Today's Tangle - Oaura

"Oaura" is by Lin Chiu CZT and you'll find her step-out HERE at TanglePatterns. I probably should have used a finer white gel pen to draw the glints but I was trying out my new broad white Uni-ball Signo gel pen to see how it compares with the size 10 Gelly Roll. I thought I had heard that the Uni-ball white gel pens weren't quite as finicky as Gelly Rolls as far as getting them to start drawing. I'm not so sure if there's really much of a difference in that regard. At first the ink seemed to flow more fluidly than my Gelly Rolls. However, the more I use it the more I find myself having to tap it on a piece of scrap paper to get it going.

Today's Tangle - Warts

"Warts" is Karl Reutling's variation of the official Zentangle pattern called "Diva Dance". The result is very much like "Diva Dance" but the method for drawing "Warts" is more structured and less random than "Diva Dance". Karl posted his step-out HERE on Facebook. I like his method because I don't have to randomly decide when and where to add the bumps.

Today's Tangle - Paradox

"Paradox" is an official Zentangle pattern. For more information and a link to the step-out read THIS post. 

On today's tile, I went a little crazy with metallic colored pencils and a metallic silver gel pen. I also tried out a new pen on this tile. Until now, I have only used Micron pens for the black ink on my drawings. I recently bought a bunch of pens from JetPens.com including one 01 Uni Pin Pen by Uni-ball. The nib size is pretty much identical to an 01 Micron but it has a different feel when drawing. I wouldn't say that it's better or worse than Micron, only different. I'm hoping that the nib on the Uni Pin pen won't get pushed in as quickly as is typical of Micron 01 pens.

Today's Tangle - Echoism Lace

My tile was inspired by one that I saw on the Zentangle Mosaic app recently. The artist used the tangle "Echoism" to create bands of lace across her tile. I used the same technique but changed the design on my lace a little. I learned how to do this lace technique by watching THIS video by Tangle Dream. I have blogged twice before about lacy tiles HERE and HERE. I blogged about "Echoism" HERE.

Today's Tangle - Casper Too

"Casper Too" is by Cécile Graat and her pattern is posted HERE at Pattern-Collections. Mimi has a YouTube video about this pattern HERE.

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

Today's Tangle - Mariposa

Here is another take on "Mariposa" by Viveca Chenoweth. I think this has the look of Delft tiles. Viveca's pattern is posted HERE at TanglePatterns.

Classic Zentangle® - Ambler, Cadent, Knase, Static, Striping & Tipple

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

I drew this tile for a prompt in the Today's Tangles: Keeping it Classic Facebook group. The prompt was to draw the Zentangle Project Pack 7 Day 8 tile on a white tile with only black ink and graphite.

These are the tangles that I used:

Ambler - I blogged about "Ambler" HERE.

Cadent - I blogged about "Cadent" HERE.

Knase - I blogged about "Knase" HERE.

Static - I blogged about "Static" HERE.

Striping - I blogged about "Striping" HERE.

Tipple - I blogged about "Tipple" HERE.

CLASSIC ZENTANGLE TILE MOSAICS

I have been saving copies of all of my Keeping it Classic tiles in a series of mosaics on my computer. Today's tile completed one more so I thought it would be fun to show you all five mosaics of the tiles that I have drawn since last year. The first mosaic is from 2018 and all of the rest of the tiles were drawn in 2019. You can see them full size by clicking on them.

Today's Tangle - Heartfully (2)

"Heartfully (2)" is a variation of a pattern by Helen Williams called "Heartfully". Both versions of "Heartfully" are posted HERE on her blog.

Today's Tangle - Cuernos

"Cuernos" is by Charo and I think it looks like a string of party hats. You'll find the pattern HERE at Pattern-Collections.

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

Official Zentangle® Pattern - Squill

There is no officially published step-out for "Squill" but I found THIS one on Flickr. There is a comment there by Linda Farmer and she says that it's not quite right. The examples that I've seen online are very similar though and Melinda Barlow's video shows pretty much the same thing. You can watch her video HERE. Melinda has another video featuring "Squill" HERE.

Today's Tangle - Mi

"Mi" is by Mina Hsiao CZT and her pattern is posted HERE at TanglePatterns. I didn't quite follow the step-out when I drew this because I couldn't wrap my head around overlapping the hearts like Mina does. Instead I drew mine so that the meet in the center of each square. I drew the auras inside the hearts with a metallic silver gel pen.

