As a counterpoint to last week’s straight lines challenge, the Diva’s challenge (#369) this week is to draw orbs, orbs, and more orbs. Laura points out that drawing circles can be great for reducing stress. Let the soothing commence.
Orbtastic
Tag Archives: challenge tangle
Straight Lines and Other Things
Diva Challenge #368 is to draw a tile with straight lines only. Cool idea! For my tile I decided to focus on Frost Flower by Karry Huen. Stepouts are available here.
As my string I drew five squares, with one on top of the others in the center. Then I filled each of the squares with Frost Flower and added shading. The result is straight lines going every which way! There isn’t a single curvy line in this tile.
It’s been a busy several days in tangling. This week Adele Bruno is celebrating her It’s A String Thing challenge’s 5th Birthday! To mark the occasion I submitted the following tile:
My intention was to add color to this tile. Things didn’t work out according to my vision though. The watercolors caused some of the ink to run, and the gel pens I used were simply too dark. Anyway, luckily I scanned the tile before applying watercolors and was able to send in the black and white version.
One more tile to share in this post. I love rose patterns and had seen Helen Williams’ video on how to draw her pattern Spiral Rose. So of course I wanted to try it out.
I will add color later, but I do think it is very striking in black and white!
Nzeppel
Another week brings another Diva challenge. This time the challenge is to create a tile using ‘Nzeppel, one of my favorite patterns. Stepouts for ‘Nzeppel and Crazy ‘Nzeppel can be found here.
For months I planned on preparing some of my zentangle tiles with watercolor washes, and I finally got around to it! For this challenge I chose to tangle on a tile with a blue, green, and yellow wash. The wash was done with watercolor crayons and a Pentel Aquash brush. It’s really easy to do and I like the effects.
Carrying over last week’s Back to Basics theme, I decided to stick with official Zentangle patterns again. My tile features Crazy ‘Nzeppel, Crescent Moon, and Tripoli.
As long as I have you here, I’d like to call attention to two new tangles/tangleations which I have worked out. They are called Zazzle and Palmetta. The stepouts can be found on my Patterns page. Also, I made a blog post announcing Zazzle here, and there is an older post about Palmetta here (later revised to include stepouts). They haven’t gotten many views so I thought I’d mention them again here. I would greatly love some feedback, especially since these are my first attempts at introducing new patterns.
Thank you for visiting!
Back To Basics
The Diva has returned! This week the challenge (#366) is to go Back to Basics by revisiting several official tangles: Hollibaugh, Meeko, Printemps, and Crescent Moon. It is nice to have the opportunity to return to these very familiar tangle patterns with a fresh eye.
Here is my tile:
I had fun with this tile, and like the effect of filling in the quadrants of the rough diamond shape with the patterns.
Following a similar theme (at least as far as Hollibaugh is concerned) is this week’s “It’s A String Thing” challenge. In this case, the challenge tangles include Hollibaugh, 7Keys, Sling-Slang, and Diamonte. The goal is to practice layers and fills, utilizing IAST string #259 by Adele Bruno.
My tile appears below.
The surrounding three bands of Sling-Slang, 7Keys, and Diamonte made a nice frame around the Hollibaugh. It was fun to learn the three less familiar patterns.
Thank you for visiting!
Diva Challenge #364 – Puf
It’s been a while since I last posted here on the blog. I’m happy to be back and have another Diva challenge tile to share. This week the Diva’s challenge (#364) is to draw a monotangle featuring Puf by Carole Ohl, CZT. The step outs are available on her blog here.
Puf is a lot of fun to draw and is very aptly named! In her post about the pattern Carole Ohl mentions that it can also be done with different shapes other than squares. I liked the idea of having most of my tile consist of a boxy square grid, but I also thought it would be interesting to place Puf in triangles at the corners. Fairly heavy shading really gives the tile some depth I think.
Thanks to the Diva for another great challenge!
It’s A Paradox
This week’s Diva challenge is to draw a Paradox monotangle. Above are two Paradox tiles which I drew some time ago. It’s so late in the week that I’m just posting them here for fun. The first presents the “twist” pattern, and the second features the “fan” pattern. I love how the looks are so different! Paradox is an official tangle and the step outs are available here.
