In my Book: a Celtic page and W2

I have a lot of Scots heritage and have always loved Celtic interlacing, so there's now a Celtic page in my Book. I also love my tangle Skye which I did around the edge. :)

Tangles: Crossview, Cruze, Elven, Emingle, Skye, Tipple, Tortuca

I enjoyed teaching a class based on W2 at OgunquiTangle a couple of years ago. You can read about it in my earlier post W2 and then some. I did a page based on W2 but less intricate than the class's Opus tile.

Two letters for a wedding

Our youngest daughter got married recently in North Carolina. It was held at the Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden outside Charlotte and everything was lovely! They will live in New York City for a few years; she has her degree to finish and career to start.

Veronica and Shahruz

The newlyweds with parents and siblings and siblings-in-law.

When her oldest sister got married several years ago I created artwork with the couple's initials. You can see that pair of letters here. I decided I wanted to do something similar, this time 'V' and 'S'.

I began two square pieces. I had matching frames that would fit, so that worked nicely.

As I worked on them it felt increasingly not right. Finally, I decided to abandon those and begin again. I saved parts to make bookmarks!

This time I used the eco-dyed paper which has been inspiring me lately. It was a good decision. The work went quickly - I had two weeks left! - and I was quite pleased with them as they progressed.

Each one has a tiny 24-carat gold heart, a bit of the special gilding I had left from the zenAgain event last November. They are float-mounted on mat board with a window-cut mat around that, and a simple, reddish-brown wood frame.

Here's to a long and happy life together!

Pi Day tiles

March 14 is World Pi Day, pi being 3.14 andonandonandon...
So in honor of this occasion, I present six varieties of pie, on 3Z tiles.
Bon appétit!

Clockwise from the top:

Pumpkin pie with a dollop of whipped cream - Ingredients: rounded Ing, Dansk, Tidings, and Perfs with a copper dusting of cinnamon. Served on a white tile.

Pecan pie - Ingredients: Tripoli and Fugu. Served on a tan tile.

Raspberry pie - Ingredients: Tri-dots, Prestwood, W2 and Tipple. Served on a tan tile.

Blueberry pie - Ingredients: Printemps, Shattuck, Tipple with some spirals and other additives. Served on a white tile.
Such a lovely color; I couldn't bear to put a top crust on. Originally I was going to use Pokeroot, but it's a tangle a don't do very well, and besides, who wants little stems in their pie?

Lemon Meringue pie - Ingredients: Knightsbridge, Prestwood variation, Meringue (what else?!) and Tipple. Served on a white tile.

Tourtière (Québecois meat pie. Delicious!) - Ingredients: Knightsbridge, Puffle, Y-Not and Tipple.
Served on a tan tile.

So, when is World Pizza Day?

Bookmarks galore! (Part four)

Finally, the last batch of the 334 bookmarks I made as gifts for the zenAgain event in November 2016. This was a lot of fun, although I was mostly making bookmarks for two or three months!

A-a-a-nd th-th-that's all folks!

Bookmarks galore! (Part three)

Previously I showed the first third of the 334 bookmarks I made as gifts to the zenAgain attendees and zentangle staff. Here is the next batch.

 The final third is coming soon!

Bookmarks galore! (Part two)

Here is the first third of the 334 bookmarks I made as gifts for the zenAgain event. Even this may be overload! I took photos as they were completed, in groups of 32 because that's what fit on the surface I used for the photography.

The rest are coming later!
The first post about these bookmarks, where I show some of the varieties, can be found here.

Bookmarks galore! (Part one)

Some years ago Rick and Maria put on a Zentangle event called a 'Master Class'. I wasn't able to go. But I decided that if they ever planned something similar I really had to try to attend. ZenAgain happened this November!

Shortly after the event was announced a crazy scheme occurred to me. I wanted to take something, something personal, a little gift, to each of the attendees and the Zentangle staff.

Bookmarks! I often make bookmarks out of bits of nice leftover paper or artwork that I've decided isn't going anywhere happy. Each one would be a unique piece, an original artwork. I had perhaps a dozen already, and wondered how many I'd need in total. I asked. My jaw dropped. I picked it up and said to myself, "I have time. I can do that!"

Oh, yes. Probably around 300. I got to work.

Among the final collection is a number of monotangle bookmarks including Crusade, Ginili, Knightsbridge, Lamar, Umble, Skye, Schway, and Zenith.

This was a perfect opportunity to slice up some almost finished - or even finished - artwork that was sitting in a drawer wondering how to make itself useful. I had quite a few pieces like that. One was a mandala on 16" mat board. I peeled off most of the backing to make them thin enough. Here it is, reassembled after becoming bookmarks. In most cases I added details to what was already there; everything outside the large ring of small triangles was added after being cut into bookmark strips. There were a few blank beige ones left that I haven't included here.

There are some that are rather unusual. One has funky chess pieces. Several have house parts: windows, roofs, and doors. Several have holographic strips. One has a rainbow ribbon. Some have washi tape. One is iris flowers and one has zentangle tiles in the background. Two have some handwriting. A few are parts of a landscape. Others (not shown) have decorative holes or unevenly trimmed edges.

I took photos in groups as they got laminated and finished. The final tally is 334 bookmarks. In future posts I'll show you all of them.

Niiice! GNEISS, and then some

Tangles: Gneiss, Paizel, Pearlz, plus stripes, a spiral and highlights

GNEISS - and then some

Gneiss is a tangle from Zentangle that looks like a star with aplomb. One of the things I like about it is that the original guideline disappears in the final tangle.

