Zentangle® a Watercolor Bookplate, WUD, and an Inchie

I Am The Diva, Challenge #248, is to "give the gift of Zentangle". I used a card from Suzy's Watercolor Doodles that I colored with Inktense and Prima watercolor pencils. I added a border of Quib and Laced, then some Betweed and Inapod to the heart. I finished with regular colored pencils for shadows and a white acrylic paint pen for highlights. This will be a bookplate for a gift.

The focus tangle over at Square One, Facebook, was to use WUD. I added Hurry.

And, The prompt word at Every Inchie Monday was locomotive. This is actually a tiny print out of a photo I took from the back of the steam train ride my hubby and I took in the spring on the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad. It was truly a beautiful trip.

Thanks for stopping by. I truly enjoy reading your comments!

Zendala Dare #114

This week's Zendala Dare, over at The Bright Owl, is number 114. I made a happy "mistake" and wound up with this.

 Don't you just love "mistakes"? I do because they invite creativity. I used Betweed and Reticulated by Livia Chua. Thanks, Erin, for this lovely template.

Thank you for stopping by. I enjoy reading your comments!

Zentangle® Zenith, Yincut, and an Inchie

The Diva is back for the beginning of the fall challenges. She left us with some fun guest bloggers over the summer and it is nice to have her back. Do pop over to welcome her back and join in on the fun! This week, she is having us do the new tangle, Zenith. Last week, it was the challenge for Square One, so I had already played with it a bit. I really thought that it could do more than be a border or frame, so I let it morph on its own and found that I could make it double back on itself. I eliminated the circles and added extra diamonds. Several were filled with Paradox. I've never filled in auras before as a design element and I like how it looks. Finally, I added a bit of a variation of Footlights to the top.

Square One's focus tangle was Yincut. I added some 'Neppel and Betweed.

And, for Every Inchie Monday, the prompt was necklace. Since the Diva has a son that must deal with some medical and physical issues, she has made us aware of Beads of Courage. This program developed as a way to encourage children dealing with serious illness. The beads are symbols of courage that has been shown during their journey.

Thank you for stopping by. I love reading your comments!

Zentangle® Zenith, Windfarm, and an Inchie

Holly Atwater, CZT, is the guest blogger over at The Diva Challenge this week. Holly does some wonderful meditative audios for you to listen and tangle to. I, for some reason, need silence when I seriously tangle, so this doesn't work for me, but do give it a try. She did offer an alternative challenge for us, and that one was to use Betweed. I really wanted to try out the new tangle from Zentangle.com (read the most recent newsletter for step-outs) called Zenith. So, I put the two together.

Facebook's Square One had a focus tangle of Man-O-Man and/or Windfarm (Margaret Bremner). I used both.

And, Every Inchie Monday had a prompt word of "Pavilion". Sorry, folks, I couldn't even begin to think of anything clever this week. So, just a plain old pavilion. Wish I were there enjoying some sea breezes!


Just an aside. I am now back to doing the Zendala Dare. I will be posting these on Tuesdays (unless life gets in the way LOL). This week only, I will post a link to the last one I did.

Thanks for stopping by. I love reading your comments!

Zentangle® some Star Wars, and Can a Leopard Change His Spots?

The Diva Challenge, #216 was a UMT (Use my Tangle), by Bunny Wright called Brella. This was a fun tangle and it uses a grid. Why R2D2 you may ask? Well, because it is "May the 4th, be with you always", of course :) I love that my four boys and Laura's two share this same love. Star Wars came out in 1977. My two older boys were 9 and 5. I can still remember how we sat in awe as that ship came toward us! I did buy my oldest son a copy of the very first Star Wars comic book and carefully wrapped it up so that he could save it and pass it on to his grandchildren so they could be independently wealthy. Does anyone know where it is now? LOL

I used Brella, Bertweed, Hibred, Crescent Moon, and one lonely Printemps.

