Pinch me!

This summer seems to have directed me towards 'fun' art projects rather than 'work' art projects. Granted, the 'work' projects are also fun, but I seem to expect more of myself when I'm thinking "This could end up framed and on someone's wall."

Last fall I had purchased a Pinch Me Ball kit from Jenny Perruzzi's Acadia Laser Creations on Etsy. I decided it was time to try to make this thing. This is the kit with instructions and supplies. The paper colors I got are one of my favorite combinations!

Here are the three strips with tangling and shading completed. I used some Glaze and Stardust and metallic inks and they don't show up very well, especially on the purple paper.

Generally I found it a fairly simple process to construct the ball, except for folding the last arcs on the last ring. That took a bit of fine-fingered finagling.

Here are six views of the finished piece. Pretty cool! I forgot to add a hanging string, but I think I can do that later if I want to. Hmmm... I might make more.

If you'd like to order one of these kits for yourself, go here.

Tangled icosahedrons

I've been away for a bit. I was invited to teach a day of zentangle and mandalas at the three-day Retreat to Paradise in Florida. I went a few days early and thoroughly enjoyed the beach, the warm weather, all meals prepared, and the sound of the surf pounding outside my balcony door! I arrived home Monday at 10 p.m. and Tuesday evening a little group gathered to finish our tangled icosahedrons.

An icosahedron is a 20-sided shape. Four of us got together to make some. We had a good start the first evening and decided we'd finish tangling them at home and come together again to fold them and glue them together. One person decided to cut out the shape first and work on the back of the template so as not to have the triangle division lines.

Two views of the final products! Unfortunately, the one at the back is a little fuzzy. We added heavy thread so the shaped could be hung.

You can see another tangled 3-D shape I made here.

Go ahead, try this at home:

You can find an 8.5"x14" template here. I had the photocopy shop increase it to 11"x17".
Ideally it should be printed on heavy paper or card stock. You want it to be sturdy but also to fold easily.
You'll need glue that will dry quickly and not buckle. Many liquid scrapbook glues with a fine tip nozzle are good this way ( have Elmer's and Scotch, both good). The last few tabs you glue will be tricky; be forewarned.

Have fun!

Others' spheres

A while ago I posted a couple of templates for doing zendalas that look like spheres. That post is here. The idea appealed to some of you and I said I'd show a selection on my blog. Prepare to be inspired!

This was created by Lesley Scott-Gillilan, a CZT in Indiana.

Homage to Jazzy, a neighbor's dog, by CZT Jane Menard in Ontario.

This one is done by Cathy, in the USA.
I think her choice of Dex makes the sphere look as if it's
coming out at us but with little squares going in. Cool.

Cindy Teigland used Knightsbridge and Anne Marks' tangle Camelia.

Here's an interesting variation from Lila Popcheff.
She's used the square grid but done the tangles in strips.

CZT Sue Clark used the tangle Flourish, but found it was
just too tricky in those stretched shapes at the edges.
The effect is still there.

Catherine Langsdorf created this one for a recent Diva challenge.
Love the different things she did at the edges!

Remember, if you try this send me a photo (or tell me where to find it on the Internet). If there are enough more I'll post another selection!

Mandala rescue

Last week I showed some zendala tiles done with a template that looks like a sphere. I didn't like the last one I showed, so I cut out the middle and promised to show you what I did with it.

On the left is the zendala tile with a white border. I thought the sphere was
too dark (and messy) at the edges so I cut out a smaller circle, shown on the right.

I've been working on this mandala for some time. It's 14" square. I'd made three rescue attempts already but I think this last one is working! I've added some collage and a fair amount of white ink.

I had started drawing a center (shown above), but found I preferred the cut-out from the zendala tile there and so did my daughter and husband! Coincidentally (really?) it was within a millimeter or two of the size of the middle of the mandala! But I also liked what I'd already drawn. This mandala is on illustration board, so with an X-Acto knife I carefully cut around the circle and peeled it off. Now I have another lovely little tangled circle to do something with.

Mandala with the original center peeled off.

I glued the new center on, and also changed some too-dark-reddish areas towards the corners. (Now they're too light! Oh well, I can deal with that.)

Mandala with its new center, still not finished.

It's not finished  yet. There's still a bit more collage, some fine-tuning and some touching up to do.

Sphere look zendalas

I was cleaning out some files the other day (I did throw things out, honest I did!) and discovered two templates for drawing 2D works that look like spheres, especially if the edges of the circle are darker/shaded. The templates fit on a zendala tile although they were a wee bit small. I thought it would be easiest to use square grid tangles and tried a few.

Tangles: Beadlines, Black Pearlz, and mainly Rosé variations

Tangles: Camelia variation

Tangles: Assunta variations and Black Pearlz

I had started one with a currently favorite tangle, Snorr, from Sandy Hunter, CZT (I have yet to figure out all the lovely variations she shows!) but it just didn't seem to have enough variety. I wondered if color would help and opted for the rainbow transition I used earlier. It was improved, but I really didn't like how dark (and messy) the outer edge was. So, I used a compass and drew a smaller circle on the back and cut it out. Here's the before and after:

I didn't know what I was going to do with that little circle until I remembered a piece I'd been working on, off and on. More on that next week.

Go ahead! Try this at home!  

Here is the link to a 2-page PDF with the two templates I used, resized slightly to fit better on a Zendala tile. It takes some brain gymnastics when the squares become less and less square towards the edges. The tangle won't fit well there; just don't tell anybody.  Very large thanks to both Erin and Roy for helping me figure out how to do that link thing! (I learned something. Yay!) 

Have fun! And if you do try this at home, send me a photo and I'll post a selection here.