MCC All About Zentangle - Wk 2

Links: MCC (My Creative Classroom), Marie Browning

In the second week Marie has been showing us the principles of shading & how to make a small wallet for keeping our tiles in.

I had to improvise a little making my wallet: I used coloured cardstock instead of double-sided patterned paper & a velcro strip instead of a Tombow Fastener Tab.

Through Marie's teaching I'm learning how varying the softness/hardness of the graphite pencil used gives different results when shading.  I've been quite astonished by how effective the graphite shading is in adding dimension & life to the tangles especially when combined with inked shading techniques (as in the Coil tangle around the Fishnet top right below).

tangles: Coil, Nzepple, Star Snail, Tipple, Triangles, Tripoli
I used TanglePatterns String 002

The full realization of this hit me when I set myself the task of using ONLY inked shading techniques in the next tile. I was rather suprised how difficult I found this to do for I kept reaching for the pencils & the limitation of using ink alone actually hampered me in my choice of tangles. Proof really to me that I'm not so frightened of pencil shading any more - a significant milestone to reach.

tangles: Crescent Moon, Cubine, Fricle, Knightsbridge, Msst, Skistel, Tipple

MCC All About Zentangle - More Wk 1

Links: MCC (My Creative Classroom), Marie Browning

Letters String
tangles: Crescent Moon, Florz, Poke-Root

Stencil String
tangles: Cadent, Chevron, Jester, Plum Leaf

Tangle (Umble) String
tangles: Feathers, Stepping Stones, Triangles, Wavy Border

I really don't like the next one at all. I should not have tried shading around the squares thinking I'd add some definition - firstly I don't think my Pigma Micron had dried enough before I used the paper stump & secondly I'm not sure that the shading shouldn't have been inside my squares. I was sorely tempted to take my eraser to all of the shading but kept thinking about there being no such thing as a mistake in the process of tangling. I also feared that I'd end up with something worse like a hole in my sketchbook page. I'm looking forward to learning about shading.

Repeating Shape String
tangles: Beadlines, Casella, Clothesline, Twisted Ribbons

Stamped Image String
tangles: Chevron, Fescu, Hollibaugh

I drew around chipboard letters for my initials, the stencil for drawing the pear is Dreamweaver & the flower stamp is Chocolate Baroque UA4SP0146 Big Flowers.

MCC All About Zentangle - Wk 1

Links: MCC (My Creative Classroom), Marie Browning

I've learnt so much through participating in the MCC classes with Glenda Waterworth of Chocolate Baroque so when I was notified of a new course "All About Zentangles" being taught by Marie Browning (the author of Time to Tangle with Colors) I enrolled.

As always the assignments for each week are entirely optional but I thought I'd include what I am choosing to do for my 'homework' projects here. Except where it's impractical (as with the Tangle Catcher) I'm actually using a Moleskine sketchbook in the Large Format to work in. This was quite daunting for the little chattering perfectionist imp but when she's threatened with me using my left hand for tangling she keeps quiet - she's already endured one such project.

First Tile
tangles: Knightsbridge, Nekton, Printemps, Tipple

Tangle Catcher
drawn using non-dominant left hand

Windspinner Tangle
I have no idea whether this is a new tangle pattern or not but I was intrigued by Laura Harms' Pinwheel Challenge this week & decided it must be possible to actually draw one of those pinwheel shapes - this is what I came up with.

Two-Pencil String
tangles: Knightsbridge & tangleations

A tangle I wasn't going to bother with......

.... but my husband liked it.

I'd intended to tangle all the areas inside the knotwork using Tagh but decided that my grid was so uneven that I'd fill them completely with black instead. The tile was lying unfinished when my husband saw it & suggested I not do anything more, except post it to my blog. That really silenced the perfectionist imp chattering in my ear & all I added was my signature & date. The little creature is still sulking trying to fathom why the Triquetra points aren't equidistant from the tile's edges when the compass point started off at the tile's centre (I measured it).

tangles: Peaks Border tangleation

Margaret Bremner (see her blog for some very informative posts about knotwork & illustrations of how she incorporates tangles with them) & Judy West's recent knotwork patterns have rekindled a rather dormant liking for Celtic knotwork, particularly Margaret's post making connections with Runestones. I remember seeing Runestones as a child in Sweden but it's only now that I'm realizing that knotwork features in my own Scandinavian roots. I ended up watching a number of YouTube tutorials* & when I had to spend some time in bed this week worked with a compass to draw the above Triquetra knot with a circle. I actually set out to to tangle the knotwork with the Peaks Border pattern but that morphed into a tangleation.

