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 !! 

Playing with Betweed

This week's prompt on Square One is Betweed. I all ready did a tile but wanted to play with it a little more. did not really want to do it on a traditional tile. Saw some great examples of Betweed and wanted to try some different things. Used black and white but in this case I used a black Zendala tile with a white pen. Still did it more symmetrical. If I have time may try something that is with more random spaces. I just wanted to try different ways to do the lines. As is sometimes ( read most of the time), the case it did not turn out exactly the way I envisioned it in my head, but that is okay. Gave a chance to get some practice highlighting and shading the black tiles also. Here is what I ended up with.

This ended being a exercise with Betweed and Indy-rella. The shading was done with a Zenstone and a white Prismacolor pencil. The more I look at it the more comfortable I am with it. Have not used my white pens for a while and they seemed to be a little sticky. Did not cover quite the way I would have liked. Had to go over a number of the lines. I used the Uniball Angelic white gel pen and the Sakura white gel pen, medium point. The string is random radii. Then filled in the spaces with Betweed. Was not anything special.

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

Go Tangle !! 

Black Tile Technique: Zenstone wash with Glaze pens.

Did these as examples for a class I am doing. Had tried something similar to this before but cannot find the picture that I took. That one did not use the Zenstone but used colored pencil wash. They were hard to photograph because of the reflection of the Glaze pens. Tried to diffuse but was not successful. Is a little beyond my photography skills. Ended up scanning them.

Basically, the process is covering the tile with a wash using the Zenstone and then using the black Glaze pen to make your tangles. Think it would work equally well with other gel pens, just would not get the 3-D effect that get with the Glaze pens. I did find out after doing the first one that you really do need to load up the soapstone as some of it will rub off as you are working on the tile. Did not do this with the square tile. Here are the results.

This was the first one I did. The wash shows up a little on the scan. It is also lighter as I tried to put a fixative on it and accidentally sprayed too much on it. Since it is wet, it took away some of the contrast. Still looks good though, probably better in person.

On this one I put a lot more of the Zenstone on the tile and it did not rub off as much. Not sure that the scan really shows the 3-D effect of the Glaze pens that well. While the black on white is a nice effect, I think I may like a little color for this technique.

Still learning to use the Glaze pens. Like the other gel pens have to use a light touch to get a thinner line. If not, it does drop a lot of ink and will use the ink quickly. When have some time plan to experiment with what it will look like with different colored pens or even metallic pens.

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

Go Tangle !!

Playing with Renaissance tiles and white highlights

Have been wanting to use the Renaissance tiles for a while but just have not set down to do it. As much as I enjoy doing the Zendala Dare, not having one this week did give me some time to experiment. It also gave me a chance to practice some techniques and tangles that I will be using in a Zentangle® Garden class in a few weeks. Definitely takes a little planning not only for planning out the different size tangles but what to do.

Besides this I had the opportunity to try highlighting with some new tools. I had used the Zenstone a few times but have not used it a lot. I also received a PrismaColor White wax pencil in a package from my sister. I received it a while ago but had not gotten around to trying it yet. I was pleased with it and like it better than the white charcoal pencil that had used before. I think the Zenstone and the charcoal pencil blend similarly but the Zenstone leaves a smoother effect. Maybe is just a difference in how I am using them. I feel it is easier to completely blend out the charcoal pencil. Not as easily with the Zenstone.  Did not use a white gel pen to do any highlighting on this tile. I was having fun with the highlighting and may have gotten a little carried away with it.

I know that Zentangle is not suppose to be representational but because of doing the class I did start out with ideas of what I wanted to do. I used Pea-Nuckle to create a basket to put my organic tangles in. I have not used it a lot lately, but I really do like this tangle.

Well enough rambling, here is what I came up with. I hope you enjoy it.