Beyond the Basics class: Tangled 3-D House

Just completed a class using Dorian Eng's tangled houses concept.  Was a fun enjoyable class.  Was a challenge getting them together but learned a few things that I will use if I do the class again.  Here are pictures of the different pieces to the house.

Only a picture of the gable that is in the front of the house.  The back is similar except  there are no flowers and I did the tangle Gneiss where the window is on this one.

Here are the tiles for the roof.  I used the tangle Shing.  

Here are the front and back.  The front is on the left.

These are the two sides.  

Here are pictures of the house put together.  

  

The one on the right is one of the student's houses.  This is the front.  I took a series of all sides.  Here they are.

One student had the tangling done but did not get it all constructed. She is a big Harry Potter fan.  She did a Slithering theme.  Here is the picture I took of what she had done in the class.

She sent me a picture of the finished house after class. She has Harry Potter lego figures in front and used an electric candle for the lighting.


Here are pictures that she sent me after she had completed it.

You can see the lego figures better in this picture.

She added tissue paper behind the window cut-outs for an additional "green glow".  Said she was looking for a darker green and may put that in it.

If you are interested in classes, click on my class tab on the banner on the top of my home page. There is information about scheduled classes there.  If have other questions, you can email me.

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 !!    

Diva Challenge #315: "Tangle study = Molygon"

Finally able to get something together for the Diva Challenge. I do miss participating regularly, but have to make some decisions about where I spend my time.  Have to admit, part of what made it possible to participate is the tile I used is one that I had prepared and worked on in a recent class. I had not finished puting  tangles in it so decided to add this week's focus.

Have to admit that I have not done Molygon since it was first introduced. Not one of my favorites and not particularly thrilled with the way that these turned out. I like the tile but not how Molygon turned out. part of my "problem" is that I tend to do things in a smaller size. Do not think that this works with this tangle. I also did not get quite enough lunar shape to them also. Well it is what it is.
Here is what I came up with. I hope you enjoy it.

Tangles used: Cadent,  Poke root, Poke leaf, Henna Drum, ING variation, and Molygon

As I indicated above the tile was from a class I was doing. We were doing water color washes to add color. This was done with Faber-Castell  water colored pencils. After used the pencils to put down the color used a wet brush  to blend and spread out. This was just one part of the class as we also did a larger piece using alcohol inks. Was a fun class.  But I digress.

Did not do any other shading or highlighting on this. Thought about doing a little on the Molygon but decided not to.

I have not looked at any of the other pieces posted. Hopefully will have some time to do this later. If you have not been to I am the Diva, would encourage you to do so. There are always some great works of art.  

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

Go Tangle !!

Diva Challenge #308: " MacNCheese"

This week's challenge was really appropriate. The month of March has been stressful so far. Hoping that it calms down for the rest of the month. This chalenge really served two purposes. The MacNCheese part for me as I needed something that was less stressful and it allowed me to do a tile for someone else.  I like these challenges as it really allows me to get back to the basics. What I consider my MacNCheese tangle varies from time to time, but Shattuck has always been one. Cadent is also one that I use alot. I kept it simple here and did not do any embellishments. There are a lot of ways to vary this tangle. The touch of color was for the person I gave the tile to. Purple is there favorite color. I kept this simple also.   I used a Zendala tile for this really just because it was the first thing that I pulled out.  Here is what I came up with. I hope you enjoy it.

Tangles used: Shattuck, Cadent. Color and highlighting done with PrismaColor pencils.

Sorry for the quality of the photo, I usually take pictures with my digital camera and a tripod. I did not have these with me so took with my Ipad.

I have not had a chance to look at the other things posted on I am the .Diva . One other plus with challenges like this is that there can be quite a variety of tangles used. Is fun to see what people perceive to be their MacNCheese tangle.  If you have not been there all ready, click on the link above to see some great art.

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

Go Tangle !!

