Today's Tangle - Maeby

"Maeby" is by Julie Beland and I found it HERE on her Pinterest board. It was a bit of a challenge drawing on this parchment card stock because of its rough texture. Because of that, my lines are a bit wiggly.

Today's Tangle - Xadent

"Xadent" is by Damy Teng CZT and her step-out is posted HERE at TanglePatterns and also HERE on her blog. She also shows how to draw it HERE in a YouTube video. I found this pattern to be very relaxing to draw because it is simple and repetitive. I drew mine on a square grid with the "X's", which look like plus signs, placed in the corners of the squares on the grid. I drew my grid in pencil so that I could erase it later.

Today's Tangle - Peek-a-boo-daisy

This whimsical pattern called "Peek-a-boo-daisy" is by Tricia Long and her pattern is found HERE at Pattern-Collections.com. I found three videos about this pattern HERE, HERE and HERE.

UPDATE: The Pattern-Collections website has shut down. Click HERE to view this pattern.

Classic Zentangle® - Crescent Moon & Opus

I drew this tile for a prompt in the Today's Tangles: Keeping it Classic Facebook group. Although I drew the string as directed by the prompt, I didn't follow it all that much.

These are the tangles that I used:

Crescent Moon - I blogged about "Crescent Moon" HERE.

Opus - Read about "Opus" HERE.

Today's Tangle - Masx

"Masx" is by Tomàs Padrós. I ran across this pattern on his Facebook page but it is also posted HERE on The Tireless Tangler blog. 

UPDATE 08-09-2022: Tomàs posted the step-out HERE on Instagram.

When I first tried drawing this pattern the other night, I drew it as suggested by his step-out. However, I had a problem where the "eyes" came out slanted which skewed the shape of the design. I ended up using a line grid instead which solved my problem and also made it easier to draw. Below you can see the steps that I used to successfully draw "Masx" using a pencil line grid that I can erase later.

Today's Tangle - Seespan

"Seespan" is by Suzanne Fluhr CZT and the pattern is posted HERE on her blog.

Today's Tangle - Sliders

"Sliders" is by Lila Holter and her pattern is posted HERE at Pattern-Collections.com. I blogged about this pattern once before HERE but I wanted to try it again. Dawn Collins has a video HERE and Mimi has one HERE.

UPDATE: The Pattern-Collections website has shut down. Click HERE to view this pattern.

I drew the tile below first but I wasn't happy with the pink background so I drew the tile above and had some fun with the embellishments.

Today's Tangle - Kaurikunda

"Kaurikunda" is by Tina Hunziker CZT and the step-out is posted HERE at TanglePatterns.com. If you'd like a larger version there is one HERE on Tina's blog. The pattern on her blog that I used here is called "Kaurikunda 4".

This is a variation of Tina's pattern because I had too much trouble drawing the egg shapes. They were frustrating for me to draw and the results looked very messy. Instead I drew them as seed or rice shapes that go diagonally from corner to corner of each square on the grid. Everything else was drawn the same as the step-out. I like how mine turned out even though they don't look as much like cowrie shells as Tina's. I might try drawing them more rounded on the ends next time.

Today's Tangle - Leaf Pod on a Line

This whimsical pattern called "Leaf Pod on a Line" is by Linda Rea. You'll find her pattern HERE on flickr.

Today's Tangle - Dreamdex

"Dreamdex" is by Debbie New CZT and her step-out is found HERE on flickr.

Today's Tangle - Spearator

"Spearator" is by Suzanne Fluhr CZT and you'll find her pattern HERE on her blog.

ANOTHER COMPUTER GRAPHICS PROJECT

I had meant to show you this yesterday but it got missed. This is a page from one of the calendars that I made a couple of years ago. I used a vintage tile image that I had found online. Each month of the calendar featured a different tile design and a different colorway.

Below are a few more pages from another year's calendar featuring the same kind of tiles. They all say "August" on them because these were samples that I was trying out.

Today's Tangle - Flair

"Flair" is by Deb Myers CZT and the step-out is posted HERE on her blog. Melinda Barlow CZT has a YouTube video HERE.

DIGITAL GRAPHICS OR WHAT I USED TO DO IN MY PREVIOUS LIFE

While drawing the lacy tiles that I blogged about on Sunday, they reminded me of some of the digital graphics that I used to make. Before beading and tangling, I used to make a lot of greeting cards and calendars and enjoyed using digital special effects on the pictures that I used in my projects. I even made digital lace that looked a lot like the kind that I have been drawing and blogging about lately. I thought you might like to see some examples of the digital projects that I used to make.

First, here are two of the lace tiles that I blogged about HERE on Sunday:

Now, keep in mind that none of the images below are "real". They were all created or enhanced using special effects on my computer with Paint Shop Pro using vintage graphics that I have in my digital image collection.

Here is an example of some "Battenburg lace" that I made using only digital graphics tools:

Doesn't it remind you of my tangled lace? The image below is some "lace" that I created using fancy Victorian clipart and digital special effects.

The picture above was created using a faux Wedgwood technique. I have a tutorial for this effect HERE on my other blog. This is the clipart image that I started with:

Here is another example of my faux Wedgwood:

Below is another picture where I used the same lace technique and the same clipart image:

This is another digital image using the same technique:

Below are two pictures from one of my calendars where I used a cut-out lace effect. I also used an embossing technique to make the frames around both of the photos.

I also used to make a lot of digital collages like the one below. You might recognize this image from the header on my Facebook page.

Another thing that I loved to do was repairing and enhancing scans of vintage postcards and other old-time graphics. Below are some before and after examples.

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

Below is the same picture placed a lacy background. I used it on a greeting card. I came up with a method for removing the backgrounds behind photos of real lace that I found online by using a mask. It would otherwise be impossible, or extremely tedious, to manually cut out every single hole in the intricate lace without using a mask. I actually only had to remove the background of a single section or motif of this particular lace because I can tile the image as needed to make borders with it.

I used a digital embossing technique to create a border around the pretty Victorian image below. Below that is a greeting card that I printed using that picture.

Below is an example of another digital technique that I came up with for making digital objects appear to be translucent so that you can see the background through them. I have a tutorial posted HERE on my other blog that explains how to do this using a special translucency mask that I created. For this example, I started with a photo of an antique brooch that I found online. First I had to manually cut out the background from behind the brooch in Paint Shop Pro. After that, I selected only the gem and applied my translucency technique on it.

Below is the result after applying my technique then placing the brooch image on top of another vintage image.

If you look closely, you can see the text on the background through the gem in the center of the brooch. Once I have applied my technique to the brooch image, I can move it anywhere that I like on the background because they are on separate layers. I also applied a drop shadow under the brooch to make it look more real. Below is a close-up of the gem so that you can see the translucency better:

Simply reducing the opacity of the gem in the brooch image wouldn't work very well because it would just fade out the image. My special mask makes every other pixel become translucent and leaves the remaining pixels opaque. If you go to the tutorial link above, you can see the mask. It looks like a microscopic checkerboard of white and gray pixels.

Classic Zentangle® - Diva Dance & Mooka

I drew this tile for a prompt in the Today's Tangles: Keeping it Classic Facebook group. Our prompt was to tangle along one side or edge of our tile and to only use two tangles. Also, one of the tangles was to act as our string.

These are the tangles that I used:

Diva Dance - I blogged about "Diva Dance" HERE. I'm not sure if I would call this version "Waltz" or "Fox Trot". It's probably "Waltz" because I drew it free form without any particular arrangement in mind.

Mooka - Read about "Mooka" HERE. There are a lot of videos about "Mooka" HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE. And, you can watch Maria Thomas draw her original version of "Mooka" in THIS video.

Today's Tangle - Shard

"Shard" is by Carole Ohl and the pattern is posted HERE on her blog. Bunte Galerie has a YouTube video HERE.

Today's Tangles - More Lacy Designs

I had a lot of fun drawing the "Mintea" lace tiles that I blogged about the other day HERE so I was eager to try the lace technique with other designs. I looked through my stash of tangle patterns and came up with a few ideas to try. None of them turned out as well as "Mintea" but they are pretty. One thing that I discovered is that if the patterns are very intricate, dark shading doesn't look all that great as you'll see in some of my examples below.

The tile above features "Gardenia" which is one of my favorites to draw. By adding an aura all the way around it, I was able to turn it into eyelet lace. "Gardenia" is by HElena and you'll find the pattern HERE on her blog.

UPDATE: Her blog is closed to the public now but I found the step-out HERE on Pinterest.

I realized after drawing this tile, that the pattern is a little too busy to look much like lace. It is pretty though and I always enjoy drawing "Miss 1969". The pattern is by Ellen Wolters and it is posted HERE at Pattern-Collections.com.

UPDATE: The Pattern-Collections website has shut down. Click HERE to view this pattern.

Next I tried "Creevagh" as lace but I wasn't happy with the dark shading on the example above. It just looks messy so I erased it and re-did it as you can see below. I used the lightest pencil that I have and just faintly outlined the parts that are shaded so that I wouldn't have to use a tortillon to blend it. I found that blending made it look too smudgy.

"Creevagh" is by Neil Burley and his pattern is found HERE on his blog.

I had the same issue with the shading on example of "Flossie" above. Once again, I erased the shading and did it again much more lightly as you can see below. "Flossie" is by Suzanne Mitchel and the pattern is HERE at Pattern-Collections.com.

UPDATE: The Pattern-Collections website has shut down. Click HERE to view this pattern.

I used "Lotus Surprise" for my final lace tile and I love how it turned out. "Lotus Surprise" is by Theresa Beebe and the pattern is posted HERE at Pattern-Collections.com.

UPDATE: The Pattern-Collections website has shut down. Click HERE to view this pattern.