Facebook's, Square One, asked us to use Tripoli. I added Crescent Moon, Betweed, Paradox, Tipple, and Hollibaugh.

Every Inchie Monday had a prompt word of "leopard". Well, maybe a leopard can't change his spots, but I don't think I really believe that a person can't change who they are. A lot of the negative things we attribute to people has been created from fear. Take that away and I do believe that a leopard might just be able to change his spots.

Zentangle® with a Stencil

The Challenge from the Diva this week is to use a stencil as a string. Being an art journalist and card maker means I have LOTS of stencils. I chose one from TC Designs. I used Quib, 'Nzepple, Crescent Moon, Ibex, Knightsbridge, Betweed, and Tipple.

For Square One on Facebook, the tangle to use was Man-O-Man, to which I added Festune and Verdigogh.

And, Every Inchie Monday had a prompt of "Gecko!" Did you know that a mechanical engineer has come up with gloves for humans that mimic the sticky pads of a gecko's feet to allow for vertical climbing on smooth surfaces? Here is an interesting article about it.

Zentangle® Mooka in a Box, a Zendala and an Inchie

Well, it's Monday morning, and the first thing I do is head over to I am the Diva to see what this week's challenge is (#195). Visiting CZT, Sandy Hunter, came up with a doosy. At least I think so. She asked us to take something that is usually in a grid and take it out of the grid, or take something without a grid and put it in one. I'm not really fond of grid based tangles most of the time. I find them better for borders and backgrounds. I often take grid based tangles and yank them out of their confinement any way. My favorite tangle is Paradox, but I think that taking it out of the box still looks like it is in a box, so that wouldn't do. My second favorite is Mooka. Put Mooka in a box? Horrors!!!! But that's what I did. I went for a tan tile this time and I also added some perfs and rounding for a bit of interest. Thanks for the push, Sandy!

For Square one, the tangle this week was Assunta, to which I added some Arukas. (Don't know this one? Find a CZT and take a class to learn how to do it!)

I have an In the Round class coming up, so I was playing with Zendalas this week too.

XYP, Betweed, Paradox

To get started, I used the little plastic toy, Ravensburger Mini Mandala Make, that I ordered through Sue Jacob's site. Read about it here. If you do decide to order one, do it through her site so she gets a few pennies on the sale. I'm fairly proficient with a compass, so I probably won't use it much, but it was something different and fun. I got one for my granddaughter for Christmas also.

And, finally, this week over at Every Inchie Monday, the prompt was X-Axis. So, I made the blue and red cross and guess what jumped in? Paradox, of course!

Thanks for stopping by. I wish all of you, who celebrate it, a very Happy Thanksgiving. I am thankful for all my friends, including all my readers, who make getting up each morning a joy.

Zentangle® Betweed, Beelight, and an Inchie

I have had such a wonderful week. Friday, I was lucky to have been able to give a class to one of our Diva Challenge participants from the Netherlands, Kay. She was visiting here in AZ, looked me up, and we had so much fun tangling together. It is so amazing to me how we can be from all over the world, yet friends through this shared love of Zentangle. You can see the ZIA's (Zentangle Inspired Art) she did in creating a tangled garden and exploring fractuals on the Workshop tab on the top. Hers is the first picture under student works.

For the Dive Challenge #191, we were to use Betweed as a monotangle. I think this is such a graceful tangle. I decided to push it into different shapes and go in different directions too.

For the Square One group on Facebook, the tangle of the week was Beelight. I also pushed this one a bit and used more of curved rectangles rather than squares.

And for Every Inchie Monday, the prompt was "Vegetable." I have no idea why this was the image that popped into my head, but it did, and I went with it!

Thanks for stopping by. I love to read your comments. It makes blogging worth all the time that goes into it. Maybe you too will visit AZ one day and we can meet :)

Zentangle® Strings, Tipple vs Perfs, and an Inchie

For this week's challenge, # 187, the Diva asked us to do our string with our eyes closed. This is the string I made.