Diva Challenge #268: " A-bit-o-black"

Had some time to try this week's challenge. It was interesting to me. The challenge was to add a little more black to the tile. At first I thought it might be an easy tile to do. I was wrong. But I persevered. Chose some tangles that I usually just shade or I did them in reverse. The end result was okay. Here is what I came up with. I hope you enjoy it.

Tangles used: Cadent, Jetties, Genoa, Tipple, and Betweed

Shading done with a 2B pencil. I also used a white Gelly Roll to outline the Tipple.

I started with the Tipple. I am so use to not filling this in that I was not thinking about leaving some space in between them so it did not look like a large black blob.  Was not sure exactly sure what to do but came up with outlining them with the white Gelly Roll.  

I have not looked at what others have done. I saw one that showed up in my blog reader but that is it. Hoping to have time to look at more of the posts. If you have not done so, would recommend that you visit 

I am the Diva and look at the great pieces that others have done. Would also recommend that you go ahead and try your own tile. You do not have to post it, but that is part of the fun.

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

Go Tangle !! 

Diva Challenge #250: " Bringing it Back to the Old School"

It has really been a long time since I have been able to participate in one of the Diva Challenges. I almost made it last week as I really liked the two tangles that were used in the Duotangle. This week's challenge is to go back to the basics of Zentangle®. That basic structure that we all learned and try to teach in our Basic classes. It was to use a square white tile and use only a black pen and a pencil for shading.

I, like the Diva wrote, see all the different things that people are doing and think ... I need to try that. Part of the appeal of tangling and the Zentangle® method is its simplicity. I still have not tried the gems that are popping up all over. I feel  like the last two months I have been in "production mode". Have done little basic tangling. I still have a lot of things to do but this was a nice break.

Here is what I came up with. In addition to only using the basic tools, I also used a string that I use in my basic class. Some, but not all the tangles, are ones that I use in a basic class. I hope you enjoy it.

Tangles Used: Zander, Flux, Zinger, Cadent, Arckles

I have not looked at other posts so am hoping to do so. Would also recommend that if you have not you also visit I am the Diva and see some great pieces of art.

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

Go Tangle !!

I have been busy and just not goofing off: New stone coasters with Zenith and Organic as frames/borders

I  have not posted much of anything lately or even participated in any of the challenges that I so much enjoy. I have been in what I refer to "production mode".  Doing a lot of ZIAs but not much relaxation in the process. Do not take the time to take pictures of everything. If I remember, will try to take a picture this Saturday. Most days I am just focused on staying warm. The overage temperature at the start of the event has been in the low 30's. One day we had about 5" of snow. We are inside, but the building is being remodeled so is no heat. Some have propane heaters but I am not one of the lucky ones and not going to spend the extra money to get one. Place is not wired to handle electric heaters. Oh well only have two weeks left.

Wanted to post some things that I just finished today. Have done these before but not for a while. They are 4" stone coasters. Have not put a sealer on them yet and will probably also fire them for a short time in a small craft oven that I have. Think this process burns off the dust and reduces clouding from the sealer. Here is a picture of the four that I did today.

Here is a picture of all four that I got done today. I forgot how much fun these are to do. They are about the size of tile so it is almost like doing one of those. Used a Identi-Pen for the tangles and then a gray Fabrico dual tip marker for the shading. Will probably use a light coat of a spray acrylic sealer.  

Did a single picture of this one as I was able to use a  newer tangle, Organic by Sayantika Ray. When I first saw it, thought that it would make a nice frame but as with a lot of tangles, the corners can be the tough part. Was able to work out a way to do this one that I was pleased with. 

I keep saying that I hope that I will be able to get to some of the challenges. I have started a few, but have not finished them in time to post them. When, and if I finally get a chance to complete one, maybe will post the ones that I finished after the deadline.

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

Go Tangle !!

