ONE Focus: Elven

Another 'linking' tangle for this week's focus - Elven, by Elena Hadzijaneva. For some reason I found this slightly more difficult than Skye. There are several ways to construct it, and I think I kept switching between them, and losing track of the threads. I love how it looks though, so I'd like to try it again and get into a better rhythm. It was particularly difficult making each thread appear underneath the others, so I'll avoid that next time! 

Had another couple of goes with Elven, using the 'Wholly Hollibaugh' technique of 'cutting holes' in parts of the tangle to reveal the tangles underneath. 

Elven (with Wholly Hollibaugh technique), Shattuck, Ambler and Tipple. Tan tile, renaissance colour

Elven (with Wholly Hollibaugh technique) with Hibred, Shattuck and Therefore on a white tile. 

ONE Focus: Skye

For more about this tangle, visit Margaret Bremner's blog, with stepouts and the inspiration for this Celtic knot tangle.
I had fun with this one, as celtic knotwork was very much my 'thing' when I was younger. I practiced it a few times in my sketchbook before deciding that it would look good 'big' (rather than as a border), filled with Adalpha and Marasu to highlight the different threads. Footlights went on one side, and Florz on the other.

ValenTangle Day 13: Dewd

The prompt today is a tangelation of Dewd using a heart instead of the normal round end. I used flux-hearts and mooka corners, and added some background shading in red pencil.

ValenTangle Day 14: Tribute to Bijou!

Final day today! Marguerite invites us to include in today's tile a tribute to Rick and Maria's insightful snail friend Bijou! I chose to tangle a Zendala with 'hearty' Dewd circling Bijou, almost as though he's left a trail of Dewd! I missed a few days earlier in the challenge, so I'd like to go back to those at some point, as it will be nice to have a complete set. It's certainly been a fun two weeks!

ValenTangle Day 12: Corners

Happy Valentine's Day!
I'm a bit behind with the challenge, so this is actually for day 12. The prompt is to make up a corner design for a tile, with the option to leave the middle empty. I drew alternating hearts, and turned the outer ones into Flux. I coloured the hearts with pink coloured pencil, then used a technique I saw on Melinda Barlow's YouTube video to blend it using a paper stump moistened with white spirit, which 'melts' the oil-based pencil.

3Z practice

I've got lots of spare 3Z-sized tiles now, so I had a break from ValenTangle today and did a few of these. Firstly a really quick one with Flux and Mooka, then a ZenGem surrounded by Mooka, and finally Flux with Paradox in the middle, and surrounded by Printemps. I weighted all the tangles to give an extra sense of depth.

ValenTangle Day 7: Embedded letters

I made this tile as a birthday card for my sister, whose name begins with 'A'. I chose Icanthis as she's always liked William Morris designs, which was one of the inspirations for this tangle.

Tan tile, with gold gelly roll, green prismacolour pencils, red micron, graphite shading. 

ValenTangle Day 10: 3Z puzzle

Today's prompt was to create a puzzle from 3Z tiles, designed so they look great on their own or placed together. I haven't got any official 3Z tiles as they seem difficult to get hold of, so I haven't tangled on triangles before. I've been keen to have a go though, so this motivated me to make my own, from some old watercolour paper. I really liked Marguerite's 'Delft delights' example, so I treated myself to a blue micron for this one. These two took quite a while, but I like the result, particularly when placed together.

ValenTangle Day 9: Zendala

A fairly simple one today, with the prompt being a Zendala. I cut some red card into a circle then tangled Hearty around the edge using white gelly roll. The style was copied from Melinda Barlow's YouTube video tutorial. The outer hearts are connected with Heartvine in gold gelly roll. 

ValenTangle Day 8: New to me tangles

Today's theme is to use heart-shaped tangles we haven't tried before. I've gone with the string and one of the tangles for this week's "It's a string thing" challenge - Olluan by Tina Hunziker CZT, and Hearts-a-flutter. I used a pink Prismacolour pencil for some delicate colouring, and used a torillion to draw feint Printemps. I'm not all that happy with the Olluan inside the heart - I think they're too small which makes them difficult to shade effectively, but overall I quite like it. 

ValenTangle 2018: Day 6

Quite a quick one today, using the suggested fragment of a heart in a triangle, in Tripoli form, filling a heart string. White and gold gelly roll, red micron, white charcoal shading.  

ValenTangle 2018: Day 5

Today's challenge is to create a ZenButton, featuring hearts. A zen button is simply a string of three concentric circles, with each of the two outer bands split into squares and triangles, then filled with tangles. Shading is then used to give a rounded 3D effect.
This is my first button, and it took me a while to decide which tangles to use. In the end I went with Dekore in the centre, then a combination of hearts, Well, and YewDee in the bands. I stuck with renaissance colours - red, brown and sepia microns on a tan tile, with graphite and white charcoal to shade. Finally a touch of white gelly roll to give the hearts a highlight. As always with renaissance tiles I found that it didn't really come together until the final white shading, but I was pleased with the end result.

ValenTangle 2018: Day 4

I've seen quite a few posts on Facebook and the Mosaic app in the last few days with a heart theme, tagged ValenTangle2018. This challenge has been set up by Marguerite Samama, and features a different theme each day leading up to Feb 14th. Not sure how many days I'll be able to complete, but I had a go at today's, which is to use the 'Impossible Triangles' tangle, incorporating a heart.

I started with a Mooka heart shape, using a gold gelly roll. The impossible triangles fill the inside, shaded with red, brown and sepia microns, plus lots of graphite! Then I added a gold heart to each triangle, surrounded by red coloured pencil.

ONE Focus: Buckled up!

This week's ONE Focus is Buckled Up, by Tomas Padros. I practiced it in my notebook first, trying to work out what to combine it with. I started off thinking I'd 'attach' it to a pole, or finish the ends off with Mak-rah-mee, but decided that would require a bit too much planning (which I've resolved not to do!). So in the end, I just started off with the Buckled Up tangle in the middle, let the ends go off to the edges in a Hollibaugh fashion, then filled in all the gaps with Tipple.

C-You

Just had to try this new tangle, C-You, by Debbie Huntington! After following the stepout, and adding shading, it reminded me a bit of Crazy Huggins, so I used that to surround it (along with a touch of Mooka, and Tipple in pencil).