Diva Challenge 190, String Thing 63, Square One and Wacky Challenge...busy week!

Hi everyone - I've been doing a lot of tangling this week and have a variety of different tangles to share here.

First up is the Diva Challenge, which this week honours Laura's Grandma Ardath, who suffered from breast cancer and as October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, I can't think of any better inspiration than to honour Grandma Ardath's memory this way - and of course, promote the practice of self-examination and awareness of changes in our own breasts.

I had a mammogram a few months ago and all seemed fine - until I got a phone call asking me to go back. I was momentarily worried but in the end, I was reassured that there was no problem with me, but that the left X-ray hadn't been done as well as it could have been. The radiographer told me there and then that the new X-ray showed all was fine. Phew.

Laura said to use pink, which seems such a good idea, and here is my 'Pink for Ardath' tangle based on the pink ribbon logo, with just two tangles - Heartstrings and Crescent Moon - the background is a tangle of my own based on an optical illusion I saw - there are no curved lines in the drawing, but if you join the 'corners' of the squares and shade, then little circles 'pop' out all over! The stepouts are here and I call it 'Skwirl'

My second contribution to the challenges on the go this week is for 'A String Thing', run by Adele Bruno on 'Tickled to Tangle'. Adele gives us a string and a set of tangles - and off we all go. The results are always fantastic for their invention and diversity and I love this challenge. Especially as it included Quandry and Quib this week! What's not to like. Here is my tile. It went a bit skewiffy in the scanner but never mind. Also included are Quere and Quiltz.

Moving swiftly on, I think the Square One - Purely Zentangle group over on Facebook - has attracted dedicated Zentangle folk from all corners of the earth. This week we had the eternally inspiring and glorious Aquafleur to play with and I did enjoy it - and seeing all the wonderful contributions.

This is one of my entries, together with a modified Meer and Chillon in the background - oh, and a few beadlines. There have been some incredible variations on this lovely tangle and it's a very supportive and inspiring group.

Also on Facebook is the Wacky Zentangle Challenge, which is sort of opposite from the purist approach of Square One. This week, we were challenged to do teeny tiny tangles - as small as coins. I have here four that I did - and you'll just have to take my word that they are all the size of a 1 euro coin...which is not big! I really enjoyed them but wish I had made them into 'Inchies' with the borders around. Maybe if I have some time I will do this.

Aura-Leah and Tipple

Peanuckle with a hached background

Cyme and Fescu

Heartstrings and Florz

And that's it - if you made it this far, thank you so much for sticking with me to the end. Hope you liked what you saw. Axxx

Painting with tangles

It's my wonderful in-laws 50th Wedding Anniversary this year.

I wanted to make them a picture. My mother-in-law loves to make things and the more 'home-made' the better she likes it and I know she'd appreciate anything that I made for her. I already made a card, which I forgot to photograph, and we sent it to arrive on the day; she told me she loved it so much that it made her cry. In case you don't know, my husband is Spanish and when I first met my future mother-in-law, I couldn't speak very much Spanish at all. I credit her with teaching me most of what Spanish I now know as she never stops talking and I used to listen intently to everything she said, in the hope of understanding just a little. Now my Spanish is good enough to know that her conversation - interesting and illuminating as it is - is often just a stream of conscience and it's not necessary to pay close attention. I love her dearly.

My painting is based on one I saw just today by Michele Thomas on a Facebook group - it just blew me away and I knew it was what I wanted to do. This is her original which she has given me permission to reproduce.



And this is my coloured, simplified version, done using gouache paints on a canvas, then tangled with a Staedtler 0.1 pigment liner black pen. The photo is a bit out of focus on the right hand side for some reason - but this one didn't fit in the scanner!! It's 30cm x 30cm.

And of course, I have to do the self-criticism bit, which is that I did the foreground first, which was silly because I wanted my trees to be growing out of the ground, not perched on top of it...but I am not an artist and I have to learn these things the hard way....next time, I will know. It was such fun to do and I'm going to have it framed for my in-laws. And I wish them a very Happy Golden Wedding Anniversary!

Diva Challenge 164. Earth Day

Tuesday is Earth Day, or as Laura´s son, Chewie, has renamed it, Amanda Day! How lovely. Our challenge this week was to do something appropriate to mark this day.

