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 #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.

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.