U, Elenah Hadzijaneva and Shattuck.

Shattuck is the name of the game for the Tangle Me Three challenge. All three Shattuck's fitted perfectly in a crescent moon shape.

There are not many U tangle patterns, at least not on TanglePatterns.com so it was quite difficult to choose one that was New to Me for this challenge. Instead the New to Me patterns I used are two from Elenah Hadzijaneva, Hypnotic and Join. I loved Hypnotic and expect I will use it a lot in the future. The other patterns I used are Up and Down, Up and Across and Umble and I fitted them all into this little star. It seems Celestial objects are my thing at the moment.

Apologies to everyone for not visiting you this week, I hope to be allowed on the computer for longer next week. Thank goodness, because I am having really bad withdrawal symptoms - I love going around all your blogs.

O A C and S

I'm back! Well, sort of, I am only allowed on the computer for a short while so I am afraid I can't yet visit everyone's blogs, apologies for that. I can only write for a little while too, but fortunately I knew  ahead of time what letters would be needed for Diane and Carolien's challenge and prepared this tile last week before my eye surgery.

My craze this week is for Crescent Moons, and I don't mean the tangle pattern lol. I used Antidots Arc flower, Opus, Crescent Moon, Angelfish, Cubine and a touch of Creweller.

Again, for Tackle It Tuesday, I knew it would be S and prepared this last week. I used Stoic, Springkle, Sedgling, and Sand Swirl.

U N D

Many thanks to everyone for the tea and sympathy about the wasp stings last week. Thankfully they have settled down.

I have a small problem when commenting on some people's blogs. If it is a blogger website there is no problem, I am logged in. Sometimes on other sites it wants verification and if it says " Are you a robot?" I simply tick NO, and it makes me laugh. However some sites ask you to verify that you are a human. Well, now what do I do? I am not a human, I am a tortoise and I can't honestly tick the box that says 'Yes'. I beg you all to petition your website companies for a change. In this day and age there is just no excuse for xenophobia!

Anyway to get on to Diane & Carolien's Challenge which is U N D this week. I seem to be having a circle fad at the moment and so each circle contains one of the following:- Up and Down, Umble, N'Zepple, Nipa, Drupe, Dyon, Diva Dance and Dancet.

R - Rixty, Rain and Raddox

R. I thought R would make a great string and so I was looking forward to this week's challenge for Tackle It Tuesday over at Cheryl's Place. I decided to depart from my usual formula of filling the letter with tangles, instead useing it as the actual string, and yes it looked beautifully divided into suitable segments for tangling.

Unfortunately I just couldn't get the tangle patterns to play together in anything more than a basic way. At least they were all tangles I enjoy drawing, but they do look disconnected from each other, each in their own little segments.

Fall

It is Fall, or Autumn as we say here. The evenings are drawing in and I find I am putting the light on even as early as five o'clock in order to see what I am drawing. It is amazing the difference light makes when you are doing close work. In daylight you can see so much more of the detail. Even just moving to sit near to the window can help so much. I have frequently finished a tile late at night and been quite pleased with it, only to come downstairs in the morning to find there are gaps in my blocking in and other tiding up to be done.

Talking of light and seeing, I have to go for an eye op on Thursday, so you will have to forgive me if I am not able to visit blogs and comment for a couple of weeks. It shouldn't be long before I can see enough to draw and read, but I am not sure how long it will be before I can look at an iPad screen for any longer than needed to quickly post my challenge entries. Hopefully it won't be long, otherwise I will be suffering from withdrawal symptoms!!

Fall is the subject of The Diva's Challenge this week. When I think of Autumn I think of the wind, both in the air and blowing leaves underfoot. I also think of brambles, picking them from the hedgerows. Then there is fireworks and bonfires on Guy Fawkes night. In my tile I have used Sand Swirl to indicate the wind, blue for in the air and brown for underfoot. Bronx Cheer to represent Brambles and Fireworks tangle to represent Fireworks lol

Pots & Pans

As luck would have it the artist focus this week, in SuzyMosh's That's New To Me Challenge, has a tangle pattern beginning with P - Pots-n-Pans so that is the one I chose. I know that we don't have to have all of the tangle patterns beginning with P, so long as one is, that is just an extra little challenge I have imposed on myself.

