Zentangle® Earth Day, An Inchie, and Just Fun

Angel Fish, Cat-Kin, Sanibelle, Tipple

This week, I was lucky enough to teach an Organic and Tangled Garden class. What fun! People seem to really love the freedom of a ZIA (Zentangle Inspired Art) and the flow of organic tangles. We worked on tan pape

Onamato, Verve, Reticulated, Nipa

Jonqal, Sandswirl, Lichen, Quib

While I waited for the class to begin, I played with some ATC's with glitter/paint strings:

HOTdog

Every Inchie Monday's prompt was HOT. Oh, the different directions people will go with this one. I can't wait to look, but I never look until I have posted. I'm afraid if I look first, I will be too embarrassed to post mine LOL!!!




And, the Diva challenged us to create a tile for Earth Day. I had to add a bit of Diva Dance to my tree :)

Happy Earth Day to all and thank you for stopping by!

Zentangle® Dare/Challenge, Inchie and ATC

What a great week it was. I got to teach not only a class in Zentangle, but a class of enthusiastic beginning art journalers. I also got to teach a group of wonderful ladies how to use a compass to make perfect squares, triangles, and other shapes just begging to be filled with tangles. Next week, I am presenting Zentangle to a retirement community where I could have 40 to 100 attendees. That should be fun too.

Let's start this week's show and tell with saying Happy Birthday to Erin at The Bright Owl.
Erin's Dare was for us to use our favorite tangle as a gift to her. My favorite tangle is Paradox and I especially love making it adapt to any shape. I used only a partial one on the open tangle.

On to the Weekly Challenge #153 where the Diva challenged us to use Sadelle Wiltshire's Jailed Johnny. I paired this one up with BB and wound up with:

This week's Inchie was the word Cathedral. A bit of a stretch for me to think of something unique. That didn't happen, so I just did a cathedral both inside and outside:



And, Cubism was the prompt for doing some ATC trades with my Yahoo buddies. 

Square stamping, collage and tangles.

Stamped squares, cut up drawn key, added Paradox square.

Splattered inks, stamped squares, cut heart with Verve, Mooka added and additional squares drawn.


(Visitors from "Grow your Blog, please click here.)

Quib

Quib is the tangle that was taught when I went for my CZT, Certified Zentangle Teacher, (11) training this summer. I found it interesting in that it was a lot like Hollibaugh but with twists, turns, and a beginning and ending place. So many things could be done with this tangle. The Diva challenged us to use this tangle for week #145.

I did peek at a few that were done before me. Obviously, I didn't let those influence me. Other people do such beautiful tiles. I always feel like a misplaced paperdoll when I look at mine next to theirs. (Those of you who are older will remember playing with paperdolls. Sometimes you had a beautiful and delicate adult figure but you also played with a larger sized baby paper doll at the same time. They were almost comical next to each other.)

I did several of these in ATC size and I am going to show them all anyway :) Your opinions are always appreciated.

A Challenge and a Sneak Preview

This week's challenge from the Diva proved to be a real challenge for me. I have always had difficulty with Quandry. I know I still didn't get it right, but I am posting it anyway. We have to remember that even if we don't do something "right" it is still Zentangle, just a tangalation. Fengle is always fun to do. I added some Sharpie pens, Copics, and pencil shading.

Edited this to add a video from Ellen Wolters on how to use a grid for Quandry.





I belong to a group of CZTs (Certified Zentangle Teachers) who are working on a deck of cards made from ATC (Artist Trading Cards) that are 2.5" x 3.5". We can play with the cards by adding color, fabric, collage and such, but we must add tangles to each one. When they are complete, we will send them to the host who will separate them into different decks of 52. We will then each receive a deck of cards with each card coming from a fellow CZT. What fun and just a little pressure. Some of these people do such beautiful work, which I'm sure you've seen out there. I find myself intimidated all the time on occasion by their beautiful work. I am also inspired to keep working on my tangles and steal borrow from them as well.

Anyway, I am in the process of doing 53 ATCs (one set will go to the founders of Zentangle, Rick and Maria) for this trade. I wanted to share my process and will reveal some of the finished ones (no, you won't have to look at all 53!) in the future.
Some ATCs are tangled first and then color is added. I like to use Copic markers, H2O watercolor paints, Gelatos, colored pencils, Inktense water color pencils and Neocolor crayons. This swap sure lets me have fun playing with all my collection of color making materials!

Here is one that I used glitter glue to make a string. After it dried, I added Copic markers. Won't this be fun to tangle?





Some I only played with my water colors:

But It's a Dry Heat

This week's Dare from Erin at The Bright Owl was to do a Zendala using tangles that start with letters either in the word Hot or Heat. Well, living in the Phoenix area of AZ where it was 118 degrees last week, that was a fun one to do. I settled on Hollibaugh, Efilys, Arc Flower and Tidings:

 I also had some fun with some Celtic Knots that were freehand stye a la Patrick Gallagher.

I used Copics and Sharpie pens.



Then, I pulled out some tiles that I had drizzled some rubber cement on. After it dried, I watercolored the sections. After that dried, I rubbed off the rubber cement and tangled.

Footprints, Dyon, Hurry, Diva Dance, Sez, Rain,  Flux

Still trying to do different tangles.

Snail, Cubine, Facets, Stricles

As you can see, I was still in the Celtic Knot mode a bit.

If you've never tried this, it makes for a fun string.



And finally, a few ATC that I did as a trade for my Yahoo Group done in the style of In the style of Karin Kuhlmann. If you have not seen her work, do look it up. 



She does beautiful digital work. I haven't even come close to representing her, but I enjoyed trying.


Aqua Markers, colored pencils, Sharpie pens.

Lots of Swaps for April

Here are a few of the things I have been working on lately. My Yahoo group had an ATC swap for flowers in the style of Georgia O'Keefe. The first one was just too traditional, not O'Keefe enough. I'm still not too happy with the following ones, but it seems like doing a "tiny" O'Keefe isn't quite right anyway :)

The second swap was for a "Hippie Bear". I quite like her. If you have an imagination, like I do, you will see the peace sign on her left paw. She has a diamond in the middle of the flower that she holds in her right hand. Her vest has little teeny tiny fringe that I glued individually. (I really need a life, yes?) She was a lot of fun to do.

 And, finally, the last swap was for a zentangle that has an animal or part of an animal in it. I probably have too much animal as it is fairly clear what he is, but it's Zentangle, right? (Actually, a ZIA.)

CZT Class and Artist Trading Cards, ATC

I signed up for the Certified Zentangle Teacher, CZT, class in June. I will retire at the end of May and then go to the training the following month. Could anything work out more perfectly? I read, on my Yahoo group, that people trade ATC's there. So, now I need to do some of those to take. Here are my first two: