Weekly Challenge #373: "Non Dominant Tangling!"

I hear many people don't like this weeks Diva Challenge. We were asked to use our non dominant hand. For me that is my right hand. I am one who enthusiastically like to use my non-dominant hand when tangling as it forces me to really focus and concentrate on every line I draw. I need to think 'backwards' if you like, and really go slow to make my hand draw in the right direction. I know the results are not as good as when I use my dominant hand but I'm ok with that as it's the process not the outcome that matters; in true Zentangle process.

I decided to use the tangle inapod. Drawing inapod requires many changes in directions as you draw and this really was a challenge for me. There is not much shading as I was over concentrating by the time I finished drawing.

Now I'm off to look at waht others have done for this challenge.

As always, if you would like to see how others have completed this challenge, then check out The Diva's blog and click on the links to see their creations.

Looking for other Zentangle activities based on your interests? Click on this link to my Dare, Challenge &/or Focus page, read the simple descriptions and click on the links that interest you.

Thank you to all who leave a comment. I love receiving them and read every one. Thank you for stopping by. 

Weekly Challenge #372 "DEWD"

Again, The Diva has asked us to use a tangle from the Inktober tangle list. It's a great way to combine challenges into one tile, especially if you like to complete some of the many challenges out there, or like me, if you're short on time.

'Dewd', a tangle from Zentangle HQ is the tangle we have been asked to use.

Tangles: Dewd

As always, if you would like to see how others have completed this challenge, then check out The Diva's blog and click on the links to see their creations.

Looking for other Zentangle activities based on your interests? Click on this link to my Dare, Challenge &/or Focus page, read the simple descriptions and click on the links that interest you.

Thank you to all who leave a comment. I love receiving them and read every one. Thank you for stopping by. 

Weekly Challenge #371 "Onion Drops"

Onion drops is a new tangle for me and is also one of the tangles in this month's Inktober challenge. Being new to me I decided to try it on a zendala before working it into my Inktober tiles.

Onion drops is an easy tangle to draw and it is very easy to get into the zen flow as you tangle. As in the true Zentangle method I went with the flow and ended up with my 'onion drops' looking different from the original but i am happy with the results.

 

As always, if you would like to see how others have completed this challenge, then check out The Diva's blog and click on the links to see their creations.

Looking for other Zentangle activities based on your interests? Click on this link to my Dare, Challenge &/or Focus page, read the simple descriptions and click on the links that interest you.

Thank you to all who leave a comment. I love receiving them and read every one. Thank you for stopping by. 

Weekly Challenge #369: Orb-tastic

A quick post this week for the Diva's weekly challenge. It has been a very busy week and so my tile is also a simple and quick one. The challenge this week was to use orbs.

As always, if you would like to see how others have completed this challenge, then check out The Diva's blog and click on the links to see their creations.

Looking for other Zentangle activities based on your interests? Click on this link to my Dare, Challenge &/or Focus page, read the simple descriptions and click on the links that interest you.

Thank you to all who leave a comment. I love receiving them and read every one. Thank you for stopping by.

Weekly Challenge #367: "Tangle 'NZEPPEL"

It's been a while since 'The Diva" decided to take some long earned time off. Now she is back with her weekly challenges.

One of my favourite 'go to' tangles, is the challenge for this weeks Diva Challenge. Laura has challenged us to use the tangle 'Nzeppel.

For this challenge I was going to use a square white tile but when I reached into my box of blank tiles a prestrung Zendala came out. Rather than putting it back into the box I decided to use it instead.

I wanted to do something a little different to the usual 'Nzeppel so used Laura's suggestion of  "crazy 'Nzeppel" which I rarely use. Looking at the prestrung zendala I wondered where I would draw my crazy 'Nzeppel. As I pondered this a crazy idea popped into my head & so I started tangling to see what would happen.

Tangle: 'Nzeppel

Instead of drawing the grid that 'Nzeppel usually starts with, I decided to use the lines already on the Zendala as my grid. I love how this turned out and it looks totally different to the usual "Crazy 'Nzeppel". The border is also 'Nzeppel as a tanglation.

I thoroughly enjoyed participating in the "Diva's" weekly challenge. I was really pleased to see her return.

As always, if you would like to see how others have completed this challenge, then check out The Diva's blog and click on the links to see their creations.

Looking for other Zentangle activities based on your interests? Click on this link to my Dare, Challenge &/or Focus page, read the simple descriptions and click on the links that interest you.

Thank you to all who leave a comment. I love receiving them and read every one. Thank you for stopping by.

New Tangle Pattern - Fentz

2013 was the year in which I discovered the wonderful world of Zentangle. I even managed to travel to the USA to complete the Certified Zentangle Teacher (CZT) training with the founders of Zentangle, Rick & Maria. The CZT training was an amazing experience and it opened up my eyes to all the beauty and patterns all around us in this world.

Tangles, tangles everywhere! Places I often find inspiration for tangles is on fences as I travel around for work.

This new tangle, Fenz was inspired by a fence in my local area.

Here is the step out for Fentz.

As there are many tangles out in the Zentangle world, and it is impossible to find them all, please let me know if this tangle has already been published elsewhere.

I hope you enjoy using this tangle in you Zentangle practice.

Zen-tastic!

The latest newsletter from Zentangle HQ drew our attention to a great article written by CZT, Nancy Monson titled Zen-tastic! This article was published in the latest copy of the Best Years, a magazine published by USA Today.