Here’s an admission: when I first learned how to draw Paradox I found it very difficult. The problem was that I kept losing my place in terms of where the last stroke ended and the next stroke would begin. With a fair degree of determination and a lot of practice I got much better at it. Turning the tile helps a lot. Now Paradox is one of my favorite tangles.
Tip: This post by Margaret Bremner, CZT was very helpful to me in mastering this tangle.
Diva Challenge #343 – Dewd
After a couple of months of little to no posting, I’m back hoping to renew a routine of sharing my tiles and other projects. During my absence I was busy working on rebranding the blog (there’s some more to do). In addition I was laying the groundwork to start a home business.
This week’s Diva challenge is to explore the latest official tangle, Dewd. This brand new tangle was introduced in a recent Zentangle.com newsletter, which also featured a video of Maria demonstrating how to draw this new pattern.
For my tile I chose to combine Dewd with Paradox, and I also added a touch of Tipple. Dewd reminds me a lot of Fescu and adds a cool variation on the aura. I had a little trouble with the spacing between the fescu-like elements, but overall I enjoyed working with the new pattern.
Square One on Facebook recently also had Dewd as a focus tangle. I posted a different tile to that group which I think has a real botanical look to it:
As long as you are here, I’d like to bring your attention to a previous post I made concerning a possible new tangleation. Would you mind taking a look and letting me know what you think?
As always, thank you for visiting!
Square One: Dewd and Zailz
During the week of November 17 – 24, 2017, the challenge tangle for the Square One Zentangle group on Facebook was Dewd. As of this date, Dewd is the newest official Zentangle pattern. A step-out can be found here.
My Dewd tile appears below. The pattern is very close to aura’d Fescu (with a touch of sparkle) I think. The resulting look is simple and appealing, and I think that there is a botanical look to it. As is my tendency, I went for simplicity… in this case a monotangle. It almost looks like a bouquet!
Moving on, for the following week of November 24 – 30, 2017, the Square One challenge pattern was Zailz, by Loretta West CZT. A step-out can be found here.
When I looked at the Zailz step-out and other tiles, what I though of was an image of ocean waves cresting. Perhaps the Tipple (or Perfs) are bubbles? Anyhow, here is my Zailz tile:
Fins to the left, fins to the right? Or choppy seas? Fancy triangle shapes?
You decide. 🙂
Diva Challenge #320 – Dansk (UMT)
This week we have another Use My Tangle (UMT) challenge from Laura Harms. The chosen tangle is Dansk by Margaret Bremner CZT. Dansk is fun to draw and makes a great filler pattern. It reminds me a lot of Verve and Sand Swirl. Thank you for another great challenge! And thanks to Margaret for such a pretty and versatile pattern!
For my piece I decided to make a Zendala which would consist of an inner and outer band. For the center I chose Vivid by Ina Sonnenmoser because I thought it would be a good companion tangle for Dansk. And obviously I used Dansk for the outer band.
After inking the Zendala I thought it would be pretty to include some color. I used Tombow dual brush markers to color in the drop/petal shapes in both the Dansk and Vivid sections. Lastly I added in the shading. I’m happy with the resulting tile!
I’d like to also share with you that I found a handy gadget for drawing circles. It’s an Angle & Circle Maker by Helix which I found on Amazon.com (although I would assume it can be found at other office supply stores). This circle maker fits a standard size Zendala tile perfectly! I used it to make the above tile and it worked really well.
Thank you for visiting!
Diva Challenge #319 – BEad INSPIRED
The call for this week’s Diva challenge is to take inspiration from Beads of Courage in creating a tile (visit the link to learn more about it). This program gives children with chronic or serious illnesses a way to chronicle their “medical journey”. They are given different types of beads which symbolize various aspects of their specific course of care. Beads of Courage is clearly something that is near and dear to Laura’s heart. What a wonderful way to honor this “arts in medicine” program for children by representing it through Zentangle art!
My first thought was to draw Beadlines to represent the beads, but after thinking about it some more I wanted to use Echoism — so I ended up combining the two tangles. For the finishing touches I added a frame of Eke and shading.