Hi everyone and welcome back to the Tireless Tangler! I had such fun with the String Thing challenge this week! The string was a simple circle and Zendala tiles were recommended. I used one of my precious Zentangle ® tiles in black. Adele Bruno at Tickledtotangle chose 3 tiles from Belgium CZT, Ria Matheussen. I’ve always appreciated Ria’s art and the chance to spend time with her patterns was an unexpected pleasure. Mazorito, Hexa, and Horti were full of promise. I wish I had time for a square tile in black and white but…here is my Zendala, using Sakura Moonlight Gelly Rolls and Sakura Stardust in silver.
The Diva Challenge this week took an interesting turn when I applied Eni Oken’s Tangle Enhancers Card Game. The Diva, Laura Harms, challenged us this week to “Use My Tangle” with her pattern “Somnee”. Somnee is a similar pattern to Zentangle’s “Hollibaugh” and I needed some inspiration to dress it up a bit. I used Copic markers for color, and Prismacolor Pencils for shading. Luckily, I have Eni Oken’s new card game, “Art and Tangle Game“! This game is designed to guide creativity when you’re not sure what direction to take and it worked! I chose 3 Tangle Enhancers. Line weight and rounding, fancy border and color a lá line interrupted. If you struggle sometimes knowing what to do next, I highly recommend Eni’s card game. You can find it here!
And here’s my finished tile!
One last thing I want to share with you this week! I have been given the opportunity to attend CZT 32 (Certified Zentangle Teacher training) in October! I’m so excited about this opportunity! Unfortunately, I have to now raise $2250.00 to pay for the trip! Because I live on disability, and am a single parent, raising that much money is a challenge!
This last week, Eni Oken suggested I start a gofundme campaign. Eni generously donated herself, but then went above and beyond by sharing the campaign in her Shading Fearlessly group. In one day, I’d raised more than $500.00! My secret passion for becoming a CZT changed from a distant hope to confidence as I sent $500.00 to Zentangle, Inc, yesterday! My deepest gratitude goes out to all the people who have donated! A very special thanks to Eni Oken for giving me the confidence to create and promote the campaign! As of this post, I’ve raised $655.00!
Today’s Diva Challenge, issued by CZT, Laura Harms, was to use a “Duotangle” consisting of the tangles “Tripoli”, and “Shattuck”. I use both of these a lot, so I applied myself using one of my “tan treasure tiles” made with Eni Oken’s parchment paper technique on a Zentangle ® Renaissance tile. It was perfect until I added the white gelly roll and a third Tangle appeared. I think it’s a version of hypnotic. So, I missed the Duotangle aspect completely but I still like the tile! 😉
Finally, for your enjoyment, a new Kitchen Table Tangles video! This is a Cadent Tangleation and honestly, I’m still working on it! Rick Roberts drawing is always a pleasure to watch!
Hey Y’all, this is Cyndee and I’m the Tireless Tangler! It is time for this week’s Diva Challenge number 358. This week, the diva has challenged us to use Pickpocket, a pattern by Tomàs Padrós. You may remember that I published an artist focus article on Tomàs in January, sharing his life, his art, and his journey into Zentangle! You can find the link for the artist focus below and it might give you a new perspective on Tomàs and his patterns. Tomàs is a fairly recent Tangler starting around the same time as I did two years ago.
I thoroughly enjoyed meeting Tomàs’ Pickpocket pattern. We had to play around a bit to get an enjoyable result, however, now we have made friends, this pattern has become one of my go-tos for tangling. Grid patterns have never been my best thing, but I managed to make friends with Pickpocket and put my own spin on it. Now it’s become an instant favorite. I will never produce the perfect lines and spaces that Thomas is able to produce. He is an incredible artist and a skilled teacher. I’m learning that it’s not about a competition, it’s about the process and the sharing the joy in the creativity of art! I made a short video demonstrating the part I struggled with and how I made it work. Probably easy for most but I’ve learned if I struggled then someone else might have as well.
As I couldn’t stop drawing pickpocket, I have many tiles to share! Also, don’t miss the YouTube video featuring Tomàs’ art with a flavor of his taste in music. With music, we were muy simpático!
You can find Tomàs on Instagram @tomas_padros, where he shares his wonderful patterns with everyone!
You can join the Diva’s challenges by visiting her here at iamthedivaczt.com
Welcome back to thetirelesstangler.com! Before we start the challenge tiles I’m excited to let you know about the new Artist Focus out tomorrow on Taiwan’s May Wu! She is amazing and I can’t wait to share some of her art with you all!
The Diva Challenge this week was to use our name as a String! How much fun! If you’d like to join the Diva Challenge each week, you can find Diva, Laura Harms, here on her blog at iamthedivaczt.com. Of course, my crazy perfectionist streak was alive and well so I took 2 tries this week. While I’m not really pleased with either, I did find a few good things to like on each tile. Here they are! Can you tell which one I took at night!? 😂
I’m finally caught up enough to do the It’s a String Thing challenge this week! Luckily, Eni Oken released a new Blue Sun video lesson the day after the challenge came out and they dovetailed perfectly! Here’s the string with inspiration from the Olympics. The 3 tangles were Golven ( G for gold), Sand Swirl (S for silver) and Barney ( B for Bronze). I’m not sure my tile kept the idea of the Olympics or not but the string was perfect for the Blue Sun lesson from Eni Oken! I used a Bristol vellum tile and a mixture colored pencil and Sakura Pigma Micron and Sakura gelly roll Moonlights. It’s another great lesson for Art Club!
I haven’t been very plugged into Facebook lately, mostly due to behind the scenes work on a new Freeform Celtic Knot Tutorial. It’s almost ready and will include a free pdf with extra Knot configurations! I’m pretty excited to teach it as it has quickly turned very zenful to draw for me. Be sure to check back soon!
So I really was unhappy with my diva challenge submission this week so I decided to go through my tiles and try to get it right. The result was interesting to say the least for several reasons. Here’s my before and after tiles:
This is a white tile with a burnt ochre watercolor wash. I started with my Sakura micron brown pen and was disappointed in the contrast but this made a perfect tile for #273.
I have several sets of Sakura pens that I’ve never used so this ended up being a bit of an experiment. I used my set of Sakura glaze pens for the colored in sections of the aquafleur and what is supposed to be Veezy I believe. So what I learned is that the glaze Pens have a large nib I’m assuming to allow the ink to flow smoothly which it certainly does. It goes on extremely smoothly and when it dries it leaves an upraised glossy look to what’s underneath to give it a 3D look. Unfortunately this means that fine lines and drawing with them can become rather a gloppy mess so having tried those, I really liked the dark brown aquafleur but the other was a mess! But in keeping with the Zentangle® Method I kept working and finished the rest of it. I used a burnt ochre, a dark brown and a terracotta prismacolor soft core pencil for shading which, as always, helped a lot. This tangle includes #opus #aquafleur #mookah #veezy and #fescue. (I’m terrible at remembering the tangle names so forgive me if I don’t list everything.)
See everyone next week for diva challenge 274! As always you can find a link to Diva’s blog in my top menu.
The Tireless Tangler 