I skipped out on Diva’s “moving” challenge because I prefer to do my tangling while sitting still. But this week’s challenge, “circles” was right in my wheelehouse (see what I did there?)
I started with this for my string:
The outermost ring is a CD — the template I usually use for the Zendala things I do obsessively and that I’ll get around to posting someday. The other circles are various other round things lying around — a toy cookie from my kids’ play kitchen, the inner circle of the CD, one of those plastic baby ring-stacker rings. So that was fun. Rather than doing any specific tangles, I decided to do a variation of Stricles: I drew a wobbly sort of grid across it, then filled in the cells with various solids and stripes — and one column of Nipa.
Diva Challenge 277
I left it unshaded for now. I might go back and shade some more later, but I kind of like the plain look so far.
The focus-tangle for this one is a cool little thing called “Pearly” that I just encountered. The pearls reminded me of Purk, always a favorite of mine, and the star shape of the string made me think of Arukas and Auraknot. I also used a tangleation of Pand I’ve worked up that I call Rzr.
I’ve done a lot of tangling lately but not a lot of blogging. A lot on my mind but no energy to blog about it all, probably because of having so much on my mind. On the other hand, I’ve managed to upload pictures of some of my recent work, including the most recent Made by Joey Challenge plus a few stragglers:
Okay, so the shading’s a little sloppy, but it was fun. I’ve always loved B’Twined. And I figured it would enjoy playing with its BFFs, Betweed and Betwixt.
Joey Challenge 120
Girdy is another great fun one. I tried something a little different on the right side — but I got myself mixed up drawing the “platforms” and ended up with a line through the beams. Oh well. I also used some Skye, a new one from a Diva Challenge a while back.That column with spirals is a new one I came up with that I call Psiral. Who knows, maybe I’ll actually post the step-out one of these days.
Joey Challenge 119
The tangle of focus for this one is Gnarly. When I was a kid, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was big, so “gnarly” seemed like “current” slang. It was only later that I realized that all their lingo was recycled 50s/60s surfer slang. I thought it would be fun to do some ocean themed stuff. So here are some waves and squids and … jellyfish? Weird oysters? Caviar? I don’t know for sure.
Joey Challenge 117
Socc is the focus here. I worked on this one while I was in Kansas City for the AP English Language reading. Have you ever spent 8 hours a day for a week grading AP Exam essays? Well, I have.
Well, that’s all the ones I can find files of for now. I also did the Maryhill one but I don’t know where it ended up.
The string for the week’s challenge was a peace sign with the suggested tangle “Organic.” This is one that never seems to come out exactly as I want it, but I think I got a good effect this time. I also used Paradox, which has always been one of my favorites.
I had several ideas for what to do with this one. Ultimately, I decided to use the letters P-A-X — Latin for peace — as a string and as the letters for my tangles. Here is the string I started with:
Sorry for the poor picture quality.
I suppose using “Xplode” for a peace-themed ZIA is a bit ironic, but there aren’t a lot of good “x” tangles. I also used one of the newest TP patterns, A-Dalfa, plus one that is not new at all but that I don’t think I’ve ever used before, Pendrils.
I haven’t posted in ages, and this one will be real quick, but I wanted to share that I have been tangling — I just haven’t been sharing. This is for the most recent Diva Challenge, number 274, “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.” I decided not just to celebrate my native land of the USA, but also the diversity and equality represented by the rainbow flag of the Pride movement. It was fun crafting with construction paper and glue sticks again.
Skye is a new tangle pattern that’s pretty tricky but has a bold look that I really like. I decided it would play nicely with the most recent string on Tanglepatterns.com, number 211. I also figured this would be a fun time to play around with some “sky” themed tangles. I’ve got the sun (Sonnenband, Sundy), clouds (Cloudfall, Popcloud), rain (Rain), the moon (Crescent Moon, Eclipse [technically I suppose this also would include the sun]), and stars (Star Map, Starawn).
Joey gave us a theme for this one with her selected tangles: Seedings, Black Eyed Peas, Chard, Corn Rows, and Garlic Cloves. To this I added some Verdigogh and Bluebonnets, sticking with the theme. And I believe this is the last of the Roman Numerals. I can’t wait to see what we have next week.
As I understand it, this is the penultimate Joey Roman Numeral challenge. But hey, I can always continue them: it’s not like I’ll run out of Roman Numerals, although it will probably be hard to string something like MDCCCLXXII.
