Favourite Tangles

January's challenge (Number 22) for the Chocolate Baroque Zentangle Group has the remit to use your favourite tangles & say why you like to use them.

I tend to gravitate towards tangles based on grids, have a love of Celtic artwork & hence particularly enjoy tangles that weave plus I like to see what effect small variations in the basic tangle pattern can have upon the final result. The three tangles I chose to illustrate these points are:

• Auraknot - a tangle that weaves & can be varied by the number of points that are skipped when constructing the initial aura line. The central star skips one point, the top right skips two points & the bottom left skips three points.
• Hurry - another weaving tangle. In my two examples I varied the number of lines used for each band. The top left star uses three lines & the bottom right uses five.
• W2 - this tangle is based upon a grid & has an over & under weaving effect. I love using this for a background as it balances more intricate tangles beautifully.

tangles: Auraknot, Hurry, W2

close-up central star showing gold 'aura'

My tile was edged with a black marker (Memento) prior to mounting onto a larger square of black cardstock with rounded corners. A Faber-Castell Polychromos pencil with a dry paper stump was used for shading & a Sakura Metallic Gelly Roll gel pen for the gold 'aura'.

Christmas in Black & White

I wanted to incorporate my Winter Foliage ZIA into a Christmas card & that is how the layout came about. The other two cards have an identical layout - in fact very similar to that in my previous post though these were made earlier as they needed to be sent via Royal Mail.

tangles: Flux, Verdigogh

tangles: Cruffle, Verdigogh

tangles: Cruffle, Flux

inside of cards

Supplies

Pens/Markers 01 Uni Pin Drawing Pen & 08 Sakura Pigma Micron Pen (tangles); 07 Pergamano White Gel Pen (highlights on Flux); Memento Tuxedo Black Dual Marker (edging Zentangle tiles & message panels).

Cardstock Official Zentangle tiles; white & black from stash.

Dies Spellbinders Sheapeabilities Create-A-Flake Three (snowflakes) & Nestabilities Labels Sixteen (message panels).

Punch Woodware Corner Rounder (black matting panels for Zentangle tiles).

Zentangle Inspired Christmas Cards

These are my two submissions for The Diva's Weekly Challenge #148: "Merry Happy" where her brief is:

"In the spirit of the Holidays, this week's challenge is to create a piece or tile for your own holidays. Whatever you celebrate, however you celebrate."

My two cards have basically the same layout but didn't start off that way. Both, however, were the result of persevering & finding a way round mishaps (or perhaps I should say opportunities since there are no mistakes in Zentangle).

tangles: Huggins, Hurry

The first was going to be a large ZIA (Zentangle Inspired Artwork) simply matted on gold cardstock before mounting onto a card base. I'd tangled all of it including a wide frame of Meer & had shaded the Huggins (using Derwent Coloursoft pencils with a paper stump & Sansador) when I stopped to sort out the sponges in the little pot I use for keeping a small amount of the Sansodor for dipping my paper stumps into. In so doing a drop of Sansodor landed on my artwork but thankfully only on the frame portion. Chopping off the frame meant that I had a square slightly smaller than a Zentangle tile which I mounted onto a 4 inch square of black cardstock with rounded corners. The snowflakes are die-cuts (using Spellbinders Shapeabilities Create-A-Flake Three). The stars were drawn using a Pinflair Stepper Template.

tangles: Cruffle, Flux

The second card uses an Official Zentangle Tile edged in black ink (Memento Tuxedo Black Dual Marker) mounted onto a 4 inch square of black cardstock with rounded corners & another 4 snowflakes as in the first, red cardstock instead of gold & a black card base. My mishap here occurred as I was going to shade the leaves using a single green Derwent Coloursoft pencil with the paper stump & Sansador. Despite heat setting my Sakura Pigma Micron penwork it smudged badly whereas in my first card it had not. The only difference between the two was my substrate: in the first W H Smith 220gsm white cardstock & in this one the official tile. I salvaged the tile by layering 3 shades of green pencil to achieve the shading of the leaves. I was rather pleased with the result for the baubles really gained definition against the brightness of the leaves. A white gel pen was used to add highlights on the berries.

inside of cards

Both cards have the same internal design - a simple white die-cut (Spellbinders Nestabilities Labels Sixteen) edged with the Memento Tuxedo Black Dual Marker forms the message panel.

