On tan zendala tiles

I admit there are qualities I dislike in the tan paper of the zentangle tiles, but I sure do like the results! The paper doesn't much like getting wet, and yet washes are something I do a lot these days.

LOTUS OF PASSING TIME

(c) 2014 Margaret Bremner
 Here I used brown and white inks and some metal leaf.
Shading is in brown pencil.

Tangles: Aura, Opus, Printemps, Tipple, stripes

IDYLL

(c) 2014 Margaret Bremner
A gray wash on the tan paper gives an overcast look to the sky.

Tangles: Aquafleur, Seljuk, Tipple

(as yet untitled)

(c) 2014 Margaret Bremner

I had trouble with the sky area, reworking it a few times,
and still thing the orange is a bit too strong.

Tangles: Aquafleur, Bunzo, Pearlz, Wildwood, and Zander-esque

Redux, revisit, remix

Lovely Laura the Darling Diva has been a special guest at the 15th CZT seminar so this week we are treated to a guest challenge from Sharla Hicks, CZT. She's asking us to "redux, revisit, remix" and use one of our comfort tangles. Well, my quick read of the challenge sounded like "choose a tangle or two that you like, maybe some you haven't used for a while, and do something weird with it". So, this may not be exactly what Sharla was looking for, but I had fun!

On the corner of my desk I spotted a tan tile that has been there for quite a while. It had a random wash in yellow and blue, and always  looked darned unattractive, but with possible possibilities. I decided to use blue and green ink. Crescent Moon is one of my 'comfort tangles'. Moving Day and Prestwood are my own tangles that I haven't used in a while. And Mooka... I can finally do it!!! The result is quite unusual, and I love it!

Tangles: Crescent Moon, Knase, Mooka,
Moving Day, Prestwood, Tipple, Tripoli

But I also really wanted to try Sharla's idea of using Gelly Roll pens with water for colored 'shading'.  Why hadn't I thought of that? I took another stalled piece, this one on a round tile. Most of the black ink drawing was there and I added color with Sakura's regular and metallic Gelly Roll pens. Wow! I like how that works! Especially the metallic ink which gives a lovely bit of sparkle.

Tangles: hmm, I think it's just Crescent Moon, and some other stuff.

WINDFARM - a new tangle!

Tangles: Crescent Moon, Tipple, Windfarm,
and Windfarm with Rounding

Or is it a variation? Oh well, I've given it a name. This is another of the Hollibaugh variations I was to share at Tangle U 2014. The first is a tangle I now call Morse. One of the people I showed this to said that it looked like modern windmills so Windfarm it is.

The Rolling Hills Wind Project in southwest Iowa.

This tangle begins with a long-armed 'Y' which then has an Aura on either side. Add another Y and aura it too. Some of the arms of the 'Y's will need to go under previous arms. Here's the how-to:

You may want to add a single 'arm' to fill a corner. Remember to shade it! Just as you would with Hollibaugh, all the parts that seem to be going 'under' get shading.

Tangles: Black Pearlz, N'zeppl, Windfarm plus stripes and leaves.
(That 'flower' on the left appeared when I turned
the tile around, so I added leaves!)

BTW: It's getting harder and harder to keep track of tangles and names. If this pattern has been presented elsewhere, or if the name has been used already, please let me know!

MORSE - a new tangle!

Or is it simply a variation? Oh well, I think it deserves a name!

Tangles: Hollibaugh, Morse, Munchin, Rain, Tipple

At Tangle U 2014 I was to teach a short class called Hollibaugh on Steroids: five weird and wonderful variations of Hollibaugh. I didn't get to Tangle U, but I did the class with three other CZTs some weeks ago, and again with a few tangle addict students. One of them said that this variation looked like "dots and dashes" so I've named it after Samuel Morse of Morse Code fame.

Here's the how-to:

Don't put circles over an intersection because you want to put black around them, and you have another white band back there. Remember to round the ends of the long dashes. As with any tangle, you can vary the scale, and with Morse you'll need to vary the number of circles.

Tangles: Morse, Tipple

BTW: It's getting harder and harder to keep track of tangles and names. If this pattern has been presented elsewhere, or if the name has been used earlier, please let me know!

Auraknot / Mooka duotangle

That's this week's challenge from the Diva, who will soon be flying off to Providence RI USA for the next CZT seminar. :)

I took to Auraknot when it was first presented (and here), but Mooka has always been a bit of a nemesis. I like seeing it in others' work, but almost never like it when I did it. The ends always look blobby.

I admit it. I tore up the first tile I started. Mooka looked blobby again, and it wasn't working with Auraknot. I glanced at my desk and spotted some tan tiles and thought, "The tan tiles usually end up looking pretty terrific. Maybe I can scare a good Mooka out of a tan tile." Here's my second tile, on tan (Renaissance) paper, and I love it! I think I'm on to something to remedy the blobbiness!  More on that later.

I decided to try another on a black tile. I don't use those very often but I guess I was spurred on by success.

So, my little epiphany about how to avoid blobbiness? I realized that I hadn't been curling the top of the frond enough before adding the blob. When it curls more it actually looks rather elegant. It needs to curl way around, almost back to the original long line. There is a space between the blob and the stem and it's almost the same shape as the blob itself. See the difference:

TA-DA!!! Maybe now I can do a decent Mooka!

Tangled koala and zebra

One more Australian shape, tangled.

Tangles: Crescent Moon, Ennies, Florz, Shattuck

And here's a zebra head I did based on a template from Ben Kwok, on his Facebook page Ornation Creation.

Tangles: Knightsbridge, Paisley Boa,
Seljuk, Tipple, Unyun, Zonked

Two trees on tan

Here are two more trees, these ones on Renaissance - or tan - tiles.

COPPER BEECH
(c) 2014 Margaret Bremner
This began with a leaky pen to start the border (thus the odd flat top of the tree!).
There's a brown wash in the sky and a black/gray wash in the tree, as well as
copper leaf in the sky under the tree, metallic copper pen in the leaves, and white ink.

Tangles: Knightsbridge, Leaflet, Tipple, Wud, Zewm

CLEARING IN THE AFTERNOON
(c) 2014 Margaret Bremner

Tangles: Bunzo, Pearlz, a simple rope twist, and... the trunk, sort of Zander-esque.

Two trees

I've been doing a number of tile-sized trees lately. Here are two.

EXUBERANCE

(c) 2014 Margaret Bremner
This piece began with a leaky pen to start the border.
It also has silver dots at the centers of Printemps, using a metallic silver Sakura pen.

Tangles: Paisley Boa, Perfs, Printemps, Tipple, Zedbra, Zewm

A WINDY DAY

(c) 2014 Margaret Bremner
This piece has a blue wash in the sky, a black/gray wash in the tree,
and some silver leaf in three of the leaves.

Tangles: Diva Dance, Hurly Burly, Leaflet, Pearlz, Showgirl

Bugles

It's a Use My Tangle (UMT) week in the Diva's challenge, and the tangle is Bugles. I hadn't seen this one before, but I have tried Hugs'n'Kisses, the tangle that inspired Bugles. This tangle reminded me of Fife so I included that, too.

Tangles: Black Pearlz, Bugles, Crescent Moon, Fife, Munchin

And now for something completely different.

If you look hard, you'll find a little 'Nzeppel and a little Tipple in here!