and it's too symmetrical, although, I did enjoy the tangles I used.

 

 

 

 

I see what she means about the symmetry.  I love each of the individual tiles, beautiful work as always.  I'd like to see it with the tiles switched around a bit.  Hey, I have Photoshop.  Let's see what I can do…

Well, I like it a bit better this way. But I like it either way.  Such beautiful purk and pais.  Lovely shading also.  I'm glad someone did the ZIA part.  

Lastly, here is Maria Vennekden's Zendala for Day 35.  Somehow the internet ate the attachment and she had to resend it.  Lovely work.