12 Days of Zentangle - Day 12

Click HERE to watch the Project Pack #7 video for Day 12. This series was a lot of fun and I look forward to the next Zentangle project pack series.

Today's Tangle - Ibiscu

"Ibiscu" is by Ria Matheussen CZT and her pattern is posted HERE at TanglePatterns. I haven't had a chance yet to scan my Day 12 Zentangle Project Pack 7 tile but I will try to post it tomorrow.

12 Days of Zentangle - Day 11

Click HERE to watch the Project Pack #7 video for Day 11. These are four Bijou-size tiles featuring "Paradox".

Today's Tangle - Espe

I've been very busy these past few days so I'm behind on my 12 Days of Zentangle projects and I already had this tile ready to post. "Espe" is by Ria Matheussen CZT and her step-out is posted HERE at TanglePatterns.

12 Days of Zentangle - Day 9

Click HERE to watch the Project Pack #7 video for Day 9. This one looks a little wacky but it was fun to draw and color.

12 Days of Zentangle - Day 8

Click HERE to watch the Project Pack #7 video for Day 8.

12 Days of Zentangle - Day 7

 
The Day 7 project gave me a lot of trouble. I must have tried to draw it at least four times, increasing the size of my reticula pods each time. No matter how large I drew the pods, I just couldn't draw the smaller pods inside them like Molly shows in the video. My Micron 01 pen was too thick to draw such tiny details and that was for the largest ones. I never got far enough to attempt to draw any of the the smaller inner pods.

So, I decided to do my own thing and still keep the spirit of Molly's example tile. I liked the idea of using pods and "Well" fragments so I needed to come up with something that would give me triangular spaces between my pods. What I ended up drawing is a sort of cross between "Tripoli" and "Rumpus" which I filled with gold orbs. By setting up my tile with a Tripoli-like grid, I ended up with lots of triangles to fill with "Well" fragments. Everything about my tile was a pleasure to draw with no frustration whatsoever.

Click HERE to watch the Project Pack #7 video for Day 7.

12 Days of Zentangle - Day 6

Click HERE to watch the Project Pack #7 video for Day 6. The Day 6 project features the tangles "Hollis" and "Moon Pie". Since I am using materials that I have on hand, I cut this tile myself from gray card stock. I also colored it with colored pencils, a white Gelly Roll and a metallic gold Gelly Roll. There's also a touch of blue ink on the edges of the "Moon Pie". That's a Staedtler blue fine liner pen.

Today's Tangle - Mariposa

"Mariposa" is by Viveca Chenoweth and you'll find the step-out HERE at TanglePatterns. This pattern comes with a bonus feature. If you start with a square pencil grid, which can be erased later, steps 1-3 show a very clever and easy way of drawing an ogee grid. Ogee grids give me fits so I will keep this technique in mind.

12 DAYS OF ZENTANGLE - PROJECT PACK #7 - DAY 5

Click HERE to watch the video for Day 5.

Today's Tangle - Jive & Jazz

"Jive & Jazz" is two tangles in one. The convex version is "Jive" and the rounded version is "Jazz". The pattern is by Cyndi Knapp and it's found HERE at TanglePatterns.

12 DAYS OF ZENTANGLE - PROJECT PACK #7 - DAY 4

Click HERE to watch the video for Day 4. I drew two versions of each tile and below you can see the mosaic of the second set of tiles. I used colored pencils for both the blue and white this time because white colored pencil can more easily be blended with the blue than white charcoal pencil.

The tangles used in the Day 4 project are Crazy 'Nzeppel, Flux, Huggins and Tripoli.

Today's Tangle - Oodles

"Oodles" is by Mary Van Deman and her step-out is posted HERE at TanglePatterns.

12 DAYS OF ZENTANGLE - PROJECT PACK #7 - DAY 3

Click HERE to watch the video for Day 3.

Classic Zentangle® - 'Nzeppel & Striping

I drew this tile for a prompt in the Today's Tangles: Keeping it Classic Facebook group. I have only used "Striping" once or twice before because I have a hard time figuring out how to use it effectively. I have to say that I'm very pleased with the fun look of the "Striping" on today's tile.

These are the tangles that I used:

'Nzeppel - I blogged about "'Nzeppel" HERE.

Striping - I blogged about "Striping" HERE.

