Roman Numeral X

I'm all behind after my little holiday. There is washing everywhere, hospital appointments to attend and I can't seem to get a whole day to myself. I finished my Joey's Roman Numeral String Challenge tiles on Monday, but haven't had time until now to post them. Do we all get extra brownie points for using all five of the tangles Joey suggested in the four sections?

I used all the tangles in my first tile. I wasn't sure that Showgirl really turned out as it was supposed to, but nevertheless here we are:-

The links of Snookums were crying out to be done in gold so I added a top and bottom line to the X and chose to use just Diva Dance and Ticking in the sections of this tile.

Stripes

We have been away for a few days, staying with friends in Kerry, which is a county in the south-west of Ireland. It has been fabulous, the weather glorious and there was time to both relax and do some touring. We thought we lived in a rather picturesque fishing village on the east coast, but the views from their house are amazing! There is an almost 360 degree view around with about 180 degrees of it framed with mountains. Unfortunately photos of panaramas never come out well, but this is the view from one of their kitchen windows which will give you some idea:-

We drove all around the Dingle Peninsula, the Ring of Kerry and Killarney, which is the Lake District of Ireland and saw everything from the ancient Gallerus Oratory (6th century)

To the more modern Ross Castle (15th century) :-)

We also saw where they are making part of the new Star Wars movie, I was very excited even if it was in the distance. We tried to get closer but they were stopping everyone and not allowing photos. I did manage to get this from further away. They are midway between the Grecian urns, up on the very top of the hill. You can just about make out the metal road they have had to lay down the hillside if you click on the photo to enlarge it. Yes that is how mad I am about Sci-Fi, sad isn't it :-D

So here i am back at home, enjoying the east coast again and starting on this week's tangling challenges. The Diva has gone all stripey this week. I was a bit stuck about how I wanted to draw my tile and decided to try a small vertically striped square in the centre of diagonal stripes. I used Shattuck, Zander, Natti and Meer. This was the result:-

It wasn't quite what I had in mind so in order to jazz the subject up a bit I decided to draw one of those tangle folk wearing a stripey outfit, which made me feel a bit happier. lol.

Roman Numeral lX

There are seven sections in Joey's Roman Numeral String and she has chosen seven tangle patterns to use too!!! :-) Two of them are very similar - Betweed and Ragz. In fact a lot of people draw Betweed in a similar way to Ragz.

In my first tile I have used all the tangle patterns Joey chose. I am not sure I entirely got the hang of the Mei tangle, especially as it seemed to need a lot more room but at least it is in there. I shall be interested to see how you all fitted it in to your tiles.

In my second tile I just used the tangle patterns I really enjoy. I used one of the Ragz variations that I liked which makes it look less like Betweed. I love the way it makes it look like wooden planks nailed down. This is my favourite of the three tiles

The third tile is my gold tile. I used the original Ragz tangle pattern for the gold numeral and just used Mooka and Zinger to keep the other sections lighter.

X Marks the Spot

Just a short post this week, I think I exhausted myself last week and I can't really think of any news today :-) 

The Diva's Challenge this week is to make a globe and then tangle it. I must be ahead of my time because if you remember I did a globe of Fassett last week!

I used a tan Zendala tile (or as near to tan as I can obtain) and Renaissance colours. For the X I used my own pattern Measles, and the two black patterns are Kinetic and Slice. I have to say I didn't enjoy this as much as an ordinary Zendala. I don't like the grids going into strange small shapes at the edges.

Roman Numeral VIII

I had a feeling the string this week was going to be tricky - a V and three l's was going to be a lot to fit on a little Zentangle tile! Not only that but Joey has challenged us to use four tangle patterns in it too lol.

I made matters worse in my first tile by making a broad border! Not only that but I did three types of N'Zeppel, a regular version, an irregular positive version and an irregular negative version. I hadn't drawn Marnie before but it was much easier than it looked at first glance. This is my favourite tile of the trio, even if it is a bit busy.

Determined to give myself more room I drew a Zendala for the next one in the trio. I wove Fandangle in and out of the Vlll which gave more room for the other tangles and used a graphite Nzeppel background behind some of it.

For my gold tile there was only room to outline the string in gold, so I added a touch of gold to the centre of Marnie for a touch of extra glamour. I seemed to have much more room on this tile and was able to draw more of the tangles.

Roman Numeral Vll

It is only the fifth day of April and already we have had more rain than in the whole of March, so when we woke up to sunshine today we decided to take a little trip out. Instead of walking along our own beach (known as a strand here) we took the scenic route to the beach three villages along.

