Diva Challenge #357: Paradox monotangle

When I saw the subject for Laura Harms' weekly challenge (#357) I just had to give it a go - Paradox has to be one of my favourites! I decided to keep it simple - blue micron on a pre-strung Zendala tile, shaded with blue prismacolour pencil, and some rounding. I left a few areas unfilled, but thought it looked unfinished so filled them in with black for a striking look. Too striking unfortunately! So I coloured over the black with silver gelly roll, but that didn't work either. Finally managed to colour over that with midnight blue gelly roll, which I was happy with! Finished off with white perfs in the blue filled areas, and gold perfs around the edge. I find it amazing that a series of slightly curved lines can end up as such a complex pattern - probably why I love Paradox so much! 

More randomness

Here are another couple of goes with using dice to select four official tangles, and using random strings from the Tangle Patterns website.

In this set I think I got quite a good selection - a mixture of 'big' tangles, ribbon tangles and background fills. I've never been fond of Ambler, but I used it here to follow the string line. I started with three curved sections, then drew Rumpus 'underneath' those. Then I alternated the second (top) two Ambler sections with a bit more of Rumpus so it appears to weave in and out. Weighting the Ambler pattern made it a bit more interesting. Then I added Indyrella, and finally Florz as a background. Shading gave the patterns more depth.

The next set of four random tangles were a bit more tricky. I was happy with Noom as a ribbon, and Drawings as a big shape underneath, but Waybop made it a bit too fussy in my opinion (and I don't think the aura-ing worked very well) and again, Vitruvius (nested squares and circles) was too fussy as a background. Not a disaster, but not my favourite tile, and a good exercise in persisting and sticking to the 'rules of the game'!

Random tile

As I now have 125 of the official tangles on Bijou-sized tile stored in A4 plastic sheets, I thought it would be good to try a tile with randomly chosen tangles for once. So I used a dice app to pick four tangles from the six sheets, using a six-sized die to choose the page, then a 20-sided die to choose the tangle on that page. Here's what it chose: Ellish, IX, Jonqual and Printemps. The first three I've never used in a tile before, so it was a good experiment!

Official tangle project

I often find that my mind goes blank when I start a new tile, and I fall back on old favourites like Flux and Mooka. So I thought I'd start a project to create Bijou-sized tiles (2"x2"), each with a simple example of a tangle to use as a quick reference. To start with I wanted to do all the 'official' Zentangle tangles, as there are quite a few I haven't tried yet. Then I'll move on to unofficial ones I've tried and particularly liked.

It's only taken about a week, and I've done 125 official tangles! There are online stepouts for 107 (listed on Linda Farmer's Tangle Patterns website) and the remainder are in my 'One Zentangle a Day' book. There are 167 official tangles currently, but there are quite a few that don't have online instructions. Anyway, here are the first 107 I completed. I'll post a better picture when I've organised them properly. It looks like they'll fit nicely into the plastic wallets used for coin collections and photographic transparencies!

UPDATE: I've added a page to the blog with better photos.

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.