Diva Challenge #326: A Preteen, A Metaphor, and Mindfulness

This week's guest blogger is Elisa Murphy.  The basic part of her challenge is to do a mono tangle of 'Nzeppel.  You can read the details of the challenge on I am the Diva.  She focused on some of the issues of fitting in but I think the focus was really on really trying to engage the mindfulness of the Zentangle® art form.  That was not really a problem when I was doing the tangle as it does use repetitive strokes. I think this helps with the mindfulness.  I find any tangle that uses only a few of the elemental strokes and you just keep repeating them to create. the pattern, and do not have to keep looking back at the step out for what comes next, helps me get into that zone.  Case in point, I was working on something and was using paradox while I was a vendor at an event.  Now I know for some your reaction might be, " How in the world can you be mindful when doing Paradox".  Well, a couple of times I was so engrossed I did not notice people standing at my table looking at items.  Don't think I lost any sales thankfully. Now back to the challenge.  I lost a little of the mindfulness when I decided to add color. That is always a challenge for me. I have looked at it a number of times and while not completely satisfied with it, it is growing on me.  Think part of it is that I would have usually added some embellishments to this but chose not to to stay with the monotangle limit.   Here is what I came up with. I hope you enjoy it.

Tangle used: 'Nzeppel

Color done with Prismacolor pencils. Used a yellow, a yellow orange and a red. Did a lot of layering and also smoothed with a blending pencil.  I was not thinking in that I also used a cool gray Prismacolor pencil for the spaces in 'Nzeppel.  When I used the blending pencil, it got a little murky but additional layering helped. 

I have not looked at any of the other things that have been submitted. If you have not either, would suggest you go to I am the Diva and look at some interesting pieces of art.  

Thanks for visiting. As always, comments are welcomed, encouraged, and appreciated.

Go Tangle !!

Removal of Bright Owl button. But you can still find her blog.

Not sure what is going on but the buttons for both the Diva Challenge and The Zendala Dare recently changed. The Diva Challenge one did not interfere with my blog. For some reason the Zendala Dare super-sized the button and it blocked some of my post. It took me while to change it. Was just procrastinating.  I had left the button so that people who wanted to find the templates could use this. I decided to add her blog to my Zentangle links list so these are still accessible by clicking on it in the list.

Diva Challenge #325: "Pea-nuckle"

One of the things I find interesting in the tangling community is people's reactions to different tangles. I think it illustrates the diversity of the people that enjoy this art form.  This week's Diva Challenge highlights the tangle Pea-nuckle and is again courtesy of guest blogger Jessica Davies. Interesting that in both of her challenges she chose to focus on things that initially she was not fond of but later changed her perspective. While I agreed with her the last time, we did not on this one. I have always liked Pea-nuckle.  I like the way it looks and have used it in ZIAs specifically to get the basket look.  It also is a forgiving tangle in that the lines do not have to be consistent and the "Ss" do not all have to be the same size.  I also like the "S" shape and a couple of years ago did what I called S-ploration to just play with different things that could do with this elemental stroke. Out of this came my tangleation of Pea-nuckle which I also included in this tile.  I did this in 2015. I will provide some links later if want to explore either of these.  Here is what I came up with. I hope you enjoy it.

Tangles used: Pea-nuckle (lower left) Maria's flux, Ahh, and Pea-nuckle tangleation (upper right). 

Shading done with HB pencil. Not sure that it shows up that well in the picture but also used a white charcoal pencil and white gel pen to add a some highlights in both of the Pea-nuckle tangles. Trust me, it's there. 

With the larger area in between the two Pea-nuckle sections wanted something that was not as much dense line work. Thought about Betweed but did not want it quite that thin and did not want to do sections across. I chose to try using Maria's Flux in a Betweed fashion. Not sure that I completely pulled it off the way I would have liked but it is okay.  As indicated above, said that I would give a few links for things. This first is for the Pea-nuckle tangleation. There is a step out .  Just click on the link here. 

Is not a link for my S- ploration work. When I went to find it, realized had posted it on the My tangles page. You can go to the top and scroll down to find that.

Hoping to have more time to look at the different pieces submitted this week. Will see how that works out. If you have not been there, would strongly encourage you to explore the unique pieces of art that others have created. Just click on this link to go there directly.

Thanks for visiting.  As always comments are welcomed, encouraged, and appreciated.

Go Tangle !!

