MCC Time to Tangle with Colours - Wk 1

Links: MCC (My Creative Classsroom), Marie Browning

I was thrilled to discover that MCC were proposing to run a second tangling course taught by Marie Browning & so I signed up as soon as I could.

The class is taught using Tombow Dual Brush Pens & Irojiten Colour Pencils. I have a good selection of colours in the Tombow Pens but, since the Irojiten pencils are at present not easy to get hold of in the UK, I shall be using my tin of 36 Derwent Coloursoft pencils which are wax-based like the Irojiten.

The assignments for each week are optional, however, I always learn more when I actually engage with my materials & know from experience that a particular product can vary greatly in its performance depending upon what type of paper it is used upon. I shall include what I choose to do for 'homework' here in blog posts but for reasons of copyright I will not be giving detailed technical explanations.

The first assignment involved using the colours we find combined in the natural world to start a reference tool in the form of a notebook or Pinterest Board. I decide to work with the latter option using my own photographs to create a board which you can find HERE.

For my second assignment I chose to use oval shapes with a cool colour scheme to create a piece of Zentangle Inspired Artwork (ZIA) in my Black Page Album Moleskine.

Cool Colours ZIA
tangles: Cadent, Cubine, Hollibaugh, Nzepple, Printemps, Quandary, Triangles, Tripoli
Tombow Markers outline watercolour blending & indirect Blender Pen colouring on
Canson XL Series Mix Media 98lb/160g paper

The Challenge of Borders

April's Challenge (Number 13) for the Chocolate Baroque Zentangle Group is a tangle based challenge focusing upon borders.

I drew my own string (above) & then watched the tile evolve totally dispelling my preconceived ideas about a sun with rays.

tangles: Barberpole (tangleation), Wire Wrap, Zig Zag Border

Spring Tangling

Firstly, thank you for all your thoughtful wishes - my migraine control has improved over the last month & after catching up with some essential organising about the house I shall hopefully have some more time for artwork.

I had some very old papers with a rather large floral looking design which I thought might work as a framework for tangling. I outlined some areas of the pattern until I had what looked like a very large flower & then tangled the petals using a selection of tangles from Suzanne McNeill's book Zentangle 3 plus Cubine from Zentangle Basics. The resulting artwork was then mounted onto black cardstock & a scalloped edge card blank. The inside is simply decorated using die-cut elements from Spellbinders Shapeabilities Lace Doily Motifs & Accents.

tangles: Bubbles, Chaingang, Cubine, Droplets, Loops,
Rain (tangleation), Scallops, Yincut

inside of card

Challenges Entered (card above)

Everybody-Art Challenge 228 - Spring (a floral theme plus the green of Spring flowers)

Simon Says Stamp Challenge - Easter/Spring (the Spring theme of flowers & the colour green)


As I had a second large card blank (but without scallops) I made another card using slightly different tangles but keeping the same design for the inside.

tangles: Barberpole (tangleations), Bubbles, Droplets, Loops,
Rain (tangleation), Scallops, Strircles, Yincut

Tangling with Chocolate Baroque

The March Challenge (Number 12) for the Chocolate Baroque Zentangle Group is based upon a floral theme.

Chocolate Baroque recently released a sheet of rubber stamps, Tangled Garden, containing images for both tanglers & non-tanglers alike. I used the large open flower image for my tile which I then mounted onto a piece of black cardstock making it a ZIA (Zentangle Inspired Artwork - any artwork incorporating tangles which differs from the standard 3½ inch square tile). Chocolate Baroque also stocks other Zentangle Supplies (books, tiles & Sakura Pigma Micron pens etc....) plus a selection of Dreamweaver Stencils (some of which are featured in Zentangle 6).

tangles: Betweed, Knightsbridge, Opus, Tipple

I stamped the flower using grey ink as I wanted to have a framework for my tangles & yet be able to ignore the stamped lines if I wished to. I came to the conclusion that I had to either colour the flower or shade the tangles - I have much to learn in this department, besides which I'm also unfamiliar with watercolouring using the Distress Stains - & settled for colouring the flower. I actually watercoloured the flower first, dried it off with my heat gun & then worked on the tangles.

Recipe

Stamp Chocolate Baroque UA4SP0400 Tangled Garden. 
Inks VersaFine Smokey Gray; Broken China, Chipped Sapphire, Mustard Seed &Tumbled Glass Distress Stains.
Pens/Markers 01 Black Uni Pin Drawing Pen (tangles), Memento Tuxedo Black Dual Marker (edging tile).
Cardstock Winsor & Newton Cotman 190gsm Cold Pressed/NOT Grain Fin Watercolour Paper; Black
Punch Woodware (corner rounder).

I have lots of ideas for this challenge but my crafting time has been somewhat curtailed by a breakdown in my migraine control. As a consequence this blog & PEP & Paper have been rather lacking in posts, so my apologies if you have visited & found nothing new.

A String of Circles

The 11th Challenge for the Chocolate Baroque Zentangle Group is to use a circular string. It is up to each individual to choose how to draw the circle or multiples thereof which may be the same or differing in size.

tangles: Auraknot, Crescent Moon, Fishnet, Jester, Nzepple, Printemps

I simply picked up my reel of double-sided tape & drew around the inside of it 3 times moving the reel without thinking before drawing the portion of the circle that fell within the area of my 'tile'. When I looked at the result I immediately thought 'Auraknot' so that was my first tangle. The remaining tangles were chosen by throwing my Icosahedron dice & using the tangles corresponding to each number on a list I compiled whilst working through the MCC Zentangle course last year.

Tango Tangling

We have reached our 10th Challenge (now on a monthly basis)  for the Chocolate Baroque Zentangle Group. This month the challenge consists of only using two tangles for a tile.

I used TanglePatterns String 001 & varied both the size & infill pattern of the tangle Tripoli.

tangles: Purk, Tripoli

Wishing you all a Happy New Year

Star Auraknots & Keenees

The "Seasonal" theme for the Chocolate Baroque Zentangle Group's December Challenge can be interpreted in many ways but for this tile I wanted to make the Christmas star my focus. I had briefly experimented with how Auraknot looks when varying the number of points to skip when joining the edges for the first 'aura' sequence of the pattern & decided to skip two for my tile. I used one of Wendy Stenton's Tempting Templates for drawing the star shape.

tangles: Auraknot, Beadlines, Florz 

I have some Pinflair Stepper shapes which includes a star in various sizes. The smallest star fits comfortably onto a Zentangle tile three times so I thought I'd draw out the variations of the Auraknot pattern when skipping one, two & three points (skipping four points doesn't work terribly well on a five  pointed star).

tangles: Auraknot, Keenees

Although I'd not set out to join in Laura Harms' Weekly Challenge I found the little circular tangle pattern Keenees (by Donna Hornsby) she'd set seemed to want to fit into the indented points of my stars. A garland of Keenees baubles evolved as well so not only do I have another Seasonal tile for the  Chocolate Baroque theme, but I can enter Laura's Challenge too.

Challenges Entered
Chocolate Baroque Zentangle Group Challenge 9 - Theme: Seasonal (both tiles)
I am the diva Weekly Challenge 98 - UMT v. XI: Keenees (second tile)