Catching Up

Several Challenge photos to post today - have been creating tiles for the challenges - never got around to getting them posted here.

This week's challenge Grid (un)Locked comes from the recent Zentangle Newsletter which presents a different way to think about grids.  The challenge was to use some of the "grid seeds" presented in the newsletter or create your own.  Visit the Diva's blog to read more about the challenge and view the art being created this week.

Challenge 122  Grid (un)Locked

I did two tiles for this challenge.  In this first tile I  used "seeds" from several different sources.  You might say I created one - only because I set out to use Maelstrom but started it out on the wrong plane so ended up doing something quite different.  I like it so may have to use it again!

click images for larger view

 Panzi, Dex, Lace, Betweed, and Oopsy Maelstrom

This second tile was a pattern/structure I saw some time ago.  The first time I saw it I passed and moved on which I generally do when patterns are drawn using graph paper - not a fan.  I really did like the look and the possibilities it presented so when I came across it again and saw alternate directions that did not require the "help" of the graph paper I decided to give it a try.  It's not the easiest one to create - I have a large stack of tiles of my unsuccessful attempts to prove that.  I like the 3-D aspect  so decided to give it another try for this challenge.  The alignment is still a bit off but this is the best one I've created so maybe there's hope after all.  It was fun deciding how to fill it in.

 

 Z-Box

Challenge 121 - Birds On A Wire

This was UMT - Use My Tangle - Birds on a Wire from Mary Kissel.  I had tried this tangle a couple of times but never had a good feel for it. Recently I saw the suggestion on Tanglepatterns.com about turning it upside down and drawing a "fancy" 6. That didn't work well for me either but that post was a good reminder to look for different ways to step it out to get it to work.  I find that if I draw the strokes  moving horizontally rather than vertically I have a much easier time and more consistent spacing.  The real challenge for me ended up not being Birds on a Wire but Sindoo - another pattern I just did not get!  A fellow tangler shared a ZIA she is working on and she had a lovely Sindoo section.  Just had to give it another go!

Birds on a Wire, Sindoo

Challenge 120 Bales

I like Bales not sure why I don't use it more often.  Two of my favorite patterns Yew-Dee and Puf are built on Bales.  Even though you lose sight of Bales with those two patterns I decided to include them since without Bales they would not exist.

Bales, Puf, Sindoo

Challenge 119 Ebony "n" Ivory

The challenge was to create a work that had a balance of Black and White.  One way to go was a mix of  Black on White and White on Black.  Since I've yet to find a white pen that is worth the frustration the present I opted to choose tangles that provided their own balance of Black and White.

Beeline, Paradox, Knightsbridge, and Florz

Whew - thanks if you made it this far.  Think I'd rather post more often but we'll see how that goes.