Diva Challenge #324: "Tangled Heart"

I was not sure about this challenge. I am not a heart type of person. I decided to do something because I really needed to tangle. This week's challenge is a guest post by Jessica Davies. During the summer, the Diva will have some guest posts to give her a little break and allow her some time with her family. Jessica chose this prompt due to some recent health problems and she used tangling as a way to help deal with the stress associated with it. There is a lot of anecdotal information of how tangling has helped a variety of people with a myriad of challenges.

I did decide that I would participate. I am not sure about what I came up with but the process was definitely relaxing. It is not that I do not like this tile, it is that it does not have the flow that I sometimes imagine in my head.  Usually the more I look at it, the more comfortable I become.  Here is what I came up with. I hope you enjoy it.

Tangles used: Tipple, Mooka, Zinger, Ahh, Zenith

Shading done with HB pencil

I chose a Zendala tile as I had not done one in a while and it is also a little bigger. I have not done a zendala for quite some time. May have to revisit that again soon. 

If you have not visited I am the Diva to look at the other pieces submitted, I would strongly encourage you to do so. You can use the above link to go there directly.  I usually do not look at what others have posted until I get mine done. Will try to look at as many as I can in the next few days.

Thanks for visiting. As always, comments are welcomed, encouraged, and appreciated.

Go Tangle !!

Diva Challenge # 323: "Home"

This week's Diva Challenge is to create a tile that reflects your home. The Diva talked about her Canadian heritage and the fact that they are celebrating their 150th birthday.  I have had a few homes in my life. They all have their unique characteristics and traits as well as memories. Was not sure what I was going to do for this challenge, or if I was going to do anything at all.  As I was thinking about it, when I think of home it usually involves the place that I grew up. I have not lived there for over 40 years but that is where a lot of my relatives live and if someone asks me, "Where's home?", that is the place that I will mention. Won't go into to details, but there are probably some recent and ongoing life events that also makes me think of that as home. Even after I decided on the place, was still not sure what I was going to do.

I grew up in a small town in Northwest Ohio. In the early years we lived on a street that only had one other house. Across the street was a farmer's field which usually rotated between corn and soybeans. There were two sections of town. The old section that mostly bordered the state road that went through town, and the newer section, where there were mostly ranch style homes. Were only a couple hundred people in the town. One of the things I remember about our house was the large maple tree that was/is in the front yard. I always wanted to climb it, but someone trimmed the lower limbs so the lowest branch was about 8' off the ground. By the time I was tall enough to jump up and grab it I was past the tree climbing stage. While I did not climb it I spend many hours underneath it playing with my cars and trucks. The roots made for some interesting "roads" around it's base. It also served as base for some of our hide & seek games. For some reason the grass under the tree was the best in the yard. Sometimes I would just lay in it "contemplating what ever seemed important at the time".

Hopefully, if you managed to read this, I have not totally bored you. I wanted to somehow depict all that in the tile that I did. Here is what I came up with. I hope you enjoy it.

Tangles used:

 For the tree it is Sea Wave and Antidot, The ground is Diva Dance and the road behind it is Nipa, I used various tangles on the houses. Cadent, Florz and on the roof, I used Flukes, Shing, Tagh, and Cubine.  The funny looking things behind the tree are my best attempt at trying to put in corn. 

One of the extras of this challenge is that it gave me an opportunity to play with Margaret Bremner's tangled houses. It was a learning experience. I am going to experiment more and will try some color. I also am going to try a little less structured houses.  I was pleased with the result for a first try. Trying to do the shading on this was a real challenge. I kept it to a minimum.

I have not had a chance to look at things that have been posted on I am the Diva. Based on the prompt for this challenge I am looking forward to seeing a lot of unique and creative pieces. If you have not done so would strongly recommend that you click on the link above and enjoy all the great art.

Thanks for visiting. As always comments are welcomed, encouraged, and appreciated.

Go Tangle !!    

Special ZIA Update : Finally finished

Had earlier posted this ZIA when I was working on it. I finally finished it. just not as soon as I would have liked. As a reminder, this is what it looked like at the first post.

The actual drawing is about 6" x 10" 

I used various size Microns to do the outlining and the tangles. The color was done layering Prismacolor pencils. For blending I first used a white Prismacolor pencil and then also used the Prismacolor blender.  Here is the finished product. I hope you enjoy it.

Tangles used starting in the lower left corner: Paradox, Poke Root and Poke Leaf. 'Nzeppel, Fassett, & Shattuck.

In the original post I mentioned I was not sure what I was going to do with Paradox and Fassett. I decided to only do graphite for shading on these two tangles. 

It will soon be on it's way to Alabama. 

Thanks for visiting. As always, comments are welcomed, encouraged, and appreciated.

Go Tangle !!