Living in the country, as we do, I feel much closer to the Earth now than I have at other times of my life. We are busy planting trees and tending our bit of land. We're not quite as green as we might one day be, but we are striving to do our bit and to be as planet conscious as possible. For more information, visit the Earth Day website and see what you could do to make a difference.

I decided to be brave and embrace colour this week. I haven´t coloured my tangles but I did use a page that I prepared with colour, using my daughter´s gouache colours from Djeco. They´re gorgeous colours and I chose ones that resonated with the earth and the sea.

I loved doing this one so much and although drawing on the paint was a challenge at times, I´m pleased with the result of using colour in this new way for me. There´s no hidden significance to the tangles I chose. I just wanted to celebrate the day with something a little different for me. Let me know what you think, won´t you?

Thanks Laura aka I am the Diva (and Chewie) for such a great challenge. Make sure you check out all the entries as there are sure to be some fantastic ones this week.

And let´s all think seriously about our beautiful planet, not just tomorrow, but always.

Tangles for Christmas

Hot on the heels of making cards came the idea of making tangles into Christmas cards! My take isn't very original but my first attempt was a couple of cute trees with some little tangles inside them - very simple.

I was pleased with the effect of the watercolour crayons.

After that, I was sketching some 'cruffles' - another tangle that I really like doing and which seemed to lend itself to Christmas decorations. This was only ever intended as a sketch but my mum liked it so much she asked for some cards to be made from it. I saw some similar lettering on Pinterest and copied it. I keep using this style now as it's simple and effective. That lovely red paper I had was coming into its own too!

Then I saw a very complex poinsettia design somewhere - possibly on Etsy - and took the idea and simplified it and then painted it in watercolour crayon.

The really cool bit was running it through BeFunky's website to ring some changes - especially as Mum wanted lots of cards!

Firstly, I brightened up the original....














Then I toned it down to neutral colours - I went on to add gold and silver accents to this and loved the final effect

This one looks all blurry but is meant to...it's also in some great autumnal colours.





And this one adds some blue/green effects and makes the leaves really stand out.







I then decided on a couple more designs based on trees.




This one is as simple a tree as can be...in a red pot with a gold star.


And my final design so far this year is again inspired by one I saw on Pinterest, but amended to my own level of skill (!)...that is, very simple indeed, but rather sweet.











As I said, my mum was happy to take all that I'd made when she went back to England but I have done some good quality photocopies and have made a few more to add to the card collection....

September tangles

I didn't do my first tangle until the beginning of September 2013 but once I started, I couldn't stop!

I  was still in 'card' mode at this time, so made tangles that I could turn into a greetings card. Colour was important for this purpose and I began experimenting for the first time in my life with crayons, watercolours, ...paintbrushes even! And was loving it!

This one I called 'Earthpearl' - partly because I thought the four 'Betweed' shapes looked rather like bandaged earthworms burrowing in or out of a tub of pearl shapes...nothing elegant or glamorous about it!

This one was - and possibly still is - one of my favourites EVER. I called it 'Stard' because of the star shape and there's nothing I don't like about it. It makes me feel like an artist when I look at it. It doesn't get any better than that...it really doesn't.

Continuing on the card theme, I did three more coloured tangles that are quite tiny and sweet. Unfortunately, they are both badly photographed and dreadfully mounted! There are still such a lot of things to learn.

As I was doing the first one, it felt as though I was being inspired by a friend of mine. This one was definitely for her.

And it's called 'Sammee'

In this one, I was practising the tangle that has ended up along the bottom edge and the lacy garter pattern along the top. You can probably see which are some of my favourite shapes now. I'm particularly fond of the one I call 'Moomin' - balloony, leafy shapes with little curls around the edges. They crop up everywhere.. 

This is a less elegant combination, I feel. I call it 'Tiger Horns' for fairly obvious reasons but I don't like the colouring and the clashing of orange and blue, but it was another good one to practice new tangles and I spent more time on the colouring on the horn pattern to get better depth.
Awful positioning on the backing card...

And all this time, I had a growing collection of sketches in my notepad...

I was hooked!