Stripes 2.0

Over at the Diva's blog, the challenge this week is to use stripes as a string.  I have used this several times since the challenge was first posted last year.  Using stripes can be fun and makes for a good visual.  This time, I made my design large, I used an 8" square piece of watercolor paper and added red as a pop of color.

I added the challenge of red just to see what I could do with it, use it more as an accent rather than just drawing my patterns in red.  In all it came out pretty good I think.

Thanks to the Diva for another great challenge.  I'm sticking to a short post this week as we are looking at Hurricane Sandy to start effecting us soon and I wanted to get this out before we lost power.  Luckily, we are inland.  Water and wind will still be of concern, but we won't have to contend with the storm surge.

Stay safe everyone and have a great week!

Sepia Challenge

I am late! It was a busy week here.  School is out soon and there are lots of goings on that kept me away from  blogging.  I was able however, to squeeze in the challenge from The Diva.  I like using sepia markers for zentangle drawing.  I think that they can be just as zen as a black micron pen and maybe even more so, as the brown is easy on the eyes.  Well, mine anyway.

Since I'm late, I'll just cut right to the chase.

I have a set of sepia pens as well as the lighter brown one that you see here.  I kept it pretty simple using only the three tangles.  The bottom is my first try at the new tangle Pea-nuckle.  That deserves some more attention. I have the basics down but I tried to crowd it here.  I think I'm in need of a new 01 sepia micron too.  The top is Atorm.  I messed up in my initial grid so I had to do a variation instead.  The middle is Ticking.  I was playing with it a bit and trying to make it look like a bit of a stripe.  I don't think it looks like I hoped but I still like it.

I am looking forward to summer break.  Things will settle down a little, and that will be nice.  I will have to fight the kids for the desk top a bit but as Mom, I get to trump their game playing.  :)

Have a great week!

Zentangle Cats



5X7 on watercolor paper done with a purple micron .01, grey watercolor pencil, and pencil for shading.


I mentioned in an earlier post that I had some gifts that I was working on but had to keep secret.  This is one of them!  This was done as a Christmas gift for a family member.  We don't get to see each
other at Christmas so when we did get to see one another at Thanksgiving, we exchanged our gifts.

I am pleased to report that she loved her tangle.  I framed it in a 8X10 black frame I found at Michaels.  I think that I came out nicely.

Red Thread

This week, Cris Letournea, CZT at Tangled Up in Art is guest hosting the challenge from The Diva. Please click the link to find out more about The Red Thread Promise.  It sounds like a great cause.  I will be happy to donate my tile.

I'm afraid this post will be short.  In the run up to Thanksgiving, my time and energy are short and I fear that if I don't post now I won't get to it.  So with out further delay, my Red Thread tile.

I hope that those celebrating have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.  For anyone who isn't, I hope that you have a wonderful week.

Birthday Gifts

Red Velvet cake.  So yummy!

Fall is a busy time of year for me and birthdays.  Not only do many of my family members turn a year older but also do many of my friends.  This year, I have made zentangles for several people.  I can't post them all yet on the off chance that they may see them.  This weekend though, I was able to gift a few and now I can share them with you.



5X5 on watercolor paper with 0.1 and 0.005 micron pens and pencil.

This is a zendala that I made for my friend Cheryl.  I found this mandala pattern on 102 Free Mandalas to download.  This is a nice place to find many different mandalas.  This one was a little different than what I used but I really liked the shape.  You can download the patterns as .jpeg or PDF files.

I really enjoyed making this and am surprised at how quickly it went.  I framed it in a 10X10 float frame, with a black piece of scrapbooking paper to fill the empty space.  I had hoped to put it in a 10X10 with a 5X5 square cutout to frame it but I made the zendala too big and none of the premade frames would work.  I waited too late to have it framed professionally.  I was quite pleased with how it came out though.  The paper had a black on black pattern on it and with the zendala in the middle it looked quite nice.  The pattern on the paper was just enough to give it interest but not too busy to distract the eye.