I'm thrilled and privileged to be attending zenAgain, a special event for CZTs (Certified Zentangle Teachers) in Newport, Rhode Island. A similar event happened some years ago and I missed it, so I promised myself that if anything like it happened again I would really try to go. One of the things I shared is some of these variations on Gneiss.

There aren't step-outs online for this tangle so you may need to seek out a nearby CZT to show you how it's done.

Tangles: Beadlines, Gneiss, Pearlz, a spiral and Auras.

MORE POINTS

Gneiss is often done with eight points. That's easy to do by simply drawing a 'sliced pie'. But you're not limited, of course. Try more points. You can do twelve by drawing two lines in each quarter instead of one.

MORE POINTS, DIFFERENTLY
You can also have more points by adding small ones in between the points of your classic Gneiss. This gives you 16 points. You can see this in the tile at the top, too.

A GNEISS COMET
Your lines needn't intersect at (more or less) the center of the star. Try an off-center center.
Put a dot somewhere in your circle and draw all your lines through there. You may want to put little ticks on the circle indicating the 1/8 divisions. Curve most of the lines, and don't forget to curve the lines of the 'V' too, as well as the second set of lines to the center.

GNEISS-LY IRREGULAR
I generally think of a 'V' as having sides of the same length, but try slanting it. This will give you uneven star sections. You can decide if you want more white or more black showing.

A GNEISS PINWHEEL
Instead of straight lines from the perimeter to the center, draw arcs. Two arcs make a sort of 'S'. You'll need to really curve the 'V' you cut out of the ends. Also curve the second set of lines to the center.

Here are two tiles showing possibilities with this pinwheel variation. In both cases I've wrapped the end of the point back into the star, such as you'd do if drawing Phicops (scroll down the post) or Aquafleur.

A GNEISS LOTUS
Instead of doing the 'V's with straight lines try doing 'bracket' lines, such as you'd do if drawing Copada.

GNEISS FILLS
Instead of the classic alternating black and white, try different fills. Here's one with white circles instead of solid black.

You can use a tangle with a lot of lines as a fill, but in that case I suggest using either black or white as a background, depending on which is not in the star. See the two tiles under 'A Gneiss Pinwheel' for example. Here are some Bijou tiles with Gneiss variations:

HAVE A GNEISS DAY!

"Starry Night" (c)2015
Tangles: Demi, Flukes, Flux, Gneiss, Pearlz

CanT challenge, and a new chop?

CanT challenge

A new tangle was developed and presented at CanTangle this past July. It's Chris Titus' baby and the Diva's challenge this week.

I like my first effort better than my second, although the second has more variations which is what I initially wanted to try.

Tangles: Black Pearlz, CanT, Crescent Moon, Cubine, Dex

I managed five variations in my second tile.

Tangles: Black Pearlz, CanT, Gneiss

My new chop?

I have wanted, for quite some time, to develop a signature/initials/chop that was less recognizable as letters and more of an visual/art element. That way it could go anywhere in the artwork and not seem as if the signature should be at the bottom. That way I could change my mind about which way is up, or it could go different ways.

This little graphic happened by accident when I needed to sign the first tile above and tried to put the M on the left of a line and the B on the right. So I used it on the second tile too.

I quite like the 'leaf' look, but I wonder if it will be even more difficult to find on many of my tiles! I could put a circle around it, but there wouldn't always be space. Here are a few variations.

What do you think? Should I go with one of these? Or whichever variation seems appropriate at the time? Should it be larger? Or should I stick with my current MB?

We Love 2 Tangle!

This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending, and the honor of teaching at, We Love 2 Tangle in Calgary AB (Canada).

Organized by Sandra Chatelain CZT, the day-long workshop attracted 50 avid tanglers from Calgary, Canmore, Grand Prairie, Edmonton, Red Deer, Revelstoke, and Saskatoon. There were seven CZTs present and four of us taught something. Here's yours truly with Laura Harms and Cindy Hagen.

Laura shared her Zentangle story, parts of which I knew and parts of which I didn't. She also taught us the tangle Phicops, developed by her husband Brad.  I've done Phicops before but really 'got it' this time watching it take shape before my eyes. I'm really pleased with the tile I did.

That cool little curly thing in the corner was developed from a pattern I noticed on the wall sconces in the room. :)

Nina Klaiman showed some variations of Crescent Moon, and Cindy Hagen did the same with Betweed. Here are my tiles, Crescent Moon incomplete.

I taught two sessions. The first was variations of Paradox and Hollibaugh, including the now named tangles Morse and Windfarm. I offered my two demo tiles for the door prize table but forgot to take photos first!

That's me at the document camera preparing to teach,
and Sandra Chatelain at the mike.

The second session was half an hour about using board game piece leftovers to make strings, so it was pretty much "here's how to do it, here are 60+ boards, go to town and have fun!" See more about this idea here. I started two tiles by demo'ing pencilling some shapes, and finished them with tangles later. Here they are complete.

Tangles: Bunzo, Camelia, Finery, Jalousie,
Knightsbridge, Tipple (Caviar)

Tangles: Aquafleur, Beadlines, Black Pearlz,
Demi variation, Fleurette, Knightsbridge, Sanibelle

The event was a rip-roaring success in my opinion, and I think Sandra is looking to do it again next year!