Weekly Challenge #263: Globular Grid

It has been a long time since I have posted on this blog. In that time I have not had a lot of time to myself to tangle. With three boys, a change of direction career wise and a husband at sea, I have my work cut out for me. My boys are all growing up so fast.

When I walked through town today I popped into the art shop and treated myself to a new little sketchbook and have blown the dust off my Rotring pens and decided to see what the Diva Challenge was this week.

I started by drawing around my mug and marked out the grid. I decided that I was going to do a monotangle, something I didn't need to think too much about to get myself back into the swing of tangling. I had a quick flick through my old sketchbooks and chose "Hypnotic". I used the pens to draw the tangle. The grid made me think of a globe so I chose to use blues and greens and coloured in the string using my Inktense pencils (dry). Although I am pleased with the tile I think I should have kept the colour a little more subtle as I have lost some of the definition in the tangle.

Here is the tile before I added colour

And here is the finished tile.

Thank you for looking at my tile.

Weekly Challenge #193 : TriTangle : Trio, Huggins, & Xyp (THX)

It has been a while since I've done much tangling. James has been home on leave and six weeks ago we welcomed our new arrival, Jack. He was born on 27th September, weighing in at 7lbs 5oz.

He has completed our family, we now have three boys to keep us on our toes. This does mean I don't have a lot of time myself.

I managed to juggle feeding Jack with having a go at this weeks Diva Challenge. I loved the trio tangle which I had never tried before but will certainly be having another go at. I used my Rotring pens and decided to add a bit of colour. Trio reminded me of hearts so I decided to use blue as I have a houseful of boys. 

Weekly Challenge #174: Superimposing Strings

Today's challenge was to superimpose strings. I decided to use strings with straight lines and used number 8 and number 5 from the tangle patterns website. I also decided to challenge myself to use only tangles that I had never used before as I decided it was time I tried a few new oneself extend my repertoire so I used Knyt, leaflet, land girlz, lotus pods, oke, hypnotic, pippin and paushalov.

I also decided to use colour this week and the leafy patterns of leaflet and oke inspired me to use a limited colour scheme of greens and browns.

Weekly Challenge #173: Redux, Remix, Revisit Your Comfort Tangle

In this weeks challenge we were asked to rework an old favourite tangle. My all time favourite is mooka but as I'd used this tangle in last weeks challenge I decided to go for one I hadn't used for ages, Pystyl. When I first discovered this tangle I used it a lot but haven't revisited it for quite some time.

When I usually tangle I stick to my old faithful isograph pens as I like the fine, precise nature of them. I decided to use a coule of different pens today, a silver marker and a brush tipped felt pen along with my isograph pens. Because of the nature of the pens I did the Pystyl tangle in different sizes.

After posting my tile yesterday I got a comment from Bonnie about shaking it up using colour so I took up the challenge and got out my coloured pencils. Here you are, a coloured Pystyl. I really enjoyed doing this one, more so than the one I did yesterday. 

Weekly Challenge #172: Duotangle - Auraknot vs Mooka

I'm back! A lot has happened since my last post which was back in August, the main thing is that I am 24 weeks pregnant with our third child. We don't know what we are having so will find out when he or she arrives some time around the beginning of October. Juggling being pregnant with two lively boys aged 2 and 4, a husband on deployment since February and work hasn't left me with much me time.  I've decided it is time I got my pens back out and have a go at the tangle challenge again and make a bit of down time for myself.

Here is my attempt at this weeks challenge. Mooka is probably my favourite tangle and Auraknot is one I've never quite got to grips with so this was an interesting challenge for me. I used my isograph pens (having covered myself in ink to clean them out and get them working again!) and the sage and ivy graphitint pencils.

I've just added this one, a mono tangle using just mooka.

Weekly challenge #131: "Monotangle Dex-teria"

Here is my attempt at the monotangle. I usually don't like monotangles, I enjoy combining different tangles but I did find this one more enjoyable. I used the TanglePattern string 057. I ended up getting a bit frustrated with my pens as since I haven't used them for a while they had dried up a bit so needed a bit of TLC to get them running properly. One of them is going to need some serious cleaning out as I couldn't get it going again.

Weekly Challenge #122: "Grid (un)locked"

I've made time for another go at the Diva Weekly Challenge. It's been a hectic week at work so making time to do a bit of Zentangle has a really helped me relax this evening.

The challenge this week was based on grids. I really liked it as it meant I didn't have to over think it and could just concentrate on the repetition. I think I need to play around with the grids a bit more. I used 2J  and rotated it to form circles.

Weekly Challenge #121: UMT XVII Birds on a Wire

I haven't done a challenge on here for far too long so have blown the dust of my Rotring pens and had a go. I really enjoyed it and think I will go back and have a go at a few of the challenges I have missed. So here is my go at using Birds on a Wire:

My growing boys! 

The are growing up so fast and I love seeing the relationship between them grow as they are more able to play and communicate with each other. 

I've not used this blog for about a year. There has been a lot going on at home as my husband has been off work ill. Hopefully that is now all resolved and he will be able to get back to sea fairly soon and I will have a bit more time to be creative. 

Weekly Challenge #73: UMT v.V: Bridgen

I have had a fantastic weekend with my friends celebrating the Jubilee, tea parties, a street party and the town music festival it has just been party, party, party! The boys have loved it (and to top of a great weekend I heard that my lovely hubby is due home from sea in less than a fortnight, we haven't seen him for four months so I have had big smiles on my face for the last few days!)  I decided to combine the red, white and blue theme with the challenge to use Bridgen this week to keep the patriotic theme going for a bit longer. 