I decided pretty quickly that the big spaces above and below the numeral should be great big barber poles, then it was pretty easy to decide on barber poling the rest of the string as well. I tried a variety of patterns for the poles — not certain how well it worked, but it was interesting. There’s also Bunzo and Shattuck — both of these are ones I initially had a really hard time with but have really enjoyed now that I have the hang of it. There were two new-to-me background tangles — Papyrus and Cheesecloth. I like the look of Cheesecloth but I’m not so sure I enjoyed drawing MDCCCLXXII teeny tiny lines. Also, the Cadent didn’t show up quite as well as I would have liked.
Before I talk about this ZIA, I want to introduce you to my daughter. She’s the youngest of my three kids, two and a half years old. We call her “Lala.” There is no way I could describe how incredible she is: she’s bright, funny, self-confident, smart. Here are some representative conversations with her:
Me: “Good morning, little lady!”
Her: “Me not little lady! Me just Lala!”
“Okay, good morning Just Lala.”
“Me not Just Lala me just…Lala.”
Her: “I’m a puppy! Woof woof!”
Me: “Woof woof.”
Her: “Daddy, you’re not a puppy: you’re a bee!”
Anyway, since this new tangle is based on the letter “L,” I figured it would be fun to play around with the name “Lala.” So the ribbon at the bottom is a tangelation on Eke with a cursive “l” and “a.” I also tangleated “Ix” with the Anglo-Saxon runes “lagu” (l) and “Ac” (a). Speaking of which, at some point I really should post the rest of my Tangle-Saxon things. I’ve also got something — to be honest, I don’t know what it is — with “lala” in cursive with auras around it.
The centerpiece is, of course, the new tangle Ellish which I think its pretty groovy. I played around with a couple of variations on it. The description of the tangle calls it “Betweedy,” which I don’t really see, but I put in a little Betweedy something in it. It reminds me more of Auraknot, so I did one of those. Oh, and I tried to do a straight-line version of it below the main Ellish. It did not work the way I’d planned, but it’s something I may work on.
Hello one and all! I’m actually posting challenges from the last 2 weeks because my life has been so crazy lately. I suppose I’ll start with the more recent ones:
Diva Challenge 268
Diva Challenge 268
This challenge was called “A bit-o-black.” I decided pretty quickly that I wanted to do something with a lot of black pearls. so I focused on orb-y patterns. The string, randomly selected from Tanglepatterns.com, is number 142. It was fun, because I got to play with some of my favorite tangles — Boo*Kee, Oybay, Purk, and Onamata. I also worked in some Quibble, Akoya, and one non-orb pattern, D-Vine. The part that was less fun was filling in all the orbs. My ultra-fine-tip black sharpie was all like, “ha ha, nope,” so I ended up using a gel-ink pen, which I think ended up okay. For shading I went with a darker pencil than the HB I usually use — I think it was a 3B.
Made by Joey 113
Made By Joey Weekly Challenge 113
This one was a lot of fun. It’s based on a Roman Numeral XII; the number is a lot more obvious than it is in a lot of my others I’ve done for this challenge series. The tangles were Chemystery, Cruffle, Garlic Cloves (really they look more like watermelons or beach balls to me, but I like the pattern anyway), Ipso, and Verdigogh. All of these are fun except for Verdigogh which I’ve never gotten along with for some reason. I think it ended up working for me this time, though. The real fun was the coloring. For the atoms or whatever they’re supposed to be in Chemystery, I used my Sharpies. I wasn’t actually expecting them to be so translucent, but I kind of like how they look like multi-colored bubbles. For the “ladders” of Chem and the “stalk” of Verd I used some metalic Crayola markers, and I’m pleased with how they turned out. For the rest I used my favorite colored pencils: before I started Zentangle earlier this year, I was on a real coloring kick. Looking at this now, I realize that I never really shaded it, but I actually kind of like it this way.
Now let’s step in the wayback machine:
Diva Challenge 267
Diva Challenge 267
This one is a duotangle of Drupe and Pokeroot. I’ve never been a huge fan of Pokeroot, to be honest, but I like a good challenge. Once again, the coloring was the real fun here. Oh, and yeah, some of those are actually Pokeleaf instead of Pokeroot.