*YouTube Tutorial Links
How to Draw the Ancient Celtic Symbol TRIQUETRA freehand drawing based upon a triangle suggested to me by Margaret Bremner
Brendan Hollandsworth - Triquetra (Trinity Knot) using a compass to give the knotwork design I used above
Jason Bellchamber - Celtic Triskele freehand drawing based upon a triangle
Jason Bellchamber - Perfect Triskele (positive) using a compass

Celtic Knot Anniversary Card

An anniversary card made using Judy West's Celtic Knot instructions for the focal image. I drew a small heart motif & repeated this for the "rope."

easel card standing

close-up of knotwork panel

close-up of wet embossed initial "D"

close-up of wet embossed initial "J"

close-up showing red textured paper & inked edges of rose

inside of card (click to see sentiment)

Recipe
Stamps Chocolate Baroque UA6SP077 Rose Stem Script (sentiment), UDLGW0093 Ornate Alphabet (initials) & UA5SP0292 Romantica (swirls).
Inks VersaFine Satin Red (swirls & sentiment); Aged Mahogany Distress Ink (inking various cardstock edges); VersaMark Watermark Stamp Pad with Stampendous Detail White Embossing Powder (initials).
Pencils, Markers etc... Sakura Pigma Micron Pen with Derwent Inktense Pencils for drawing & watercolouring knotwork image.
Cardstock An assortment of whites & reds from stash.
Paper Winsor & Newton Cotman 190gsm Cold Pressed/NOT Grain Fin watercolour paper & textured red from stash. 
Dies Sizzix Bigz Die - Tattered Florals, Spellbinders Nestabilities Large Deckled Rectangles.
Punches Woodware (corner rounder, scalloped hearts & small hearts).
The gems are from stash.

Earth, Wind & Fire Knot

When I saw the pattern of the Celtic Knot Challenge that Judy West set for this week I could see a knot garden in my mind or a garden maze with various different plants & wildlife. As I've also been wanting to try a coloured Nature themed tile for the Chocolate Baroque Zentangle Group, depicting the plants & wildlife using tangles was a quite logical progression. What I'd not expected was that my brain would take hold of the Pan Pastel Challenge to depict Earth, Wind & Fire! Since Earth can be represented by nature & I still had some spaces to tangle plus the colouring left to do I decided to see if there was a tangle to depict movement or wind & to include fiery colours in the colouring.

I have Linda Farmer's TanglePatterns.com Tangle Guide in which I found the tangle Hurakan listed. Looking at it I certainly thought it fitted the idea of depicting movement & even more so when I read Carole Ohl's explanation that "Hurakan was the Mayan god of wind & storms."

tangles: Hurakan, Oke, Peacock Tail, Plum Leaf

In each corner of my fantasy knot garden the enclosures contain peacocks (purple coloured Peacock Tail tangles) which strut about. The other enclosures contain plum orchards (pale green coloured Plum Leaf tangles) through which the wind (Hurakan tangles) rustles. In the centre is a majestic oak tree (Oke tangle) & the whole is bathed with the warmth of the rays from a fiery sun (the red orange colouring). The pathways (grey & black) are paved with grey & black cobbles using the black to delineate the knot pattern.

I used Judy's instructions to draw the knot pattern onto a 3½ inch square tile & coloured using Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils.

Challenges Entered

Celtic Knot Challenge 2

Chocolate Baroque Zentangle Group Challenge 3 - Nature

Pan Pastel Challenge 33 - Earth Wind & Fire

Leafy Mooka & Assunta

The Diva's challenge this week is to use the two tangles Assunta & Mooka ONLY. It's the first time I've tried either of these & I've been fiddling about with both all week. Assunta came together quite easily but Mooka & I, for some reason, didn't quite gel until I saw Daniele O'Brien's post using her leafy Mooka (a Mooka tangleation). That then became the catalyst for my tile as I realised that Mooka's ends didn't have to be round & it was their roundness that was troubling me. Mooka suddenly opened up for me & I could see Assunta fitting into the leafy ended Mooka very nicely. 

tangles: Assunta, Mooka

I'm particularly fond of stylized plant designs & am quite excited by the Nature theme of the current Chocolate Baroque Zentangle Group Challenge. I'm hoping to explore this further but for the moment I am submitting my leafy Mooka tile. I did wonder if it has enough of a nature theme but concluded that it does after an observer remarked:

 "That's an onion, or a triffid*......or a triffid masquerading as an onion!"

*according to The Chambers Dictionary a triffid is:

  "a monstrous (fictional) stinging plant...."

Challenges Entered

I am the diva Weekly Challenge 83 - DuoTangle v. V: Assunta/Mooka

Chocolate Baroque Zentangle Group Challenge 3 - Nature