I have drawn Pots-n-Pans before, and found it rather fun. Today I have used a teetering stack of pots-n-pans as the string alongside Pop-cloud, and two new-to-me patterns Panda and Points & Curves.

Ta Da :-)

I love the name of the tangle Joey has chosen for us this week - Ta Da :-) It always makes me think of the song - Ta Da - by the Scissor Sisters and I immediately want to get up and dance around the room.  The music is so happy making, it makes me smile as soon as I hear it, I even bounce around if I am sat down lol.

Talking of bouncing around, I seem to be into circles this week, and the circles of Ta Da I have drawn for the challenge today look like big bouncy balls. It is strange you know, Zentangle® tiles are meant to be non-representational abstract art and yet I frequently see things in them that were never meant to be drawn into it. I often see things in the tiles that others have drawn and find myself saying so in the comments. Are you the same?

LZP

I had a bit of a dodgy experience yesterday. I was wearing a high necked jumper and talking with my neighbour when I felt a slight thud against my neck, but we were engrossed in our conversation so I didn't take a lot of notice. Two or three sentences later I suddenly felt my jumper move around the lower chest area, and when I looked down it actually was moving. Next thing I knew there was a sharp pain, then a couple more stabs and fluttering against my skin. I felt as though an alien was about to burst forth!

I shrieked and ran for the house, throwing my jumper and blouse off as soon as I got inside. At first I couldn't see anything but then I felt another pain and found the culprit - a wasp of course - caught between my chestickles! I am telling you, it really hurts. I have three stings on my tummy, one slightly higher and two on my chesticke. Fortunately I am not allergic to them, but they do quite hurt. At least they do not itch like mosquito bites, those can drive you mad with the scratching. I have no idea how it managed to get inside my jumper, it has quite a tight neckline.

Anyway I have slapped some cream on so now on to the challenge. The letters for Diane and Carolien's weekly challenge are LZP. Last week I did a four tile ensemble which I loved so I went ahead with another one. Fortunately Diane and Carolien let you know the letters ahead of time so I was able to work on it over the weekend when things were quiet.

Last time I drew U shapes on the four tiles which fitted together to form vague petals. This week I wanted to try fitting Fengles together so that the arms would touch where the tiles meet. I managed to place them quite well, and they do line up, but it was not quite as effective as I had hoped. I imagined them sort of all dancing together in the middle and holding hands.

Anyway I was quite pleased with the overall look of the ensemble, and Fengle is always a pleasing tangle to draw. The other tangles I used were Fireworks, Zenith, Locor, Fandango, Flos, Zinger, Linked, Lilly Pads, Finery, Flux, Florz, Fescu, Luv-a, and Zander.

 All tangles fit this week's alphabet challenge so, as Diane would say, "There you have it" :-)

Quib, Quare and Quandary

Tackle It Tuesday is doing Q this week. Things are very quiet over there with only a few taking the challenge, but hopefully it will build up. I love challenges which involve the string and this is one of them. The string takes the form of the letter, filling the spaces with lovely tangle patterns. I couldn't find many beginning with Q, but I did find a few. Of course we don't have to stick to just Q, so long as there is one pattern beginning with Q that is ok, however I have given myself the extra challenge of using just patterns beginning with the weekly letter.

I have to say I couldn't get into the zone with this one and the result is fairly basic. Strange how it goes like that sometimes, I don't know why, I had been looking forward to Q. I considered leaving it until further in the week, but I have found in the past that once I get stuck like this I never really succeed as well as I want to even if I go back to it. Better to move on to something else.

I have drawn Quib as the stroke on the Q, two types of quandary formed the letter and Quare filled in the side. Quare was actually new to me, but I it doesn't play well with the others.

See you next week, hopefully in a more zen frame of mind.

Munchin In Black

I have got Big News. On Saturday I attended a real live proper Zentangle® Workshop!! I was so excited the night before I couldn't sleep. Here in Ireland there is only one CZT - Peter Connolly. I have been unable to attend a workshop before as they are only occasionally held in Dublin in the evening, and due to a lack of trains and buses at night I would have been unable to get home.