Which turned into this.

Half a Verve, direction changing Facade, Mooka, Onamato, Squid, and some embellishments. 













Square One: Purely Zentangle®,  had us working with Betweed. I had someone ask the difference between Tipple and perfs, so I added some perfs (pearl like dots around a tangle as used in old manuscripts) and a couple of auras.

 And, for Every Inchie Monday, the prompt was "Throne". Well, you know I wanted to do the porcelain throne, but thought too many would go that direction, so I had to dig deeper. I found some interesting things about angelic hierarchies and throne angels. I did the first one using oil pastels with the scratch method of layering black over lighter colors then scraping off. But, I wasn't sure it cold be seen as an angel, so I did another with a Copic sprayed background and gel pens.

Thanks for stopping by and I love to read all your comments.

Zentangle® on This and That and More

After scanning, adjusting photos and such, I have come to realize that I am spending way too much time on absolutely everything except being retired. I thought I would have down time and just relax; however, I have jumped into every challenge, dare, group, trade and more. Sigh. I know many of you can relate HAHA!

Sunday, was the Zendala Dare from The Bright Owl. We were to do our work around something that we are grateful for. I am grateful for many, many things, but I really treasure my friends. That, dear reader, includes you as I think the Zentangle community is just so friendly and sharing and I do so appreciate that you stop by and leave comments.
Monday, I like to see what the Challenge is from The Diva. We were asked to do something with the New Year. I also had one of my new online friends, Annemarie, share some beautiful coasters she had done and I thought I would try one, so I combined the two together to come up with this:

Coaster

Alice in Blue Inchie

Now, I have joined the world of "Inchies". If you look at the side of my blog, there is an Inchie badge. Do go take a look. Every Monday, we have a new prompt. These probably won't include Zentange, though they might. What fun these little pieces of art are. This is my very first one and we were to do "Alice in Blue". Out came my Copics for this one!

Then, of course, I have my Yahoo trades. One was to use a peace sign, one was for ATC's of dressed snowmen (or women), and one was to use only tangles that started with J for January.

Jilly, Jalousie, Jetties

Jonqal, Jitterz, Jambalee

'nzepple, Printemps, Florz, Zinger

Brayd, Betweed

Florz, Ahh, Eke, Diva Dance

Now, if you think that's not enough, please take a look at my ART JOURNAL page on the tabs above to see the fun I am having slopping paints and glue and anything else I can think of as part of Journal52, a group of art journal enthusiasts who will find time to play with a new page each week. It's not too late to join. I won't post these on my main page, so that those of you who are not interested don't have to look at them, but I will update that page with the new things I am doing with that group and with the pages from a journal that I made and am following from the book Art at the Speed of Life.

A Zentangle® Christmas Wish and a Dare

This week's Zendala Dare by Erin at The Bright Owl, was a very different template. The rectangles looked like dominoes to me and I was going to do them as such but decided it was too predictable. So I went with Hibred and added Striping and Betweed.

I want to wish all my fellow tanglers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday season for all.

Dare # 72 and Quib, the New Zentangle

Well, Erin at the Bright Owl really handed us a difficult assignment this week. We tanglers tend to use very fine pens, meaning thin point, for our most delicate work. Occasionally, we might use a pen with a thicker point to do large fill-in areas. This week, we were to choose our "fatty" pen and do absolutely everything with that one pen. All I could find in my studio (that could be a page and a half on its own LOL) was a .6mm = pretty chunky. It does make you think of what kind of patterns would work on the template. I chose Bales, Betweed, and Mysteria:

I also belong to a group of great tanglers who meet once a month to push each other to grow in our art. We did some flower tangles and then worked on the new tangle, Quid:




Mine is the full color one.

Mine is the top right one. I have some excellent roll models in my group. They all do such beautiful work.