Keepin’ On Keepin’ On

Tangles on Tuesday in the Tangle a Day Calendar. Feb 4 was Koaxil which I did with a 20 minute time limit, trying to get myself to let go and just do a bit more. Feb 5th was Ah, Love You! with support from Sedgling, Zinger, Pokeleaf, Tipple, Fescue, and Festune. Feb 6th features Ionic with an assist from Popcloud.

  I’m doing half way decent on tangling daily again with the help of Jane Eileen’s Tangles on Tuesday challenge. I seem to skip about one day a week, usually when DH is home. But I just do two in the next day or two. Not having to think too much about what patterns to use seems to be working for me and bringing back the zen element.

Tangles on Tuesday in my Tangle A Day Calendar. Feb 7th is Zenvelopes, 8th, is Salo, and 9th is Bublz which always highlights how not-round my circles are! Doh!

  I have noticed though that since I’m jumping straight into the calendar pages I am a bit more frequently that I would like to admit doing a variant because “there are no mistakes.” I keep missing small little key details in the step-outs or perhaps in some cases overthinking things and messing up when I reorient my paper (something that happened in the last three days, but I haven’t photographed yet).

Tangles on Tuesday in my Tangle A Day Calendar. An close look at Feb 11th’s Heart Box and a bit of the 10th’s Flameta which I embellished further at some point after this pic.

  I’m debating if I should start practicing in a notebook first. But, that would mean I’d need to carve out more time. While I would be nice to have step-outs drawn by myself to put into Doodle Organizer I’m almost certain I wouldn’t be able to keep up. Plus, I’ve been having issues with Doodle Organizer messing up the photo/pattern pairing in the back-ups and restoring between my devices so if I were to continue down that path I’d probably need to start all over.

Some Valentine’s goodies for myself – the T’Gaal pencil sharpener that makes 5 different shaped tips on your pencils, my very first Washi tape and the 20 pack of Staedtler Triplus Fineliners.

 I splurged on myself for Valentines day and ordered some goodies (well, DH ordered the pencil sharpener). While tangential to tangling, these are actually for a new obsession that I’ve stumbled upon recently that dovetails nicely with the zentangle practice. I’ll share more about that in another post in the near future.

Illuminated Letter S

My first (because there will definitely be more) illuminated letter featuring prestwood, black peals, dex in a ribbon, vitruvius, 1/2 cruffle, poke leaf, zander, n’zeppel and feathers.

It’s been a long time coming, but with a slight push from CZT, Sue Clark, I finally finished my illuminated letter from the workshop she hosted at the end of April. I have to say with everything in chaos in my life/house the pressure of doing a ZIA kind of got me on this one. I’m not quite 100% certain this is done, done. But it is done until the move is over and I’m settled in Alexandria for sure. I’m kind of feeling like I need something more in the background in the upper left. Something open and light like the n’zeppel perhaps? We’ll see how I feel once I unpack it.

I just love the contrast between pre- and post-shading!

I was a bit unsure how to shade vitruvius, but I’m pretty happy with my decisions to outline the squares with graphite and then darken the center and the very outside.

A better look at the sheen of the Fine Tec gold watercolors used on the S.

We got to use Sue’s Fine Tec metallic watercolors at the workshop. Because part of the draw to Zentangle for me was doing letter work like this those watercolors are going at the top of my post-move wish list! They were so easy to work with and the result is much closer to actually gold leaf than any other gold pen or paint I’ve worked with. I was even able to layer a bit to create some shadow and highlight!

I used some Japanese pearlescent watercolors on the poke leaf. I like that it gives some sheen to kind of blend with the S, but it lets the gold take center stage.

And because I love the feathers, a closer look at those too!

Sue just posted everyone’s letters here. I highly encourage you to go check them out. There is such a variety in styles and they are all inspiring and gorgeous!

OZAD Days 25 & 26, More Organics

Tile 2015-051 Unshaded, “One Zentangle A Day” Days 25 & 26, featuring perfs, Growth and Poke Leave. With some Tat and Festune on a Yincut background.

 

I combined day 25 and 26 into one tile last evening since the exercise for 25 was to use perfs with the patterns of your choosing and 26 was Poke Leaf and Growth. I used Random.org to choose a string from TanglePatterns.com for me. The result was a nice organic, loopy string, 016.

I decided to give Tat another go. Apparently I can’t let it go. Nor can I get it. I’m starting to think loopy, light line patterns are not for me. I’m not a fan of Growth, my Tat is awful and really disliked my Echoism as well. Growth also taught me that I’m not really an ambi-looper (bonus points to anyone who recognizes that reference). Making the left side of Growth was much more difficult for me than the right.

Tile 2015-051, “One Zentangle A Day” Days 25 & 26, featuring perfs, Growth and Poke Leave. With some Tat and Festune on a Yincut background.

Usually when I shade a tile I’m at least one step happier with it. I think this might be the first time I’m waffling (along with being the first time I captured the before and after). Without the shading I think Growth stands out from the background (Yincut) better. Though it does read as ordered scribbling without any dimension. Perhaps if I’d taken a lighter hand on Growth I’d be happier with the result? The rounding on Poke Leaf was a really good move though!