Here are a few pictures of me and the boys modelling the crowns I made for the street party. I decided to do fabric rather than card so that they would last and can be used for dressing up again and again. I used velcro to fasten them so the size is adjustable so as you can see, Ben and I are wearing the same one.

 

Here are a couple more tangles that I have done in the last week, kind of playing around again with last weeks challenge with the crescent moon.

 

Weekly Challenge #72: "Tanglation Nation - Crescent Moon" & Weekly Challenge #71: New Tangle - Pea-Nuckle

I didn't get chance to post last week so am posting both challenges on this thread instead.

The top tile is using crescent moon (this weeks challenge) and the second (last weeks challenge) uses pea-nuckle.

Weekly Challenge #70: "Colour me Sepia"

I haven't done the challenge for a couple of weeks so decided to have a go again this week. The challenge this week was to use brown in the tangle. I haven't really done a lot with colour other than using my graphitint pencils to add a slight colour tint to the shading. Here is my tangle for the week:

I delved back a few weeks to the aura challenge and used two shades of Staedtler brown fineliner to do auras around the tangles and used a brown graphitint pencil for the shading.

Weekly Challenge #67: "Amanda Day"

This tangle is the one that I did to fit in with the weekly challenge. The challenge was to do one for Earth Day. I decided to use a circle, round like the Earth and then used tangles that reminded me of plants and flowers. I used the swirling pattern at the back which is a pattern that has reccurred in my drawings and sketching for years, it tends to grow like bindweed during boring meetings! I shaded using grey green and steel blue graphitint pencils like the land and the oceans (returning to the earth theme).

These are two other tangles I have done in the past week (not challenge related but a few auras crept in from last weeks challenge) but I thought I'd post them anyway. I really liked the heart one and think I will use it to make a card to send to my lovely husband who is away at sea at the moment.

Weekly Challenge #66: Laura's Auras

Here is my Zentangle for the weekly challenge (http://iamthedivaczt.blogspot.co.uk/), using tangles with auras. I had good fun doing it (whilst juggling children so the fact it turned out in piece is a miricle!) I used my favourite rotring pens and the ocean blue graphitint pencil for shading. If I have time later in the week I might have another go at this challenge as I enjoyed the auras.

After I had uploaded my tangle (the bottom one) I had a look at the other posts that had been uploaded to the challenge and came across one posted by Erin Olston using a tangle called Pystyl (http://thebrightowl.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/little-time-for-me.html). I really liked it so decided to have a play with it and post it alongside my other one.

Photography

For as long as I can remember I have loved taking photos. My dream is to be in a position to give up my job and take up photography full time. Whether that will ever happen we will have to see but in the meantime I will use this blog to put my favourite shots as it is certainly not happening anytime soon!!

Here are some photos I've taken in the last week of Charlie, my two year and a half year old.

Weekly Challenge #65: "UMT v.III"

I am a bit late posting last weeks weekly challenge (http://iamthedivaczt.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/weekly-challenge-65.html) but I have been away from my laptop and haven't figured out how to upload photos from my iPad. The challenge was to use a tangle known as Huggy Bear. I did two Zentangles using it. The first is my first one I have done on black paper using a white pen. The nib was wider than I like to use but seems to have come out alright. The Huggy Bear wasn't as well defined as I would have liked so I had a go using my favourite Rotring pen and have put that one up here as well.

Easter Baking and my little Easter Bunny

I have been to my Mum's house for Easter and can't seem to upload photos to my blog from my ipad so had to wait until I got back to upload the photos of my Easter baking and my little Easter bunny. This is Benjamin Bunny! My little Ben sat quite happily for ages wearing the bunny ears and then crawled around wearing them for a while!

Here are my Easter biscuits and Simnel cake. The little chicks on the Simnel cake were made by my 2 year old (with a little help from me!).

Weekly Challenge #64: String Theory v. VIII "Fortuneteller"

Whilst searching the internet I came across a Zentange Weekly Challenge. This week the challenge set was for everyone to use the same string which split the tile into eighths and resembled the fortune tellers that I remember making as a child.

I used my Rotring pens and a "Juniper" Graphitint pencil for the shading giving a slight purple tint to the shading.

Rotring Pens and Graphitint Pencils

All the websites and books I have looked at on Zentangle seem to use the Sakura micron pens. I started out using these but found replacements difficult to come by locally so decided to look at other pens. I always loved my Rotring ink drawing pen but I found the nib too broad for the intricate nature of the patterns I was trying to create with Zentangle. After a bit of research I got myself a college started set of Rotring Isograph pens and they are fantastic. I have been using the .25 one for drawing most of my tangles and the .50 for the filling in. They give a lovely strong black and flow well over the paper. They were well worth the investment as far as I am concerned.

When I did A level art, coloured pencils was my favourite media so have always had a selection of different colours. I did try combining coloured pencil with my tangles but wasn't as happy with them as the monotone as I felt it detracted slightly from the nature of the pattern (see the coloured one that I have added to this post). I came across the Derwent Graphitint range of pencils and am enjoying playing with them. They are like working with a coloured pencil but the colour is just a slight hint, basically a tinted graphite. I have used the "ivy" one here on a monotangle (using just one tangle), the colour is quite subtle and I am pleased with the result.

Zentangle

I first came across Zentangle at a craft show I went to in October. There was a woman demonstrating and selling books and packs about it. I was immediately drawn to it as I am a doodler (you only need to look at my work note books to see that!) and Zentangle gave a name to what I did myself. I had never really considered it artwork as such, just repeated patterns intermingling.

There are plenty of explanations for what Zentangle actually is on the web such as on this link here.

I have dabbled on and off since October and find it really relaxing, it is something I can do in the evening once I have got my boys into bed and finished the housework. Here are some of my Zentangles.