5X7 on watercolor paper with 0.1 micron and gold gel pen

This one is for my friend Kent.  While I didn't plan it, this one works double time as Kent is a New Orleans Saints fan and their colors are black and gold.  This photo is of the tangle in the frame so there is a little glare in the glass but not much.

I tried to alternate the dark and light patterns in this one.  I tried a new pattern Golven and I really like it a lot. It isn't difficult to do and looks great.  I look forward to using it again and again.

I am glad to report that both Cheryl and Kent enjoyed their tangles as much as I did making them.  I hope that you enjoy looking at them too.

All Hallows Eve Challenge

It's a new week and lots of goings on around here.  Not only is/was it Halloween but we have also become the host to an Italian exchange student.  She may be here for just a short while but maybe longer.  It is still up in the air at this point.  We have tried to be welcoming but not overwhelming, I hope.  My 5 year old can demand a lot of time when he is excited.  If you are ever in the mood for a tour of his hot wheels cars, just come on by! :)

I had to work this year on Halloween and sadly missed all the fun.  But, I do get to enjoy the candy while skipping the long walk to get it.  The challenge this week was to do a Halloween tile.  I confess, I quite enjoyed this one.  I enjoy them all but this one was fun to explore.  Which image to put forward? Which tangles are "scary"?  I started looking over Halloween themed clip art for my image and went from there.  I couldn't choose which I wanted to do more so I did them both.

The eyes came out great I think.  I had to fight myself to leave the white space.  They don't float out of the space as I had imagined them to but I don't mind.  While working on this one, the pattern for Pweeko came across my feed and I tried it out.  I like it.  I've already added it to my tangle "stash".

Next, I wanted to do something a bit more obviously Halloween and went with a skeleton.  I now think that it is a bit more Grateful Dead than Halloween but I don't mind.  That is why it's called "Grateful Tangle".

I really left more white space than I have been lately and I'm really glad that I did.  I'm not sure what the background tangle is called.  It reminds me of Nzepple.  It hints at spider webs to me.

I hope that you all had a fun, safe and Happy Halloween.  The busy time of the year is about to kick off for me at work so I hope to still work on the challenges.  I really look forward to them each Monday morning and it's nice to have a direction to head in when I pick up my pens.

Tangled on the Inside

This was a fun challenge.  The Diva and Jo had us use one tangle pattern as the string and then fill the string with different patterns.  I had done something similar with Bales in a previous challenge, so I wanted to try something different this time.  I ended up using OOF as my string tangle and then went crazy inside.

Hopefully it isn't too busy to see OOF in there.  I like the stripe on the sides of the tile itself as well as framing each tangle.

New Pattern: Ticking

I call this new pattern Ticking because when shaded, it looks a bit like stitched fabric (to me anyway).  It is really quite simple.  Steps 2 and 3 can be combined but I do them separately so that I can make the space divisions as even as possible.  It helps if I have a starting point.  I tend to get carried away with lines if I don't start from a divided location.

It's a little like Bales at the start and you can start with a grid or just make your ovals at even distances and go from there.

I hope you like this one.  I haven't seen a pattern like this out there in the Zentangle universe but if you have please let me know.  Also:  I had one heck of a time coming up with a name for this one.  If there is another pattern named Ticking let me know and I'll rename it.  I googled and didn't find one, but you know how inexact Google searches can be. 

Hoo are Yooo?

I have an online friend who is redoing a room in her house in all black and white.  She has picked lovely things to go in it but when I saw it, I knew that I needed to make a zentangle for her.  That room is made for a zentangle.  Maybe one day I'll make my own black and white room too.  She also loves owls so guess what her ZIA is?

The bedding she chose for the room has a lovely graphic stripe accent so I pulled that in for the background.  I think that I made a new pattern for the outside of the owl.  I haven't seen it anywhere else.  I wanted something that would look "feathery".  I still need to draw it up and think of a name.  It is really quite simple.

This one is an 8X8 square on watercolor paper and done with micron pens.