Finally one was posted as happening on a Saturday morning and I requested a place like a shot :-) It was listed as a beginners class, but I was very happy with that. I wanted to make sure I hadn't missed out on the basics and was doing the Zentangle® Method properly. Anyway I was really going in order to meet other RL people that shared my passion for Zentangle®.

We were taught Crescent Moon, W2, and Nipa. The tutor taught Nipa a slightly different way to the way I had learned it and I found it so much easier. I learnt it in the order of draw your orbs, then draw a curvy line between the orbs, then continue auraing the curvy line. I had always struggled with Nipa as I found it difficult to keep the auras curvy. They tended to flatten out. Peter taught it in the order of draw your orbs then connect your orbs with a wavy line before continuing with the line auras. Such a relief to finally draw it with ease.

Here is the completed tile, which of course was drawn on a proper Zentangle® Tile - heaven!

Well, on to the Diva's Challenge. Munchin on Black. There is something about the challenges this week which is making me get carried away and producing more than one tile for them - or perhaps it was that Zentangle Workshop ;-)

Anyway I have to say I quite agree with the Diva, I am not really keen on drawing on black tiles either. I love to see them, some people can make them look fantastic, just not me. It is not the feel of the pen with me, it is just mine turn out very basic and it is hard to do strings, shading and shadows without a zen stone or white charcoal or something.

I did order some Sakura Gelly Roll pens, which I got at great expense, but I can't seem to get the white one to work. It lays down a transparent fluid with a milky look in parts of it, but that disappears and I am left with no white line. The other colours are much the same, a little more colour but mostly this transparent fluid. So, when I want to draw on a black tile, I currently use my white Derwent Coloursoft Coloured Pencil. In fact the pens which I find work the best are a cheap large set of rollerball pens which I bought from the local supermarket - Lidl. They were a set divided between fluorescent colours, metallic colours and glitter colours, so you can see how cheap they were and we would not normally have thought of them for art.

This is my first black tile, done with Coloursoft White Coloured Pencil, which I thought turned out looking rather like an origami type swan.

Then I wanted to try some variations. I tried blocking in alternate lines in alternate triangles, this one rather reminded me of badgers peeking out.

Next came curvy lines, and I attempted to add a little weight to the starting points with the crayon. I quite liked the way this turned out, sort of floaty.

The cheap metallic pens produced this S shape. The copper and the green goes well together doesn't it.

Lastly, back to my Proper Zentangle Workshop and Proper Zentangle Tiles. We were allowed to bring home the tiles we drew of course, and they are so precious I am determined not to waste any space on them, so rather than Munchin on black this is Munchin on the back :-)

Striping

Striping is the focus of this week in Joey's Monotangle Challenge. I think this is a great tangle pattern as it fits into any space and the string plays a big part in how it turns out. I have to admit I got a bit carried away today.

First of all I chose String no.135 from TanglePatterns.com and filled it with striping of various sizes.

Next I shaded it to within an inch of it's life. I have decided I am not sure about shading to this extent. When I started learning this process I thought it very clever how 3D it made drawings look, but I am really not keen on the murky pewter look you end up with. I expect I shall keep doing it from time to time if I think a design will be enhanced with it, but I don't think it will be a major part of my tangling.

Next I launched into colour. I wanted to try a more rounded string which I made up myself. As I coloured I created a couple of extra sections to cater for a few more differences in the depth of the stripes. I used my Derwent Coloursoft coloured pencils for this.

Lastly I wanted to try the same string with just black and white stripes. Although It is the same string as the coloured one, this time I alternated the bow of the stripes in each segment and matched up the black blocking all the way round. Lastly I added an aura and a little touch of shadow, which I much prefer to the all over shading. Out of all of them this one is my favourite, and the one I am assigning to the challenge. Which one do you prefer?

Z & Warped Eggs

The television is full of rugby - Ireland v France - so I am very pleased to have two challenges to do. There is much shouting and waving of arms going on, so I am amazed that I have managed to draw this tile without any jerks of pen as I jump out of my skin due to the sudden yell of "YAH, COME ON IRELAND!"

