Zendala Dare #100 & Other Miscellany

Apparently this past week and certainly the weekend has been all about ZIAs! I think I now am understanding the strict rules and purpose of the Square One: Purely Zentangle Facebook group 🙂

Zentangle Tile 2015-086, the 100th Zendala Dare template. This one kind of went rogue as I riffed and there ended up just a bit of b’tweed, paradox and fescue

I had to do this week’s Zendala Dare of course. Who could miss the 100th one?!? I ended up doing a lot of riffing on this one, just letting the pen do what it wanted. As a result there aren’t actually many tangle patterns in it. Though the oblong b’tweed outlined only with graphite kind of makes me think of pine cones. I’ll have to remember that when winter rolls back around!

I can’t wait to go look at what everyone else has done with this great template!

Zentangle Tile 2015-085, a toned tan tile featuring free form Weave in two colors, stickers, printemps, black pearls and mysst.

I used Strathmore’s Toned Tan for this one. It isn’t quite as warm of a tan as the Zentangle tiles so I’m not as fond of the sepia on it (the colors of this photo are a little off since it was photographed under a lamp instead of natural light). I do like the finish though. It isn’t quite as absorbent so coloring is easier, but there is plenty of tooth to shade and highlight with graphite and white charcoal. I am still a bit meh about this one. I don’t feel like my Weave was free form enough and as a result it looks sloppily executed instead. Cate things I’m on crack. What say you?

I also ended up putting in Mysst which I just haven’t been happy with using myself yet. I’ve seen examples of other people’s work using it and liked it, but I have yet to like my own stuff using it. I do however love Stickers! What fun!

Zentangle 2015-088 zendala in progress on a coffee dyed unbleached coffee filter.

Yesterday was dedicated to finishing my Sunday Smackdown #3. This is a sneak peek of it in progress. I completed all the drawing last evening, but I’m still on the fence whether to add any highlighting and shading. Cate says to post it everywhere and frame it and hang it in our living room once we’re moved. We’ll see. It would suit our furniture in a way… I’ll likely post another shot of what it looks like now on Instagram (fiberfool)  at some point today if you’d like to ring in on whether I should take it further or leave it as is.

Zentangle 2015-087, my first ribbon with flying cadent on Toned Gray Strathmore paper finally done. I think.

I think I’m done with the first toned gray zentangle inspired art piece. There is a good bit of open space in the lower left yet that has me slightly unsettled. I did end up adding Sunup Sundown on the ribbon and did fairly extensive shading. I need practice on ribbon work though. But Sunup Sundown could very easily become a mac & cheese pattern for me. Loved it!

I’ll be back soon sharing my finished Coffee Filter Zendala and the how-to for my response to Sunday Smackdown #3.

Zendala Dare #98

I’m feeling like I jumped into this Zentangle thing at a great point. Erin at The Bright Owl is back at her Zendala Dares after a hiatus and it makes me so giddy. Zendalas just resonate for me and her templates can really push me.

This week was Zendala Dare #98 and I wanted soooo bad to just b’tweed and/or paradox the heck out of it. But, I made myself resist the urge. Partly because she used paradox and I was noticing both patterns popping up here and there if I happened to glance at people’s finished tiles in one of the Facebook groups or in the blogs I’ve followed.

Using Erin’s Zendala Dare template number 98 with inapod, kuke, auraknot, nekton and beadlines to make my 65th tile of the year.

I had a bit of a rough time, but eventually I think it all kind of came together.  I do wish the center of my auraknot had turned out more symmetrical. I used inapod, auraknot, , nekton, and beadlines. I also kept my shading a titch more restrained. I had visions of doing two or three tiles yesterday to try to catch up on the 365 project I set for myself (I’ve still only not tangled the one day so far, but I haven’t always completed a tile). That didn’t happen. Instead there was napping.

Tangling On & Spreading My Wings

“One Zentangle A Day” day 22 tile featuring Kathy’s Dilemma and Flux tangleation with some regular Flux, Fescue and N’Zeppel.

The patterns for today’s exercises were a little more to my liking. I had already worked on putting Flux on a curve so this was really good practice.

My very first Zendala Dare (#96)! Here I used a variant on Yoga and Paradox.

I had carried around the template for last week’s Zendala Dare, #96, at The Bright Owl since Erin posted it. It really resonated with me, but I never got the opportunity to work on it until last night.

I think I’m in love with Zendalas! I’m not surprised. I’ve long been interested in mandalas, even created some digitally with my photographs in the long, long ago before I was even a very good photographer. I’m also thinking that in addition to Zendalas appealing to my preference for order and symmetry in design they are kind of uber-Zentangle practice. You get multiple layers of repetition – the strokes making up the patterns but also the repetition of the patterns around the mandala form.

I scribbled pencil on the back of my print out of the template and then traced the template to transfer pencil markings to the tile. In the process I learned it really doesn’t take that much pressure to transfer 3B lead. If you look closely at the tile you can see a set of lines I chose to ignore — they are indented! I pressed a bit too hard, LOL!