12 DAYS OF ZENTANGLE - PROJECT PACK #7 - DAY 2

Click HERE to watch the video for Day 2. I used card stock in a lighter shade of gray for the Day 2 tile. For some reason it looks like it's cream color but it really is gray in real life. This time I used black ink to draw the tangle instead of blue-black because my blue-black Micron has an 05 nib which is a little too thick for drawing fine lines.

The tangle used for this project is called "All Stars" and is by Tomás Padrós. You'll find his step-out HERE on Instagram.

Today's Tangle - Roscoe

Read my previous post about Vicki Bassett's "Roscoe" HERE for more information about this pattern.

12 DAYS OF ZENTANGLE - PROJECT PACK #7

Zentangle's annual 12 Days of Zentangle series started on Friday. Click HERE to watch the video for Day 1. Above you can see my Day 1 mosaic which I drew using materials that I had on hand. I have several shades of gray card stock and this one seemed pretty close to the light gray of the Zentangle tiles. I think it is a warmer gray but that doesn't bother me. The tiles are the "Bijou" size which is smaller than standard tiles. 

I have everything else that they used in the video except for a light blue charcoal pencil. Instead I used a colored pencil in a similar shade of blue. What you probably can't see is the clear glitter pen that I used on all of the darker blue spots of the "Diva Dance".

Today's Tangle - Balo

I first blogged about Damy's "Balo" HERE. For today's tile, I kept pretty much the same color scheme but I drew the tangle as a border. I drew this on a pencil grid, which helped a lot, but it was still tricky figuring out how to overlap the ribbons.

Today's Tangle - Ovy

I blogged once before about "Ovy" HERE. The pattern is by Adam Roades and his step-out is posted HERE at TanglePatterns. Bunte Galerie has a YouTube video HERE.

Today's Tangle - Supreme Lotus

"Supreme Lotus" is by Lisa Jane and her step-out is HERE at Pattern-Collections. I don't have a lot of experience drawing mandala patterns but I think they're quite pretty and fun to draw once the initial grid has been created. However, I find it very tedious to draw round grids so I don't draw mandalas as often as I would like. I even have a special tool for drawing circles and angles but I find it cumbersome to use, especially on small tiles. 

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

For this tile, I traced a large circle that I had cut out of card stock then divided it evenly into wedges with a ruler. I just eyeballed the inner circles rather than use any tools to draw them. Once I got going on today's tile, I went a little crazy adding embellishments just for the fun of it.

Official Zentangle® Pattern - Ibex

I previously blogged about this official Zentangle pattern called "Ibex" HERE. Although there is no published step-out for this tangle, I did run across the official step-out on Pinterest. After taking a closer look at the step-out recently, I don't think that I drew it correctly on the tile in my other post. What I drew on that tile is more like the official tangle called "Scoodle" which also doesn't have a published step-out. As far as I have determined, "Scoodle" is simply an "S" shape with spirals on each end. "Ibex" starts out the same way but contiguous spirals are added to the initial one. After an area is filled with this tangle, you go back and fill in some of the spaces in between with black for contrast as you see on my tile above. If you look closely, you will see that all of the spirals on today's tile are connected to each other at some point. The official step-out also shows accent dots added here and there like you see on my tile.

Official Zentangle® Pattern - Mooka Easy

I mentioned this version of Zentangle's "Mooka" in THIS post a while back. There is still no published step-out for "Mooka Easy" (aka Simplified Mooka) but there is a video on the Zentangle Mosaic app where Maria shows how to draw it. For those who don't use Mosaic, TanglePatterns has a link to the video on THIS page and you can watch it HERE on YouTube.

Today's Tangle - Happy Pops

Although this isn't an official Zentangle pattern, it was inspired by a post on the Zentangle blog. For more information, read my previous post about "Happy Pops" HERE.

Official Zentangle® Pattern - Man-O-Man

I haven't blogged about this tangle called "Man-O-Man" before because I'm not very keen on it. I decided that it was time to give it a try and here is the result. I'm still not wild about it but it was fun to color. It was quite a struggle to keep the squares all the same size and shape and keep them lined up properly but perhaps that's the point. The pattern forces you to draw everything freehand without the aid of a grid or guides. Sometimes I have to remind myself that it's all about the pleasure of drawing and not so much about the end result.

You'll find the step-out for "Man-O-Man" HERE on Sandy Steen Bartholomew's blog. Tiffany Lovering has a video HERE.