SusyMosh has chosen Z as the subject of this week That's New to Me Challenge, with an artist focus of Livia Chua. I like most of Livia's tangle patterns which are easy to draw, but I chose just one for the tile, warped eggs. This is drawn above New to Me Zigster and underneath is that tangle pattern beloved by us all - Zinger. The slight pink tinge is just my camera, the red is reflected from my jumper.

P.s. For those who care - Ireland won :-)

Printemps

What a challenge SuzyMosh has set us this week, Printemps!  The tiles I have drawn could not be called pretty in any way lol. I am glad this is the first of my challenges for this week as it means this post will only be my front page for a few hours.

I kept thinking of ways to vary Printemps, but then realised it just turned it into another existing tangle. I thought of making it square, but that is Emingle. My favourite idea was connecting two in an S shape, but then I realised that is almost like Scoodle. I tried to block in circles of it, but that didn't work of course because it is a continuous line not separate circles.

In the end I connected two Printemps with a straight line down the side for my first variation. Secondly, in honour of Bijou I made a snail like Printemps. Usually if I can't make a tile look good I resort to coloured pens, however I was determined not to do that today. The first photo is how it looked when I had finished, warts and all. Fortunately I did have one further thought and that was to try and put the variations into a sort of fan shaped grid. It still isn't pretty but at least it is a little more presentable.

R I K

For this week's Diane and Carolein's R I K Challenge I have put aside my sketch book. "Gosh, I hear you cry, she is going to use a standard tile". Yes, but I enjoyed drawing it so much I got carried away and ended up with a four tile ensemble lol.

There are a lot of patterns beginning with ' I ' that I just love, and they wouldn't fit on one tile so I just kept going. I have used Kandy Ribbon,  Isochor, Ixorus, Inaura, Inapod, Ing, Rixty, Rain, Riverstones and then one tangle that doesn't fit the alphabet challenge - Beadlines. Here is the ensemble I made for the challenge.

I thought making an ensemble and joining them up was such fun that I have made a few more since then. Here is another I made:-

P = Let's Partay

This week it is P for the Tackle It Tuesday Challenge. I have settled into a style for my alphabet now, as I draw them myself - as opposed to copying them - and I quite enjoy the look. I am secretly a little pleased with myself as previously I always struggled to get the proportions right when  I tried to draw letters (that is drawing as opposed to writing).

I have filled the P with Pozer. When I had finished filling it in it sort of reminded me of my great-aunt's apron lol. The other tangles I used were Podz, Pippin and Partay with Pokeroot just managing to peek out of the hole in the P.

Tri-Bee

When I read the Diva's Challenge today my first thought was "Hang on, Use My Tangle is normally at the beginning of the month, I wonder why she is doing it today". Then I realised, it is the beginning of the month!!

I really liked this tangle pattern, it is a great filler pattern. I have used it centre stage in my tile. I put a green internal aura around the central Tri-Bee segments and it has made them look as though they have been coloured pale green. It is not just the computer, it looks filled with pale green to me in RL too. Fortunately I rather like the effect, but it is amazing how the eye can be deceived.

P.s. I enjoyed drawing Tri-Bee so much I have been playing with it in my sketch book, (and it is not an optical illusion I really did colour the second one red/pink):-

Rosewood

What a beautiful name this tangle pattern has. Rosewood is the tangle Joey has chosen for us today. I love this type of a pattern, it is so restful repeating the strokes. I am afraid I haven't been very original with my design today, but I had enormous fun drawing it and colouring it in. Now I am waiting in eager anticipation to see how you have chosen to present this tangle.

Organza

I love the Organza tangle and had great fun creating some variations for SusyMosh's Tangle Me Three Challenge. Variations are a funny thing, there are a lot of tangle patterns which look very similar to each other and I would actually have called them a variation. I wonder what the criteria is for when it becomes an actual new tangle pattern.

This is my tile with Organza and two variations. I had trouble deciding which way up to put it. Which way up do you prefer?

Keenies, and Kelp

I have some absolute favourite tangle patterns beginning with K, but as this challenge is called That's New To Me Knase and Keeko were two of them that had to be used as extras. For the main New To Me tangles I used Keenees and Kelp, both of which had escaped my notice previously. I think I will certainly be using Keenees again.