Joey Challenge 112
Made By Joey Weekly Challenge 112
This one is a Monotangle on Knightsbridge. It’s one of those basic patterns that I actually try not do too often so that I don’t get too much in a comfort zone with it. I took some inspiration from Margaret Bremmer’s expanded guide to the tangle — if you haven’t checked those out you really should. I made an attempt at Knightspeek, which I thought was really cool since it resembles a pattern I learned and loved in elementary school — and I kind of screwed it up made it uniquely my own through unplanned variations. I also attempted some mashups of my own — Knightsdox (Paradox with alternating Black and white — needs some work) and K’nzeppel, which should be self-explanatory. I also did a “Knightsbridge inside of Knighstbridge” I’m calling “Knightsception” (and yes, I know that’s not really what “Inception” means). And since this was all otherwise black and white, a little color up top.
In honor of Star Wars day, I present this very silly visual pun. Feel free to share if you get it (but please remember to properly attribute the source! I don’t want anyone else getting blamed for this pun.)
I got these done really quickly this week and got by the magic scanning machine, so I thought I’d go ahead and post them. Here’s my Diva piece:
Diva Challenge 266
This used a pretty little tangle called “Crux.” I like grid tangles, and I see a lot of options for playing around with it. I did one section with a normal grid and a Yincut style fill; I also did one warped grid with stars and another even more warped grid with Yincut-y things along the diagonal grid that goes beneath the flowers. On the edge I tried to see if I could get a decent ribbon out of it; it was okay I guess.
We were assigned 4 patterns, three of which were totally unfamiliar to me: Zippa (the diagonal ribbon with the up and down arches), Susa (the Greek key looking thing on the right. I don’t like how I did it: Mr. Sharpie Ultra Fine contributed a great deal to clean-up on that one), Shons (the flowers with the starbursts underneath — or is it a starburst pattern with petal-shaped gaps?), and Vache 1 (the patches top and bottom. Its name sounds like a robot from a Manga. I like it, and not just for that reason). The hoops are actually [gets out own horn, toots] my own deconstruction of a carpet pattern from the Holiday Inn in Waxahachie, Texas, where I stayed last month after going to Scarborough Renaissance Festival. In honor of Waxahachie (pronounced WOK-suh-HATCH-ee), I’m naming this one “Hachie.” I wouldn’t be surprised if this doesn’t count as a truly new tangle — I know there are other “circle in grid” patterns — but I had fun making it. Here’s a (very bad) picture of the inspirational carpet:
As well as weekly challenges of challenging weeks…
Today was just exhausting. While getting ready for church, my youngest, Princess Lala (2 1/2 years going on 17) went into full meltdown mode while we tried to get her dressed (she turned into sweet little porcelain angel as soon as she got to Sunday School, of course). Then in the middle of service, almost-6-year-old DK went into one of his epic meltdowns. I’m glad I’m part of a supportive, loving congregation where I don’t feel obligated to die of shame when I have to literally hold my son’s arms back while he screams at me. This tantrum lasted almost all the way through lunch, at which point he finally gave up. Vader, my very zen almost-4-year-old didn’t join his siblings in meltdownville although he was pretty whiny most of the evening. Oh, and this is on top of the grading that I’m barely keeping up with (semester is almost over…) and the fact that I might have gotten into an e-mail fight with a Shakespeare truther (I swear I’m not kidding: I’ll probably post something about it if anything comes of it). I’m glad I had some tangling to take the edge off of things a bit, personally.
Diva’s Challenge
Diva Challenge: Stripes
So the challenge this time was “stripes” which is nicely vague. I decided three things pretty quickly: 1) I’d do a Zendala 2) I wanted to use something resembling tiger stripes and 3) I wanted to avoid using traditional “ribbon-type” tangles. I think I got the effect I was going for with the stripes. The tangles, working roughly from left to right:
Zuan Shi Hadn’t used it before, but it’s a good, basic filler
Sez same with this
N’zeppel Everytime I use this I think, “am I overusing this tangle?” then I laugh because of course I’m not overusing it.
3-d Room Man, do you know how great it is to have another numerical tangle for when you’re doing an “letters/numbers” challenge?
Hollinbaugh Frame This ended up looking more Lovecraftian than I had intended
Farling I love this one but I don’t use it much because it always seems to take up so much space.
Cubine
Dragonair An trick question if you ever get drawn into a “Tangle or Pokemon?” quiz: it’s both.
Joey’s Challenge
Joey Challenge 110
[ETA: Ack! where did my text go? I swear I had a whole paragraph here. Anyway, the important part, the part that goes with the link that is still there, is that I call that tangelation of Diva Dance “Diva Rondo ala Turk”…]
Tangle with Dr. Tutt 