Zendala Dare # 102: Two in a Row & a New Job

The Bright Owl is on a roll posting two Zendala Dares in a row. She does have a reason to be pleased with her ability to do this as she is starting a new job which allows her to use her Nursing degree. Starting a new job while exciting is also stressful. Hopefully, creating her zendala allowed her to relax a little. This is an interesting template. Kind of fits in with this week's Diva Challenge on simplicity. Last week's template had a multitude of sections. This one had a lot of larger space. Simplicity and  easy are not always synonymous. I actually had more difficulty deciding what to do with this template. I finished this earlier but did not get around to posting it right away. That is probably a good thing as this is one of those tiles that my first reaction was so-so. After letting it set a while and then looking at it again, I am more pleased with it. Here is what I came up with. I hope you enjoy it.

Tangles used: Betweed, Cubine, Flux, Shattuck, Blooming Butter with Mak-Rah-Mee, Cadent, Antidots, & Zander.

The shading is done with 2B and 4B pencils. 

The center ring is somewhat inspired by some stacked circles that I have seen on the FB Stacked and Tangled page. Did not really turn out exactly like I envisioned, but that is okay.  Have only looked at The Bright Owl's blog a little. The last I looked there were only a few things posted. I hope more take the time to  do something and post it. I know it is hard and there are more challenges now than when she first started the Zendala Dare. I enjoy doing them and it is different than the other challenges and FB page ideas/focus. Not sure that I will get to every one she posts and will probably have to rotate what I participate in a little. If you have time, check out what others have done at The Bright Owl and try it yourself. 

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

Go Tangle !!

Diva Challenge #220: "All Boxed Up by Alice Hedon, CZT"

This being the first of the month, the Diva Challenge is a UMT, use my tangle, challenge. This time it is a tangle by Alice Hendon, CZT called All Boxed Up. The uniqueness of this tangle comes out with the shading. This is true even though what it was based on did not have any shading it was wall art. There is a picture, along with the step outs and some great tiles using the tangle on her blog, The Creator's Leaf. I did not get to this as early as I had wished. It is late Thursday night and I am just getting it posted. Correction it is early Friday morning. The only reason I am still up is that I do not have to go into the office tomorrow.

Was not really sure what I wanted to do with this tangle. I decided to go with true Zentangle® method and just start with no planning and let this build on its own. Maybe that is why it took me longer to do. One thing that was a little more purposeful is that I wanted to try Narwal, a tangle that I had not tried yet. Enough rambling about things. This is what I came up with. I hope you enjoy it.

Tangles used: All Boxed Up, Cadent, Florz(variation), Narwal, and Genoa.

There was a discussion on one of the groups about what the definition of a tangle is. Someone suggested that Narwal was not a tangle because it used a pencil string and tangles are not suppose to use grids or things to complete them. Not sure about that but wanted to see if I could do Narwal without the pencil string. I was able to accomplish it. I have to admit I did have to watch the video as I was doing it. I do not think it turned out too bad for a first attempt.

If you have not done so all ready, would strongly encourage you check out the tiles and ZIAs posted on I am the Diva. I have not had a chance to look at very many. Usually just ones that show up in my reader or when people have also posted them in one of the FB groups. 

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

Go Tangle !! 

Diva Challenge #218: "White on Black on Found"

This week's Diva Challenge is a choice. Can do white on black or tangle on something found.  I have some rocks that I want to get to but they were not found, they were bought. I ended up using a Zendala tile as that is the black tile that I had in my bag that I carry. It worked out well. I did not use a template for this and just started. I did the dividing tangle and then just added others. Cadent is a favorite so I wanted to include that and I wanted to include some organic tiles. I did try a new tangle/pattern from Helen Williams. Guess I have to add to the challenge. Here is what I came up with. I hope you enjoy it.

Tangles used: Cadent, Heartrope, Zander, Flux, Zinger,Tumbleweed, and Ahh

Shading done with Prismacolor White pencil with a blender.
I used both a Sakura White Gelly Roll pen and a Signo Uni-ball Angelic White pen for the tangles. Can you tell which tangles I used which pen on?

