Triangular Stringing

August's Challenge (Number 17) for the Chocolate Baroque Zentangle Group consists of a triangular string of our choice - it can be one taken from the Strings Resource at TanglePatterns.com or one we've drawn.

I chose to sketch two differently sized overlapping triangles loosely in the manner of a traditional Star of David symbol (see superimposed coloured lines) & started off tangling the triangles thus formed using Paradox. I used Ixorus for the centre & surprisingly created another 6 triangles.

tangles: Ixorus, Paradox, Tipple

Tangling Grids for Chocolate Baroque

July's Challenge (Number 16) for the Chocolate Baroque Zentangle Group is once again based upon tangles (the challenges are based upon a rotation of three: tangle/s; strings; theme/s). This time the brief is to use ONLY tangles based upon a grid.

Two tangles based upon grids & which can be beautifully 'merged' are Cadent & Cubine. I wanted to see what these would look like using curved grids so I created a string of two overlapping pointed ovals. The vertical oval is tangled with Cubine & the horizontal with Cadent; the segment where the two ovals overlap is tangled with a combination of Cadent & Cubine.

tangles: Cadent, Cubine

The restriction of using ONLY grid based tangles proved quite an interesting challenge for I found I was wanting to add an organic tangle like Fescu emanating from each of the points where my two tangled ovals meet. I resisted the urge & just added s tiny touch of sparkle to the Cadent circles using a Clear Sakura Stardust Gelly Roll pen.

close-up to show sparkle of Cadent's circles

Leafy Chocolate Baroque Zentangle Group Challenge

The Chocolate Baroque Zentangle Group's June Challenge (Number 15) is based upon a theme: a leaf or leaves should appear somewhere on the tile or ZIA.

I actually took a leaf from our garden & drew it freehand inside a square border before tangling & colouring.

tangles: Barberpole, Nzepple
Tombow Markers outline watercolour blending & indirect Blender Pen colouring on
 Daler-Rowney Langton 300gsm Hot Pressed Extra Smooth watercolour paper

Bridgen Leaves

After working on my earlier leaf assignment I've become increasingly conscious of an innate delight in the shapes & colours of leaves &, knowing that I possess a number of 'leafy' Chocolate Baroque stamps, I thought I'd try combining them with tangles. I sat trying to decide where to place the stamps & wasn't getting anywhere so just threw them one by one onto the tile & stamped each image where it landed.

front of card

close-up of leaf
embellishments

inside of card

The Nick Bantock Van Dyke Brown I used for stamping splits into greens & browns when water is added so I merely used a damp paintbrush to spread the colour within each leaf. I then hit on the idea of using the leaves as the 'circles' in Bridgen & went from there.

Recipe
Stamps Chocolate Baroque UDLSP0234 Autumn Hedgerow & UDLSP0235 Nature Table
Inks Nick Bantock Van Dyke Brown (leaves on front) & Memories Black Dye (leaves inside).
Pens/Markers 01 Sakura Pigma Micron (tangles); Graphite pencil (shading).
Cardstock Winsor & Newton Cotman 190gsm Cold Pressed/NOT Grain Fin Watercolour Paper; black, yellow & gold cardstock from stash.
Punches Woodware (small & large leaves); EK Success (corner rounder).
The pearls are Kanban.

Challenges Entered
Simon Says Stamp & Show: Into the Woods - stamped & punched leaf shapes; the circular effect of the tangle pattern reminds me of the growth rings used in tree-ring dating (dendrochronology)
Simon Says...Anything Goes!

MCC Time to Tangle with Colours - Final Project

Links: MCC (My Creative Classroom), Marie Browning

The last assignment was also the pencil project for the fourth week. It ended up being quite a challenge to add the colour as the Coloursoft pencils proved rather difficult to layer in the Black Page Album Moleskine I'd chosen to work in. As I'd already completed all the tangles when I discovered the lack of 'tooth' for layering I persevered  but mostly stuck to using one single colour in each small section of pattern.

Impressed Technique on Black
tangles: Barberpole, Bridgen, Chevron, Dot Grid, Plumes, Sooflowers, Zoya
tangled using a ball tool in Black Page Album Moleskine
Coloured with Derwent Coloursoft Pencils

MCC Time to Tangle with Colours - Wk 4

Links: MCC (My Creative Classroom), Marie Browning

In the final week of the course Marie showed two different ways of creating white tangles coloured with Tombow Markers. The first uses the Tombow Glue Pen as a resist & the second a white gel pen  on vellum. Of the 3 white pens (Pergamano, Pentel Hybrid Gel Grip K118 & Sakura Gelly Roll) that I tried, I found the Gelly Roll gave the best results when tangling.

Watercolour Blending with Resist
tangles: Trentwith with a mixture of Shattuck & Tagh
Tombow Markers watercolour wash & outline blending over Glue Pen resist
plus indirect Blender Pen colouring on Canson XL Series Mix Media 98lb/160g paper 

Vellum Tangle
tangles: Crescent Moon, Florz, Knightsbridge, Mooka
Tombow Markers direct to vellum colouring,  mounted with
 brads onto textured silver cardstock matted on deep pink cardstock

I struggled rather with the Draw & Blend technique - this is the best one.

Draw & Blend
tangle: Knightsbridge
Tombow Markers direct to paper & watercolour blending on
Daler-Rowney Langton 300gsm Hot Pressed Extra Smooth watercolour paper
mounted onto dark green cardstock

Crosshatched Background & Chocolate Baroque Hand Challenge

Links: Chocolate Baroque Hand Challenge, Glenda Waterworth, MCC (My Creative Classroom), Marie Browning

When I saw Miranda's Henna Hand on the Chocolate Baroque  Design Team Blog I thought of tangling a hand as I'd seen several examples in Suzanne McNeill's Zentangle 4 but, since I was just starting the MCC tangling course, I filed the idea at the back of my mind.  Inspired by Miranda's artwork, Glenda has now posted an open Hand Artwork Challenge on the Chocolate Baroque Forum (free to join) which I thought I could combine with the third week's pencil crosshatched background technique. With hindsight I'm not so sure that was a good idea.

tangles: Hurry, Sand Swirl
Derwent Coloursoft Pencils crosshatched background on
Canson XL Series Mix Media 98lb/160g paper 

I'm rather ambivalent about this piece of artwork as the finished piece reminds me too much of a mummified hand & the patterning is much too life-like in terms of fingerprints for comfort. The latter is quite symbolic actually for I drew round my own hand & both the little fingers are crooked - an inherited characteristic from my mother's paternal lineage.