The beach sweeps for about a mile and a half around the bay and looked stunning in the sunshine with the Wicklow Mountains as a backdrop. I took lots of photos to show you, but why oh why do panorama photos never come out as stunning as where they were taken ? It looks grey and wet when in fact the bright sun shining on the sand made it look golden and the mountains have disappeared into the clouds  :-(

I do have this photo of the shimmering water as you look across the sea to the furthest of the islands, and the reason I am showing it to you is the tiny island right on the end. For some reason that little bit is known as Ireland's Eye!

Then there is this photo of the golden sand, the way the waves and wind had blown the sand reminded me of the tangle pattern Tearce or even Nipa that we are to use today!

Each strand around here has a Martello Tower. They are coastal defence towers built at the time of the Napoleonic Wars. The are all built within sight of each other. Some are in better condition than others, and two or three in this area have been turned into homes. It really is wonderful to be able to walk along such quiet beaches.

We had a lovely lunch at the local hotel, with glorious views of the islands just off shore, and I really felt like I had been on a mini break. After this we returned home and I turned my attention to Joey's Challenge and my trio of tiles for this week. This is the first tile I drew which included all four of the patterns Joey suggested, Gotcha, Queens Crown, Nipa and Sailz. I had been wanting to try out the new pattern Gotcha so I was pleased when I drew it and discovered I really enjoyed it. Nipa I have always liked and use a lot. The crown and Sailz I have used but not so much.

I decided that I had drawn the patterns in the most obvious places and so for this tile I tried to mix it up a bit more.

Lastly came my gold tile where I usually outline the Roman Numeral in gold. Of course the Queens Crown just begged to be done with the gold pen so first of all drew tha tangle all along the Vll. When I had finished I liked it so much by itself that I almost left it like this:-

Joey had said that it would be great if we managed to fit in all four tangle patterns. Although I had already done that in the previous two I felt honour bound to continue with this gold one and this is how it turned out:-

Diva Challenge #262

I have had a lovely week with my Zentangle® Primer Vol 1. Maria and Rick say they called it a Primer "because it has all you need to enjoy the Zentangle Method" and also "because they enjoyed the 19th century feel of the word" :-) As I started to work my way through it I could imagine Victorian children having a book like this to refer to for their lettering.

We probably think we know the basics of the Zentangle Method, but the introduction has a lot of additional interesting information about it. There are Zentangle official step outs to many tangles that we know and love, but just to warn you there are no new tangles in the book. Nevertheless it is interesting going over the fundamentals of those I knew with official Step Outs by Maria. The Diva's Challenge each week, and other challenges on the Internet, have already made me think about drawing variations of tangle patterns, but somehow I had not thought of doing that with basic tangles such as crescent moon, hollibaugh, Florz etc. In the first two chapters you are taught some of these basic tangles but instantly you are led on to the possibilities of the endless variations. Another chapter is all about strings, something I was very grateful to read about and also a chapter about the Zentangle® way of shading. 

Of course there is much more, but that is as far as I have got and I have had a whole week to explore it, so that shows you how much information there is to digest. There are exercises to do if you wish, at the end of each chapter. It has been fun to go back to basics and I have really enjoyed completing some of the first exercises. If you have the new Zentangle Mosaic App there are hashtags for each exercise so that you can see the tiles others have done for these exercises. Here is a Mosaic of my exercise tiles - did you know a Mosaic is a set of tiles laid side by side and an Ensemble is a set of tiles laid side by side with a common string drawn across them? I didn't know this difference. 

I certainly haven't been disappointed with this book as I have with some others previously. I have learnt so much and I still haven't got to the chapter about the new reticula and fragments yet! Of course I couldn't resist a peek at that chapter and the ideas look amazing, but I stopped at just a peek because it was obvious that I was going to have to sit down and study it closely to undertand it properly. I will wait until I have worked my way through to that chapter.

As you can see from the previous photo, I have also been experimenting with my initials. I don't really like the one I use and I can't find an elegant way to sign Y T that doesn't take up space. I have ended going back to my usual one, so any suggestions will be gratefully received. I have even tried drawing a tiny tortoise instead but that didn't work either.

The Diva has challenged us to use the tangle pattern Fassett this week. I have just drawn a basic Z string tile. The latest tip from Zentangle HQ is that Graphite is the New Black and so I coloured the top left corner with graphite before tangling over it. I also drew Fassett in the other sections with graphite and ended with a Fassett dripping out of it. That bit hasn't worked so well, it may end up with a Bronx Cheer on it in the future :-) 

I prefer this globe:-