The new pattern that I tried is Tumbleweed by Helen Williams. It is okay for the first attempt, but not as flowing as I would like or even close to what Helen accomplishes. I will keep trying. 

I have not had a chance to look at many of the other posts but hope to do so during the rest of the week. Would encourage you to go to I am the Diva and look at the great art that is posted.

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

Go Tangle !!

Square One: Sez

Got to this early in the week. Probably the only way I was going to get a tile done. This week's focus tile is SeZ. I am not sure that I have used this tangle before. I have put it with a few others. It is one that I am not sure how to shade. I did minimal shading on it.  Here is what I came up with. I hope you enjoy it.

Tangles used: Sez, Paradox, Cadent, Betweed

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

Go Tangle !! 

More projects: Bistro Mugs

Always looking for new things. This is not an original idea. I saw some that someone else had done. Not sure if these will end up as presents or they will be for sale at a show. Will have to wait and see. Only have this one done so far.

These are Bistro mugs that I bought at Meijers. I washed them first to get rid of any residue left on them for manufacturing and packaging. This seemed to help. used Identi-Pens and then set it by heating it in the oven for about 30 minutes at 350º. The gray shading is Fabrico gray marker. It held up well. Other thing I did was wear gloves when I was doing this. Was a little concerned that would rub off, but more concerned the oils on my skin would interfere with the pen. I could not find a single pair of white cotton gloves so used a lightweight glove with rubber on the hands. This was great because I did not have to worry about the mug slipping. May try to use these gloves next year when I work on the glass ball ornaments.

I did not want to do the whole mug. I did different style ZIAs on each side. Not sure exactly what I will do on the others, but like the idea of having one side organic and the other more traditional tangling.  Here is what I came up with. I hope you enjoy it.

Tangles used. In the top it is a cross between Mumsy and Arc Flower with a few Zingers. I kept it pretty simple. The lower one has Cadent, Bunzo, Bales, and 'Nzeppel. 

These are all favorite tangles of mine. If I have time, will post pictures of the others I finish later. 

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

Go Tangle !!

Diva Challenge #195: "Turning Old into New"

This week's Diva Challenge is courtesy of Sandy Hunter, whose blog is tanglebucket.blogspot.com. I first became aware of here blog through my sister. Sandy had developed some tangles but she also had a knack for combining two tangles into one pattern. She labeled this as her tangle remix. Was interesting. I cannot say that I tried to do too many, but I think I did try a few. They were fun but my brain does not think that way. This week's Challenge is to take favorite, or go to tangles and do them differently. If you picked a grid based tangle, do it free form and if you picked a free form tangle, use it a grid. I did the best I could with this. Not sure I was totally successful with this with both of the tangles that I chose. One tangle I chose was cadent. I use this a lot and like it. I usually use it in a structured way. It is not really grid based as I would define it, but I usually use it much like a grid. The other tangle I chose was Antidots. Here is what I came up with. I hope you enjoy it. Oh yeah, I used a Renaissance tile as that was the only tile that I had in the kit that I usually carry.

Tangles used: Cadent, Antidots

The shading was done with a white Prismacolor pencil and a Zenstone.

I did not get last week's Challenge, "Embracing the Yuck", done in time to post it. Am including it in this post only as it was some work. This is the second challenge I did using the non-dominant hand. I had started it and felt like I needed to finish. I have to admit that I did not really enjoy doing this. My idea was to start out with Knightsbridge to get a little practice. After I started it, there was such a large time gap before I could continue that it was not of much help. Here it is. I hope that somebody enjoys it.

Tangles used: Knightsbridge, Tripoli, Betweed, Ixorus, Paradox

I have not looked at many entries from either week's challenge. Not sure now much I will be able to look at #194 but definitely want to look at what people have done in this week's Challenge. Encourage you to go to I am the Diva and look at what others have done. Would also encourage you to try it yourself, even if you do not post it. Would encourage you to post it though if at all possible.

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

Go Tangle !! 