Here is the link to this wonderful article about Zentangle - Zen-tastic! you will find the article on pages 32-33 along with some lovely Zentangle tiles by Nancy.

Well done Nancy.

New Tangle Pattern - Tooz

I just love how tangles can be found in all kinds of places. The lid of a mason jar took my attention recently with a pretty pattern on it.This would make a beautiful tangle!

Image of mason jar lid

I spent hours playing with the possibilities for this tangle which is based on the numeral 2 and uses a spiral and an arc (curved line). 

Here is one page of all the experimenting I did with this tangle. 

 Can you see a fidget spinner on the page?

As I played along the line below the spiral began to curve more and the base also started to curve more. With all the extra curvyness I started to wondered what tucking the bottom of the 2 into the bottom of the previous 2 would look like and loved the way it gave an extra dimension to the tangle. This is what I decided I liked best.

I call this tangle tooz as it repeats the numeral two many times.

Of course there are lots of possibilities with this tangle. You could draw this tangle without all the flourishing curvy lines, like on the mason jar lid, or draw it as I like it with all the curving lines. Tooz can be used as a central focus tangle, as a border or as a fragment in a square reticula. Tooz can also be rotated and mirrored to provide other interesting looks. Oh, the possibilities!

As there are many tangles out in the Zentangle world, and it is impossible to find them all, please let me know if this tangle has already been published elsewhere.

I hope you enjoy using this tangle in you Zentangle practice.

Weekly Challenge #364: "Monotangle of PUF by Carole Ohl, CZT"

This week "The Diva" challenged us to create a monotangle using the tangle Puf by CZT Carole Ohl.

Puf is a very simple grid based tangle with unexpected results as you go through drawing the steps to create Puf.

This week as I was tangling, I must have had the television series Star Trek Voyager on my mind as my tile ended up looking like a Borg cube from the series. Yes everyone, I'm a Trekkie. I have been from the 1960's.

If you would like to see what others have done for this challenge, then check out The Diva's blog and click on the links to see their creations.

Looking for other Zentangle activities based on your interests? Click on this link to my Dare, Challenge &/or Focus page, read the simple descriptions and click on the links that interest you.

Thank you to all who leave a comment. I love receiving them and read every one. Thank you for stopping by.

Weekly Challenge #363: "Laura's Auras"

Aura! Aura! Aura! This is the challenge for the week by Laura Harm, CZT.

For this challenge I challenged myself to just draw a string and then aura it so I could practise this wonderful technique.

This is what I came up with. You may notice some of the aura's are a little wonky, but hat's OK.

So Zen to just use one technique. No thinking. Just DO!

If you would like to see how others have completed this challenge, then check out The Diva's blog and click on the links to see their creations.

Looking for other Zentangle activities based on your interests? Click on this link to my Dare, Challenge &/or Focus page, read the simple descriptions and click on the links that interest you.

Thank you to all who leave a comment. I love receiving them and read every one. Thank you for stopping by.

Weekly Challenge #357: "Monotangle - Paradox time!"

I love Paradox! It is one of my favourite tangles and is the challenge in this weeks Diva Challenge. We were to create a monotangle only using Paradox. Here is my tile for the challenge.

I really enjoyed making this tile. You will notice it is on a black tile. I am loving the white on black look at the moment and all my tangling is on black tiles. This tile has Paradox inside of Paradox on top of Paradox.

If you would like to see how others have completed this challenge, then check out The Diva's blog and click on the links to see their creations.

Looking for other Zentangle activities based on your interests? Click on this link to my Dare, Challenge &/or Focus page, read the simple descriptions and click on the links that interest you.

Thank you to all who leave a comment. I love receiving them and read every one. Thank you for stopping by.

New Tangle Pattern - Grassroots

Where does time go? It's been ages since I posted a new tangle pattern. So, I have one here for you today. It's called Grassroots.

Grassroots is a very simple tangle using the basic elements of the .  and (. This tangle also uses a dot grid as its base.

This very simple tangle can be used as is. Also, as I was playing with it I kept thinking of it as the foundation to many, many tangleations. So in naming this tangle pattern I looked for a word that meant foundation and came up with Grassroots. Dictionary.com defines grassroots as 'the origin or basis of something; the basic or primary concept, rule, part, or the like.' I also looked up vocabulary.com and this is the wording they used: 'Something grassroots is at the most basic level of something, down there in the dirt with the roots of an idea or activity. If you’re looking to make a change from the ground up, start at the grassroots.' A perfect description for this tangle pattern.

I hope you enjoy Grassroots as much as I have when playing with and exploring the possibilities this tangle provides.

If you would like to share your explorations of Grassroots for other visitors to this page then please feel free to add a link to your creation in the comment section below.

Weekly Challenge #346: "DuoTangle Phicops vs. Huggins"

Wow! Christmas seems such a long time ago, and it's been ages since my last post.

I was pleased to see The Diva's challenges back after the Christmas break. Although I don't get to participate as much as I would like to I do like looking at people's submissions.

This week, The Diva challenged us to a duotangle (using only two tangles) using Phicops and Huggins.

Here is my tile for this challenge.

Tangles: Phicops & Huggins

If you would like to see how others have completed this challenge, then check out The Diva's blog and click on the links to see their creations.

Looking for other Zentangle activities based on your interests? Click on this link to my Dare, Challenge &/or Focus page, read the simple descriptions and click on the links that interest you.

Thank you to all who leave a comment. I love receiving them and read every one. Thank you for stopping by.