Halloween Zendala: It's webtastic!

It is fall here in Delaware.  The nights are cold and the days are cooler.  The leaves have started to change.  It's a good time.  This week at the Bright Owl, the zendala challenge is a Halloween/Fall theme.  I was all excited as I eventually want to have a zendala themed for each season.  However, as Zentangle often goes, this zendala didn't turn out the way I thought it would.  Rather than fall, I have Halloween zendala.  I really like it though.

Halloween Zentangle

I started this zendala on an 8X8" piece of watercolor paper.  I then took an AquaStic in orange and colored the background orange.  I kept the color uneven and unplanned.  I thought of the outer ovals as the eyes of a mask.  I even started to blacken them all in but I thought that all of them being black would be too much.  I added Verve and Allium to the center to mimic a spooky eye.  Afterglo and Web came eaily at the larger triangle spots.  After that however, I was stuck.  I had this large shape in the middle and could not think of what to fill the space with.  This morning Auraknot jumped up and said "Use ME!" so I did, bringing Web back to the center to tie it back to the edges.  The shading really added to the dimension in this one.

I hope you all have a wonderful fall and Halloween.  As of today, my sons want to be a Teenage Mutaint Ninja Turtle and a Korean Pop star.  Funny that the turtle costume will be the easiest to do...

New Pattern: Allium

I have recently joined Pintrest.  I think that there are several of you who are on Pintrest as well as I have found you and because there is a lot of zentangle art posting.  I don't go on as much as I could but I have to be prepared to sit for a while when I log in.  There is a lot to see.  If anyone doesn't have an account and would like one, I think it is still join by invite, just hit me up via email and I'll send you an invitation.

Why all the Pintrest stuff?  Because it is there that I saw an incredible tattoo that inspired this tangle. 

Click the link to see artist information.

Is that not awesome?  Talk about a zentangle tat!  I swear that I would get this exact tattoo if I...

1. had the nerve. 2: Was sure my kids wouldn't hate me. 3. Had a better body.  Lets face it, you don't get a back piece and not show it off.

An anonymous commenter has noted who the artist is.  I am so glad to have his name and information.  He is  Alexis Calvie from Black (he)art Tattoo in France.  I plan on checking out more of his work and I hope you do as well.  If I ever find myself in France, I think I may find him and get my first tattoo.

I was really taken buy the whole thing but I was drawn to the pattern on the left in the middle.  It is so mesmerizing and visual.  My eye is just pulled to it automatically.  I thought that it would make a great tangle pattern.  So, I sat down to play with it a bit and see what I could do and this is what I came up with. 

I say to end with an empty space on the outside as I found that to end with black, the pattern runs together with the next one.  That might be nice sometimes but I didn't care for it.  I ended up choosing the name Allium as the pattern reminds me of an onion with its many layers.  Allium is the Genus of the onion and I thought that sounded good.

I tried it in several tangles. In this week's challenge and in the Punzel challenge.  I also gave it a try on black scrapbooking paper with a white gel pen.

I have a little trouble keeping this pattern small.  I know how to make it smaller but I just get carried away.

I hope you like it.  I'm interested to see if anyone else uses it and how they do.  If you use it, please post a link.  I would love to see your work!

Tri Shapes Challenge

This week The Diva's challenge is hosted by Sue Clark.  I was excited to see that Sue was hosting.  I have enjoyed and been inspired by Sue's work for a while.  The challenge was another great way to explore string making.  I really liked the idea of using overlapping shapes to create the string for several reasons.  One, I am forever feeling stuck when it comes to strings.  I'm not sure why, but my pencil always wants to go the same way everytime.  Using shapes is a great way to get going without having to worry about the rut my pencil is in.  The other is that there is always a shape of some kind in the house.  I can just pick one up and get started.  Using tangles that we have not used before is also a great challenge.  There are so many patterns out there that I have seen and wanted to use but haven't yet.  This was a perfect excuse to just jump in and not over think the pattern.

First I drew my string.  I used my circle template to make the circle and then just a straight edge to make the triangle and the rectangle.  I probably should have free handed them but my freehand can be a bit wonky.  I'm getting a lot better at accepting the wonky but I'm not all the way there yet.

Once I made the string, I pulled out my iPod to look for tangles that I had saved but not used yet.  I really wanted to try Veins by Lizzie Mayne since I saw it.  The tangle reminds me of an album cover from the 90's but please don't ask me which one, I can't remember.  Knowing that I wanted to use that one first, I plopped it right in the middle.  Not practicing most of these tangles first was a real leap of faith, but I am pleased with the outcome. 

I made sure to write down the names of the tangles on the back of the tile and using Sandra Kay Straight's blog, I was able to go back and get the names and the links.  She has the hook up for patterns.   The new patterns I used here are the previously mentioned Veinz, Bowties by Lori Howe, Flubber by Molossus (Ms. Straight), Galoo by Carol Ohl, and Golven by Mariet.  I confess that I had used Golven before in a birthday gift but I love it so much, I wanted to try it again.  I had a little triangle so I added Paradox and just filled the other with stripes. 

I also used a new tangle of mine that I am calling Allium.  It reminds me of on onion cross section so I chose Allium which it the genus of the onion.  I will post steps and examples of Allium in my next post.  The inspiration for this tangle came from a tattoo.  I don't have any tattoos and have never thought that I'd like one, but after seeing this one, I almost took the photo and my back down to the local place to get one, but more on that next.

Thank you to Sue for a fun challenge and thanks to the Diva for bringing the challenge to us each week.

Punzel

This week there is a new tangle from Rick and Maria called Punzel.  Naturally when I saw the email I knew that the challenge this week would be to use Punzel. This was a double challenge for me as I did not know Changing either.  I still need to work out some kinks in both of these tangles but I think I have the gist of it.  My swoops are a bit narrow and come out looking more like crescent moons than ribbon but that's OK.  I think the effect makes it look a bit sci-fi.

I used my scanner to get this week's zentangle posted so please forgive the harsh quality to the image.  There is no sun today and I don't think we'll see it for a few more days, so taking a good photo is out of the question.