Winter Foliage

The December Challenge (Number 21) for the Chocolate Baroque Zentangle Group is based upon the theme of Winter. Fir trees are what immediately spring to my mind when I think of winter &, of course, snow. Our front garden is hedged with Cotoneaster bushes providing an abundant feast of berries for the birds at this time of year so my Zentangle Inspired Artwork (ZIA) developed along the lines of winter foliage rather than snowflakes.

tangles: Flux, Verdigogh

The official Zentangle tile was edged with a black marker (Mememto) prior to mounting onto a larger square of black cardstock with rounded corners. A white gel pen was used to add highlights to the berries.

Zenspirations Heart & Thoughts About Shading

I actually drew this at the end of August for a friend's wedding anniversary card. It was in inspired by Joanne Fink's book Zenspirations Letters & Patterning as well as Penny Raile's chapter in The Art of Zentangle book. Seeing my frustration after spending a whole afternoon trying to shade it (using photocopies) my husband suggested that I don't shade my tangles or similar designs as he likes them with just the penwork - this is where Penny Raile's artwork comes in for I immediately showed him her work without shading in the book. My initial response was "NOT SHADE - that's for beginners, I can't not shade, but........ there's Joanne's colouring & Penny's tangles & ........... they're not beginners." So, I've been thinking quite a bit about the subject.

I find that I can draw my tangles but when it comes to shading them - though I know the theory of it & where to shade - I can feel myself becoming tense,  in fact it feels like a chore looming ahead. I can see that shading adds depth & dimension but I really dislike the gritty smudginess of graphite. I'd be interested to hear anyone else's thoughts on the matter.

front of card - the names of the recipients were written
along the two little 'balancing' paddles

inside of card showing message panel

Supplies

Stamps Chocolate Baroque UDLSP0310 Swirly Pets.

Inks VersaFine Onyx Black (hearts).

Pens/Markers 01 Uni Pin Drawing Pen, Memento Tuxedo Black Dual Marker (edging message panel).

Cardstock White & Black from stash.

Paper Winsor & Newton Cotman 190gsm Cold Pressed/NOT Grain Fin Watercolour Paper.

Die Spellbinders Nestabilities Labels Twenty-Two (message panel).

The pearls are Kanban.

Organic Chocolate Baroque in a Zendala Dare

October's Challenge (Number 19) for the Chocolate Baroque Zentangle Group is to create a tile or ZIA based upon organic tangles. It was when I saw the centre of Erin's Zendala template #75 for this week that I realised it would give me a super starting point using the tangle Cyme.

tangles: Cyme, Flux, Meer

I used the smallest of Erin's templates, initially thinking I would create a conventional Zentangle tile, but I was struck by how floral the whole looked without the outside circular linework. One thing led to another & so it was fussy cut & mounted onto some pearlescent black cardstock die-cut with a circular Spellbinders Nestabilites die (Standard Circles Small).

Tangling Wings

The Chocolate Baroque Zentangle Group Challenge for September (Number 18) is based upon the theme of "Wings."

Since I have a particular delight in bees I wanted to use the bee images from Chocolate Baroque's Honey Bee stamp sheet as the basis for my Zentangle Inspired Artwork (ZIA) interpretation of the challenge. I know that Zentangle is intended as art of an abstract nature but I couldn't resist creating a little habitat for my bees from Kass Hall's Honeycomb tangle (also demonstrated by Ellen Wolters in video format).

tangle: Honeycomb

My edging is simply two wavy lines crossing one another with the segments filled in & the whole 3½ inch square tile is mounted onto a slightly larger piece of black cardstock.

close-up showing sparkly iridescence of bees' wings

Recipe
Stamps Chocolate Baroque UA5SP0375 Honey Bee.
Inks VersaFine Onyx Black (bees).
Pencils/Markers O1 Uni Pin Drawing Pen, 2B Lakeland Graphite Pencil.
Colouring Nicholson's Peerless Transparent Water Colors (bees' bodies), Crystal Ice Stickles Glitter Glue (bees' wings).
Cardstock W H Smith 220gsm White; Black from stash.
Punch Woodware (corner rounder).