Diva Challenge #190: " Pink for Ardath" second tile

Was able to get this finished sooner than I thought. Have not used my gel pens for a while and that is what I used mostly in this tile. Is not quite as free flowing as I imagined in my mind but it turned out okay. Here is what I came up with. I hope you enjoy it.

Tangles used: Nebel, Cadent, Mooka, Zinger

Nebel is a tangle from Sandy Steen Bartholemew's book Totally Tangled. 

I used Sakura Metallic gel pens and Stardust pens. They were both pink but was disappointed that the Stardust color does not show up well on the black tiles. It does show on white paper. Have not tried it on the Renaissance tiles, but thinking it will show up at least a little on those. I also used a white Prismacolor pencil for the highlighting and shading. 

Go to I am the Diva to see all the other great pieces of art. 

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

Go Tangle !!

Diva Challenge #176: "B.Y.O.B."

This week's challenge is another guest post/challenge. It is from Amy in Tennessee. The challenge was to bring your own beverage and use it in your art. I have to be honest. These types of challenges are not my favorite. I am not sure why I have a less than enthusiastic reaction to them. I could speculate, but I am not going to go there. But that is what a challenge is for, to push you out side your comfort zone. I decided to use my morning coffee like a wash. I drizzled some of my coffee on the tile, spread it a little by tipping the tile and then let it dry. This did not provide any great inspiration as to what I might do with the tile or tangles to use. Here is what the tile looked like before I did any tangling.

Was not sure what to do so I just started with some familiar and old favorite tangles. Here is what I ended up with. I hope you enjoy it.

 Tangles used: 'Nzeppel, Cubine, Basquals ( variation), Cadent, Flux, and Zinger. The tangle in the lower left is unnamed. It is part of my experimentation with the basic "S" stroke. 

I have not looked at many of the other postings yet. Hope to be able to do so now, provided my internet service is working. I keep losing connection so it takes a lot longer to do anything. Can go to I Am the Diva by clicking on the blog name.

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

Go Tangle !!

Diva Challenge #173 : Redux, Remix, Revisit Your Comfort Tangle

This was an interesting Challenge. Basically it was about change. It could be about the way that you do a tangle or something different such as your tools or technique. Right before the challenge I did something similar but it was not really with a comfort tangle so I did not want to just re-post that tile. Coming up with comfort tangles was not really much of an issue. The harder part was deciding what I wanted to do differently to stretch what I did with them. Some of this is that I was not really sure how to do something different with them. Some tangles are just easier to do tangleations or embellishments. Here is what I came up with. I hope you enjoy it.

Tangles used: My comfort tangles are Shattuck, Cadent, and Cubine. I like Annee but do not use it that much ( that is one of the other challenges, to mix it with one that you do not use often).

What is different about this is that I never used the blue on the tan tiles before. It is a 01 blue Micron. I have never done this variation of Cadent before. It is one in Margaret Bremner's post on Cadent variations. You can find it here. I also used Inktense water color pencils for shading. Before I had only used these pencils for a color wash. I had shaded with colored pencils before, but generic ones. This one is Sea Blue.  The white highlights are with a Prismacolor White wax pencil.  I do like the way that it turned out. It was done on a standard Renaissance tile and it was a little tough doing the Cadent. 

Earlier I mentioned that I had just finished something similar. This was with Mooka. I do use Mooka, but do not consider it a comfort tangle. After seeing some of the entries in the last Diva Challenge, I decided to play with Mooka a little.  I originally posted it on my blog on Sunday June 22, 2014. I am just including the shaded version here.  I used a Sakura White gel pen, white chalk pencil, and grey Fabrico marker. 

I have not had a chance to look at many of the other things submitted. I hope to do so over the next couple of days. If you have not looked at them, I would strongly recommend you do so. After looking at some of them, or even before, you may want to consider trying your hand at it also. If you really get into it, you may even want to post it on the Diva's blog.

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

Go Tangle !!